TRABUCO CANYON : Developer Liable for Girl’s Injury

A Superior Court jury Thursday found the William Lyon Co. liable for a 1988 accident that left a 10-year-old girl brain-damaged.

The jury also ruled that the development company had defrauded her parents, John and Patti Bretza, by intentionally overstating the size of their new Trabuco Canyon property, where the accident occurred.

After four days of deliberation in Westminster, the jury found that the company should pay the family $55,000 for breaching the home’s implied warranty and misleading the Bretzas about the property’s boundary. The company told the family that their property extended to a temporary chain link fence. But when a permanent fence was erected on the true property line, it was closer to the house.

The jury also held the William Lyon Co. solely responsible for their daughter’s accident. Irvine-based Leaverton Brothers Inc., which installed the plumbing in the home and also was named in the suit, was found blameless.

The Bretzas alleged that leaky plumbing in an upstairs bathroom caused a chunk of ceiling to fall on their daughter, Kristy, now 13. The Bretzas allege that Kristy has suffered seizures, headaches, nightmares and visual and intellectual impairment since the accident. On Aug. 20, the next phase of the trial will begin. The jury must then determine damages. The family in this phase is seeking to recover $600,000 spent on medical help since the accident plus future medical costs and the earnings she would have made had she not been injured, court documents said.

Attorneys for both the Bretzas and William Lyon Co. declined comment Thursday because the damages phase is pending.

However, Patti Bretza hailed the jury’s decision, saying that “the good guys won.”

“The fraud verdict was the best. They’re so big and they think that if they hurt the little people, they won’t fight back,” Patti Bretza said.