Jury Rules Against Firemen Hurt in Blast : Barbecue Grill Explosion Ended Careers of 2 Garden Grove Veterans

A jury voted Friday to exonerate a Los Angeles firm that built a cylinder for a propane barbecue grill that exploded in 1980, ending the careers of two veteran Garden Grove firefighters.

Jurors decided that Capt. Richard Salazar, 59, and Roy Chastain, 50, should recover no damages because the tank assembly was safely designed by Manchester Tank & Equipment Co. of Lynwood.

But the two firefighters, plus a third who was slightly injured in the Nov. 29, 1980, explosion, will receive $350,000 from the builder of a valve and the firm that assembled and sold the backyard grill.

Those companies settled with Chastain and Salazar before the jury began deliberations in the case, said their attorney, Mark P. Robinson Sr.

The firefighters were responding to a routine call for help from a homeowner who could not extinguish a flame near the valve on a five-gallon propane tank attached to his backyard barbecue pit. A plastic component of the valve had been damaged by the flame, allowing propane gas to escape into an enclosed patio.

When the cloud came in contact with a pilot light on a nearby water heater, an explosion and fireball severely burned the firefighters.

Robinson claimed the valve on the tank assembly, one of an estimated 1 million that Manchester builds each year, was defective because the plastic part could melt.

“I think what we were able to do was to show them that the design was the safest design available with current technology,” said Manchester’s lawyer, Patrick C. Quinlivan.

“The significance of the jury verdict is that they had the opportunity to evaluate the design of a consumer product that’s been on the market for many years, and they vindicated the design,” Quinlivan said.

Robinson had asked jurors for just over $1 million in damages to compensate Chastain, the more seriously injured, for his lost career, injuries and pain and suffering.

Jurors in the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Richard W. Luesebrink said they had a tough time deciding the case. When deliberations recessed Thursday evening, eight jurors believed that the valve was defective. But by mid-morning Friday, nine jurors agreed that the grill was safely built and returned a verdict against the firefighters.

“They just couldn’t prove to us that there was anything better,” said juror Barbara Michel of La Mirada.

“They couldn’t prove that anybody who built barbecue grills used a different valve,” said juror Regina Owen of Anaheim.

“We felt bad for the firemen,” said Judy Dunn of Fullerton, a juror. “It was hard not to let our sympathy for them get in the way.”

Because they found the grill to be safe, jurors never decided the question of whether Chastain, Salazar and Richard Casavant, the third firefighter, could collect damages for line-of-duty injuries.

The so-called “firemen’s rule” has traditionally blocked any recovery by public safety officials for injuries they receive in the line of duty.

The lawsuit alleged that the defective valve was a hidden danger, and therefore their case was an exception to the traditional rule.

The three firefighters all retired on disability pensions. Their former employer, the City of Garden Grove, was also involved in the litigation in an attempt to collect the $150,000 in benefits it paid out to them.