County to Pay $2.5-Million in Kanan Road Crash

Citing the “dangerous condition” of Agoura’s Kanan Road, a judge Friday ordered Los Angeles County to pay almost $2.5 million to victims of a 1979 crash on the twisting mountain road.

Ann Andres Dixon and her daughter, Darian Dixon, were maimed in the collision, which occurred when an oncoming car drifted onto the dirt shoulder of the two-lane road, then hurtled into their van.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge G. Keith Wisot ruled that the county failed to properly maintain Kanan Road, which it classifies as a “major highway.” His verdict in the suit was reached after a five-week non-jury trial.

Gerald F. Crump, chief of the county counsel’s public works division, said Friday that the judgment likely will be appealed.

“That accident was not the result of deficiencies of the road,” said Thomas A. Tidemanson, county road commissioner. “This just means we’re going to have $2.5 million less to upgrade and improve other roads.”

Reputation for Suits

The judgment is certain to further the 11-mile road’s reputation among lawyers as the one that draws more lawsuits than any other in Los Angeles County.

Kanan Road frequently has been criticized by motorists, who alternately encounter breathtaking ocean vistas and heart-stopping hairpin curves. The road took 16 years to build, with most work done by County Jail prisoners, and opened in 1974.

“Maybe this will make the county do something,” said Ann Dixon, 57. “I’ll never go on that road again. Too many people have been hurt.”

County road officials say their accident records for Kanan Road are incomplete. But a pair of crashes that killed five people this summer prompted a crackdown on speeders, a “headlights on” safety campaign and a one-year Highway Patrol experiment using radar to enforce a 50-m.p.h. speed limit.

Dirt Shoulder

According to testimony, the Dixon crash occurred when a car being driven about 43 m.p.h. by 25-year-old Philip Jones drifted off the pavement near Troutdale Drive. Jones purportedly lost control when he hit the loose dirt of the shoulder, which trial testimony said was 4 1/2 inches lower than the pavement.

“I rounded a small bend and saw a puff of dust, and suddenly he was right on top of me,” Ann Dixon recalled Friday.

A one-time competitive skier and model, she lost her right leg in the crash and is confined to a wheelchair. Her 25-year-old daughter suffered permanent brain damage.

Wisot’s ruling, which will become final in 10 days, awards $1.25 million to Ann Dixon, $750,000 to Darian Dixon and $485,786 to Ann Dixon’s husband, Craig, a hurdler who won a bronze medal in the 1948 Olympics. He borrowed money from the publishing company he works for to pay medical expenses.

Other Settlements

The Dixons previously received $50,000 from Jones’ insurance and a $700,000 settlement from the manufacturer of their van.

Wisot said he calculated Friday’s judgment based on “what was necessary for the health” of the two women.

County officials have repeatedly defended the design and construction of Kanan Road.

Earlier this year, Road Department administrators asserted that Kanan Road has become the county’s best-maintained roadway and blamed accidents there on speeding and careless driving. Deputy County Counsel Charles Tackett argued during the Dixon trial that the stretch near Troutdale Drive was properly maintained at the time of the accident.

Officials have conceded, however, that the mostly two-lane roadway, called Kanan Dume Road at its southern end, has been the frequent target of lawsuits by crash victims.

‘Paying Out Ever Since’

“Kanan Dume was opened to traffic about June, 1974, and we’ve been paying out ever since,” Wynn Smith, chief deputy county road commissioner, said shortly before the roadway’s 10th anniversary last year.

Gary Voltz, a Los Angeles City Fire Department ambulance attendant, received a $675,000 payment from the county in 1983 because of brain damage he suffered when his motorcycle struck a section of depressed pavement on Kanan Road.

In 1984, the widow of a truck driver killed in the fiery 1981 crash of his runaway rig at Kanan’s intersection with Pacific Coast Highway received a $350,000 county settlement.

The death of trucker John W. Windley Jr. prompted county supervisors to ban trucks weighing more than 14,000 pounds from Kanan Road, which has hills with an 8% grade.

The driver of a car struck by Windley’s truck received $17,500 from the county.

Case Involving Markings

A 1981 crash resulted in a $75,000 out-of-court county settlement last year for Simi Valley bank clerk John Harasta, who was injured when partly faded lane markings on Kanan Road allegedly guided an oncoming car into his path.

No settlement was offered in the Dixon case, said Toxey Hall Smith, the family’s lawyer.

“On a heavily traveled road like that, you have to keep your eyes open for traffic,” said the lawyer, who worked on the case with associate Stan Y. Lew. “You can easily drift a few inches. This road is a major highway. It should be widened. The county tries to blame accidents on kids going to the beach and drinking beer, but that doesn’t hold water. The road doesn’t know who’s using it.”

Although Kanan Road was first designated as a cross-mountain route on a 1940 county highway master plan, the $8.5-million roadway was not completed until 34 years later. It was built in bits and pieces, starting in 1958, by inmates from County Jail detention camps, but its final one-mile stretch in Malibu was handled by professional road builders because officials did not want prisoners near the Point Dume residential area.

Toll Mounts

Lawyers who have researched Kanan Road’s accident history said the road’s first crash apparently happened on May 2, 1974. After that, the toll mounted quickly.

By the time of Windley’s accident in 1981, Kanan Road had claimed 21 lives and left 352 motorists injured.

The county stepped up maintenance and safety improvements after that accident, but the improvements came too late to ward off many lawsuits. County officials said some suits are pending but did not know how many.

“We’re doing things that make it safer, but it’s so notorious I don’t know if there’s anything we can do to reduce our exposure to lawsuits,” Smith, the deputy road commissioner, said last year.

Tidemanson said Friday that $3.5 million was spent in the last five years on such improvements as shoulder widening, restriping, new signs, tunnel-lane separation and new lights for the tunnels.

“Kanan is the highest-maintained road in the county because of the potential for lawsuits,” he said. “We’re always looking for ways to improve Kanan.”