The surviving two relatives of a man killed in the Pico-Robertson district after all three were struck as pedestrians by a DoorDash employee want to expand their lawsuit against the company, contending that the food delivery service driver was “plainly unfit” and should never have been hired.
The Los Angeles Superior Court complaint was filed on behalf of the wife and son of Bing Wang, a 51-year-old Chinese national who was fatally hit while the family was walking past a Chase bank at Pico and La Cienega boulevards last June 7. The car continued on and crashed into a wall of the bank.
On Friday, attorneys for the plaintiffs filed court papers with Judge Steven A. Ellis asking that he allow them to add a new claim alleging negligent hiring, retention and supervision. They say DoorDash driver Vladimir Tishchenko had obtained his driver’s license 1 1/2 months before he was hired, that he was on the job for only a month before the accident and that he was “a complete novice to California roads” and “plainly unfit” for employment.
“DoorDash’s hiring process is more so a sequence of threadbare formalities than a candidate evaluation process,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers contend in their pleadings. ” As a result, DoorDash hired a man who was undeniably unfit for the job and the Wang family had to pay the price.”
Tishchenko also lacked the necessary morals to perform his job safely and morally, the plaintiffs’ lawyers further maintain in their court papers.
“Simply put, any reasonable employer would have known that hiring Tishchenko spelled danger,” according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ court papers, which further state that Tishchenko was in a hurry to get to a restaurant to pick up food, and that he was distracted by looking at the DoorDash navigation on his phone.
Tishchenko, 36 at the time, admitted that if he was not a DoorDash driver the accident would not have happened, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ court papers.
In addition to Wang’s death, his wife, Xiaomei, then 48, suffered major injuries and had her left leg amputated. Their son, Wenxuan, then 19, suffered moderate injuries.
A hearing on the motion to expand the complaint and add the new cause of action is scheduled May 29. The judge on March 8 allowed the plaintiffs another amendment enabling them to seek punitive damages against DoorDash and Tishchenko.
In previous court papers, DoorDash attorneys cite multiple defenses, including that the plaintiffs engaged in “misrepresentation and concealment” and “wrongful or negligent conduct” and that DoorDash acted in good faith.
The Wang family members should “take nothing by way of their complaint,” which was filed last Aug. 10, and the court should “enter judgment in DoorDash’s favor,” according to the company’s attorneys’ court papers.
Tishchenko was charged Jan. 29 with one count of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and two counts of reckless driving with injuries, but he left for Russia after the accident and has not returned, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ court papers.