Girl, 8, Wins Record Award, $19 Million, in Car-Door Injury

In what is thought to be the largest jury award of its kind in the state, a Missouri company that manufactured so-called “suicide doors” for Jeeps was ordered Wednesday to pay $19.2 million in damages to an 8-year-old Canyon Country girl who fell out one of the doors and was run over by another car.

The doors, which have not been used on American cars for more than a decade because of safety concerns, open from the front of the vehicle toward the rear.

Nichole Fortman, who was 3 at the time of the accident, is permanently paralyzed below the waist and will never reach a mental level above that of a 5-year-old, according to testimony during the three-week trial in Van Nuys Superior Court.

She was injured in November, 1981, after she leaned against the passenger door handle of a Jeep driven by her mother, witnesses testified. The door opened and Nichole fell out of the vehicle while it was traveling about 30 m.p.h. on Roscoe Boulevard in Northridge, according to testimony.

A car behind the Fortman vehicle ran over the girl.

After 4 1/2 days of deliberations in the product liability case, the jury concluded that the door design was defective and ordered Hemco Inc. of Independence, Mo., to pay Nichole $23.7 million--$17.7 for medical expenses and future lost wages, and $6 million for pain and suffering.

Lesser Sum Reduced

The $6 million for pain and suffering was reduced to $1.5 million, however, after Judge G. Keith Wisot ruled that Proposition 51, the “deep pockets” initiative approved by voters in June, applied retroactively in the case. The sum was reduced based on the jury’s determination that the girl’s mother was 75% responsible for her injuries for failing to lock the door and restrain the child with a seat belt.

Proposition 51 limits each defendant’s share of non-economic damages, such as those for pain and suffering, to the percentage of its share of fault. Hemco remains responsible for the full amount of economic damages, unless the verdict is overturned on appeal, but has the right to sue Nichole’s mother, Debra Lynn Fortman, to recover 75% of the award.

But the Fortman family’s attorney, Lawrence P. Grassini, said the mother is unemployed and has no significant assets, making a cross-complaint futile.

“This was a woman who routinely buckled her child and who, on this one day, forgot,” Grassini said. “It’s a parent’s worst nightmare, and she has to live with that every day, looking at her child in a wheelchair.”

The attorney for Hemco said the company will appeal the judgment.

Says Award Is Largest

According to officials at Verdictum Juris, a Claremont firm that tracks jury verdicts in civil cases for attorneys, insurance companies and other subscribers, the award is the largest in the state in a personal injury case where punitive damages were not considered.

The next closest was a $14.7-million award in 1985 by a Los Angeles Superior Court jury to a young gymnast who was injured on a defective trampoline, a spokesman for the firm said.

Although Hemco remained the only defendant when the case finally went to trial, other defendants, including the vehicle’s manufacturer and the hardware firm that distributed the door handle, settled out of court for a total of $3.9 million, Grassini said. To date, Nichole has actually received $1.9 million, he said.

Grassini argued to the jury that the door of the Fortmans’ 1969 AMC CJ-5 Jeep was inherently unsafe because it did not contain an armrest, the handle was not recessed into a well and the door opened from front to rear.

When the vehicle was traveling at 30 m.p.h. and the door became slightly ajar, the wind whipped it open in less than one second, carrying the child, who was still clinging to the handle, outside the vehicle, Grassini said.

In a car with doors that hinge in front and open from the rear, wind pressure would have forced the door closed, he argued.

The doors are sometimes called “suicide doors” in the auto industry, but, at the request of defense attorney James L. Moser, the judge instructed witnesses and attorneys in the case not to use the term.

Moser asserted that the door is safe when its double-locking device is used and seat belts are employed.

He also argued that Hemco did not design the door, but merely manufactured the fiberglass mold at the request of another company, which had conducted safety tests.

Moser alleged that the mother was the one at fault in the accident.

In defense of her, Grassini, the family’s attorney, introduced as evidence in the trial a 1983 study by the National Transportation Safety Board, which concluded that only 8.9% of motorists in Los Angeles County used seat belts on toddlers that year. It has since become a misdemeanor to fail to use seat belts or child safety seats.

Roland Wrinkle, another attorney for the family, said it has not been determined how the award will be paid. The form of payment likely will not be worked out until after the appeal, he said.

Any money eventually collected by Nichole will be held in a trust account for the girl’s personal use, Grassini said. The money could not be used to pay any judgment against the mother if the company sues her, he said.

The jury was asked to consider eight questions in reaching its verdict, including whether the door had a defective design and whether the mother was negligent. The verdicts ranged from 9 to 3 to unanimous on the eight questions.