L.A. Found Liable : Car Crash Award Is $2.16 Million

A San Fernando Superior Court jury decided Thursday that the City of Los Angeles must pay $2.16 million in damages to a 21-year-old Woodland Hills woman who was crippled for life after the car in which she rode ran a stop sign and was broadsided.

In its decision, the jury found that the intersection of Devonshire Street and Tunney Avenue in Granada Hills was not properly marked and in dangerous condition, contributing to the October, 1979, accident that left Kathy Sills, who was then 16, in a coma for one month and brain-damaged.

The damages award is one of the largest ever against the city, according to a spokesman for the city attorney’s office. It came after a five-week trial and four days of jury deliberation.

Sills smiled widely outside the courtroom after the verdict was read. She walked and spoke slowly and was shaking badly. She recalled it took her two years to relearn how to talk after the accident.

“If I didn’t have to suffer, if I could be just like I was before, I wouldn’t even want the money,” she said.

The attorney defending the city expressed surprise and anger at the jury’s finding.

“I think it’s wrong. I don’t think there is anything unsafe about that intersection,” said Assistant City Atty. Philip Shiner.

Shiner said no other major accidents had been blamed on conditions at the intersection and that the city has not, nor does it plan to, make any changes there. Shiner said the city would consider a number of remedies to the judgment, including appeal and a request to reduce the award.

Sills’ accident occurred when she and three high school friends were returning home in the rain at about 3 a.m. Sills was in the back seat as the car traveled south on Tunney toward Devonshire.

The driver of the car ran the stop sign and was struck by a half-ton pickup truck driving west on Devonshire. One passenger in the car was killed.

Sills was hospitalized for five months. She suffers cerebral palsy and memory lapses as a result of her injuries, said her attorney, Arthur Rutledge.

Jurors said they felt the intersection was unsafe because there were no signs along Tunney warning of an upcoming stop and because bushes growing on one corner, land that is city-owned, blocked the view between the vehicles.

Testimony during the trial revealed that the driver of the car in which Sills rode was under the influence of drugs and may never have braked. But jurors, talking after they were dismissed, said they believed that, if he and the other driver could have seen each other coming, they could have swerved and lessened the impact of the collision.

“That intersection is still dangerous--I wish the city would go out and fix it,” said juror Francis Walendziewicz.

Although the jury found that the city was only 22% liable, it is the only defendant with the resources to pay the judgment. So, under liability laws, it will be required to pay the entire amount to Sills. The jury found unnamed others 78% responsible for the accident. Several jurors said that “others” included the driver of the car.