A California family is suing Amazon after a delivery driver hit and killed their 2-year-old daughter

A California family is suing Amazon after their two-year-old daughter was hit and killed by an Amazon delivery ban.

• A California family is suing Amazon for the death of their two-year-old.
• An Amazon delivery van struck and killed Jaihan Wu, 2, in August 2022.
• Amazon says its not liable because the driver worked for a third party, the family's attorney says.

A California family is suing Amazon for wrongful death after one of the company's delivery drivers hit and killed their two-year-old daughter last year.

The family of Jiahan Wu is filing the lawsuit after an Amazon delivery van struck and killed her in the parking lot of the family's apartment complex in Irvine, California, according to KTLA.

The family's attorney, Michael Adler, told the outlet that Amazon has denied any responsibility. Alder did not immediately return Insider's request for comment on Saturday.

Alder told KTLA that Amazon says it is not liable because the driver of the delivery van was contracted through a third party. The e-commerce giant is also refusing to turn over dashcam video of the incident without a confidentiality agreement, he told KTLA.

The response is a tactic commonly used by Amazon to avoid lawsuits related to drivers delivering its packages.

In a 2019 investigation by ProPublica, reporters found that between 2015 and 2019, drivers delivering packages for Amazon had been involved in at least 60 car crashes that caused serious injury. In every case brought to court, Amazon denied responsibility for the actions of its delivery contractors, citing agreements those third parties signed that require them to "defend, indemnify and hold harmless Amazon."

While the driver's are paid by, and technically work for, those third parties, they use Amazon apps to track packages and chart their delivery times and progress, according to the ProPublica investigation. Amazon also requires driver's to meet strict delivery deadlines. 

Alder said the Wu family is hoping that their wrongful death lawsuit will hold Amazon accountable for the delivery driver's actions and prevent other families from going through similar circumstances.

"We have the resources. We have the ability to fight them — but what happens to the next and the next and the next?" Alder asked, according to KTLA. "We don't want that to happen to our client in this case, but we don't want it to happen to anyone in the future."

Amazon did not immediately return Insider's request for comment on Saturday.