Lawsuit Over Death Pinpoints Confusion on Prop. 51 Timing

Orange County jurors began deliberating a verdict in a wrongful death case Thursday, but any damages they may assess could depend on the effective date of Proposition 51, the so-called “deep pockets” initiative passed overwhelmingly by California voters this week.

Peter M. Callahan, the lawyer for the wealthiest of two defendants in the case, said if the verdict exposes his client to damages beyond his actual fault, he will contend that the ballot measure was effective immediately on passage and bars such a result.

“I’ll argue that joint and several liability is no longer the law in California,” Callahan said.

The argument underscores a growing confusion over when Proposition 51 will actually take effect. In a nutshell, the measure changed state law to limit the damages that losing defendants have to pay in many civil cases to the actual amount of their fault, as fixed by a jury. Previously, individual co-defendants could be forced to pay the total damages awarded, regardless of how the jury allocated responsibility between them.

Both sides raised more than $10 million in the ballot fight. About 4,543,000 votes were cast on the initiative, 400,000 more than were cast in the gubernatorial or U.S. Senate races.

On Thursday, some legal experts suggested that the initiative will apply to any incidents occurring after the vote. Others suggested that only lawsuits filed after the vote will be affected. Still others, like Callahan, said the measure would affect decisions in trials already under way. Virtually all observers said a final answer must come from the state Supreme Court.

In the Orange County case, the mother of a young man who died when the car in which he was riding crashed at a construction site sued both the driver and the developer, claiming both were negligent and caused her son’s death.

Lawyers for the two defendants in the three-week-long Superior Court trial pointed to each other’s clients as the responsible parties.

Larry Feldman, lawyer for the mother, Lois Wineinger of Dana Point, asked potential jurors at the start of the trial if they objected to returning a verdict as high as $1 million.

The driver, Eric Goodman, who was 17 at the time of the accident, has limited insurance coverage. The builder, O. Hill Co. of Newport Beach, and the paving contractor on the development, Parrott & Wright Co., are considered to be the wealthy defendants--the ones with “deep pockets.”

Feldman’s argument to the jury Thursday included a bare mention of Goodman and focused on the alleged negligence of the builders in failing to warn the public about the dangerous condition of the construction work in progress.

However, Callahan presented evidence that the Bear Brand Ranch development site in south Orange County was well-marked with “no trespassing” signs and that access roads were barricaded with sawhorses to keep the public out.

He argued that Goodman, along with Kenneth Wineinger, the passenger who died when their off-road vehicle ran off the end of a partially paved road into a ravine, were trespassers.

Goodman Testimony

Goodman, who testified that he had grown up in the neighborhood and knew the area “like the back of my hand,” said he didn’t realize that he had driven onto the construction site because he saw no warning signs.

“Kenneth was an innocent young man,” Feldman told jurors, adding: “Somebody has to be at fault.”

Goodman’s attorney, David Fisher, told jurors that regardless of any negligence of his client, “90% of the evidence” dealt with the alleged carelessness of the developers. “You may conclude that any one of us may have done the same thing without a warning that the road ended in a cliff.”

The death was caused by three teen-agers on a joy ride, said Callahan. adding that “if these three young men had not been trespassing in a place they didn’t belong, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Jurors are scheduled to continue deliberations today in the court of Orange County Superior Court Judge Jerrold S. Oliver.