Woman loses arm in drunk driving accident, wins $2 million judgement

November 8, 2025

By KAREN VELIE

A Central Coast Woman was awarded $2 million after she lost her arm in a crash with a drunk driver.

On the evening of July 2, 2022, a boyfriend was driving with his girlfriend, both 75 years old, on Highway 135 near the intersection of Union Valley Parkway in Santa Maria when a drunk driver with two previous DUIs crashed into the back of his Nissan Pathfinder. The crash left Jose Pacheco suffering cuts on his hands and facial and neck fractures.

Pacheco’s girlfriend Elodia Chaves lost her left arm in the crash.

George Burns, the drunk driver who rear ended the couple, was driving erratically and speeding at the time of the crash, according to the police report.

San Luis Obispo based attorney James McKiernan sued Burn’s insurance company on behalf of Chaves. The defendant’s attorney argued Pacheco was partially responsible because he was driving under the speed limit while McKiernan argued that Burns knowingly drank alcohol until he suffered from diminished capacity, and then chose to drive.

On Nov. 3, the jury awarded Chaves $2,080,291 in phase one of the trial.

The court found that Burns was driving under the influence and caused catastrophic harm, which meets the legal threshold for malice under California law. This allows McKiernan to also seek punitive damages against Burns personally.

“Now, we move to the phase intended solely to punish and deter the drunk driver from similar future conduct and to serve as  a warning do drivers who choose to drive while intoxicated,” McKiernan said. “As the California Supreme Court stated in the landmark case of Taylor v. Superior Court, ‘One who voluntarily commences, and thereafter continues, to consume alcoholic beverages to the point of intoxication, knowing from the outset that he must thereafter operate a motor vehicle, demonstrates… such a conscious and deliberate disregard of the interests of others that his conduct may be called willful or wanton.’ That is precisely the despicable conduct the law intends to punish.”