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Background: Authorities investigate after a vehicle crashed into 4-year-old Ayden Fang and a poke bar restaurant in Burlingame, California (Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy Complaint). Inset: Ayden Fang (Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy Complaint).
Following the tragic loss of their 4-year-old son in a multi-vehicle accident near a California eatery, a family has filed a lawsuit against several parties and the city where the incident occurred. They argue that the death of their child was completely “preventable.”
“We hope that by pursuing this legal action, we will contribute to making our community safer for other families,” stated Ayden Fang’s father in a press release that accompanied the 25-page legal complaint. The family is suing the city of Burlingame, the driver involved, her parents, and the parents of an 11-year-old boy who allegedly collided with the SUV’s driver while on an e-bike.
The lawsuit highlights that on August 8, 2025, a “series of avoidable events” unfolded. Ayden’s family was visiting Truffle Poke restaurant in Burlingame, California, where Ayden played outside with a friend and the friend’s father.
Simultaneously, a 19-year-old woman was exiting a parking lot onto Donnelly Avenue, the street where the restaurant is situated. The lawsuit claims her view of the approaching traffic was “obstructed” by a legally parked vehicle, in accordance with city regulations.
As she maneuvered her 2018 Mazda SUV out of the lot, the rear driver’s side door was struck by an 11-year-old boy riding an e-bike with his 10-year-old sister as a passenger. According to the lawsuit, the e-bike’s owner’s manual indicated that the boy was too young to operate the motorized bicycle safely, and carrying passengers posed a safety risk.
Upon the e-bike’s impact, the Mazda motorist — a “new driver” as the lawsuit puts it — “hit the gas pedal instead of the brake.” The SUV accelerated onto the sidewalk, hit Ayden, “and barreled through the storefront of the restaurant, coming to rest [] mere feet” from Ayden’s parents.
“Ayden’s parents experienced this vehicle crashing into the restaurant and almost hitting them,” the complaint reads. “They rushed to Ayden’s aid. They found him underneath the vehicle, motionless, with fractured skull and spilled brain matter. That horrific memory is permanent.”
“Ayden’s death was preventable,” it goes on, alleging that each of the defendants “had a role in causing this life-ending event.”
First, the city of Burlingame bears responsibility, the parents say, as it “has a record of ignoring and de-prioritizing pedestrian safety.” Beginning one year before the crash, “Burlingame had three-four times the pedestrian fatalities as the national average.”
In this case, the city “was on notice” that the driveway from where the teen was turning “was the source of multiple near-misses and posed a threat to drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians,” especially because vehicles could park “right up to the edge” of it, making it “difficult or impossible” for vehicles pulling out to see.
The parents cite the teen driver’s alleged comments to first responders about her vision being obstructed, as well as photos, to back up their account. They also state that the city had “received nearly a dozen calls” about issues with “this exact driveway location in the years leading up to the crash.”
The parking space that reportedly blocked the teen’s sightline was removed soon after.
The Mazda driver and her parents are also partly to blame, the lawsuit claims. Her actions — including accelerating up to 27 mph after the e-bike hit her vehicle — were “clearly negligent” and her parents “knew or should have known” that she was “incompetent and unfit to operate that motor vehicle.”
Finally, the parents of the 11-year-old on the e-bike “failed to supervise their minor son and entrusted him to operate a motorized e-bike capable of going up to 20 miles per hour on city streets,” the lawsuit adds. “No reasonable parents would have permitted an 11-year-old to use this motorized vehicle on crowded city streets with another minor sibling on the back of the bike.”
The parents are demanding a jury trial and “compensatory and general damages.”
Ayden is remembered at the beginning of the lawsuit as having been “a bright, inquisitive, and energetic boy who was kind to others, loved to read, and loved spending time with his toddler brother and parents.” He also “carried an infectious smile, walked around singing, and made sentences into songs.”