Claremont : City Wins Negligence Suit

A Pomona Superior Court jury has ruled that the city was not negligent in a 1982 traffic accident that seriously injured 24-year-old John Kevin Bonilla and killed two other people.

The $17-million civil suit, filed by Bonilla’s attorneys more than three years ago, charged that the city had improperly marked and maintained a curve on Indian Hill Boulevard where a large planter divides the street from a side access road running north to Harrison Avenue.

Bonilla, who along with the car’s three other occupants allegedly had been drinking in celebration of his 21st birthday, claimed that he was was injured when the car he was riding in failed to negotiate the curve and struck a tree.

The suit charged that the accident, which left Bonilla a quadriplegic, was caused by the city’s failure to adequately mark the road or install proper warning lights.

Defense attorneys, however, maintained that alcohol and an alleged race between the vehicle Bonilla was in and another car were the causes of the accident.