Teacher Gets $5 Million in Crash, Wants Trucks Recalled : Suits: An attorney says GM pickups built between 1968 and 1983 with single hydraulic brake systems are time bombs.

A jury has awarded $5.3 million to an Encino teacher who was severely injured in a traffic accident caused when a pickup truck’s brakes failed, and the teacher’s attorney contends that thousands of the 1977 General Motors trucks still on the road have a dangerous design flaw.

Beverly Hills personal injury attorney A. Todd Hindin called for a recall of the estimated 200,000 GM heavy- and medium-duty trucks still in use that have single hydraulic brake systems, calling them “time bombs waiting to go off.”

GM officials said they have no intention of recalling the trucks, which they contend are safe.

Hindin’s client, Lois Gass, suffered a broken neck, a ruptured disc and an eye injury when the car in which she was riding was rear-ended by a 1977 Chevrolet C-65 truck July 31, 1984.

The driver of the truck, Ron Wood, an employee of Clothes for Heroes, a Chatsworth T-shirt distributor, testified during the trial that he was traveling about 55 m.p.h. when the brakes on the 12,000-pound truck suddenly failed at the top of the Sepulveda Pass on the northbound San Diego Freeway.

As Wood pumped the brakes and furiously honked the horn, the truck, going about 70 m.p.h., slammed into a Honda Prelude carrying Gass and two other teachers, then smashed into another car and a pickup truck before coming to rest on the center divider.

Wood was not hurt, but Gass and five other people suffered injuries ranging from serious to minor.

An investigation by the California Highway Patrol showed that a hole developed in the truck’s brake line, allowing brake fluid to escape. This left the truck without brakes, court documents show.

Gass, 46, and her husband, Mervyn, filed a product liability lawsuit in Van Nuys Superior Court contending that the GM truck was defectively designed because it contained a single, rather than a dual, hydraulic brake system and that the brake line burst because it was too close to an exhaust manifold.

Also named as defendants were the T-shirt company, which allegedly failed to properly maintain the truck; Gene Berg GMC of Van Nuys, which sold the truck; and Murray’s Truck Service of Chatsworth, which the Gasses contended negligently failed to inspect the brake lines while servicing the truck 45 days before the collision.

GM’s attorney, Eugene R. Grace, argued that the single-brake system is safe, and that a dual-brake system was not required by federal law until six years after the manufacture of the truck involved in the accident.

GM blamed the accident on Wood’s driving and poor maintenance of the truck--which had formerly been owned by a truck rental outlet. The auto maker also contended that Gass is not disabled and could return to work.

After a six-week trial before Judge Thomas Schneider, the jury absolved Gene Berg GMC of any blame but ordered GM and Murray’s Truck Service to pay $5.3 million to Lois Gass and $350,000 to her husband for the loss of his wife’s services and companionship. The jury said GM should pay 85% of the judgment, with the truck service paying the remainder.

The insurance company for the T-shirt manufacturer had earlier paid the Gasses $750,000 in an out-of-court settlement, but since the jury did not find the T-shirt company at fault, GM and Murray’s Truck Service will be required to reimburse the money, Hindin said.

The jury did not award the Gasses punitive damages.

Four of the other five people injured in the accident also filed suits but settled out of court for about $600,000 from GM, the truck company and the T-shirt manufacturer, Hindin said.

GM spokeswoman Sharon Hines said the company may appeal the verdict, which she said is “wrong. We believe the truck was properly designed and we have no intention of recalling trucks similar to the one involved in this case.”

But Hindin said the verdict establishes that GM trucks with single-brake systems are defective.

Dual hydraulic brake systems--which provide a backup brake system in case the primary brakes fail--have been required by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on passenger cars since the 1967 model year but were not required on medium- and heavy-duty trucks until the 1983 model year, said Tim Hurd, NHTSA’s chief of public affairs.

The government estimated that it would cost about $54 more per truck to use the dual-brake system, Hindin said.

“It’s our position they should recall all the trucks they’ve built since 1968 and retrofit them with dual-brake systems,” the attorney said. “These trucks are big, they’re used often and as they get older, they are ever more likely to suffer a brake failure. And if they suffer one, they have no brakes at all.”

Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Auto Safety, founded in 1970 by automobile safety crusader Ralph Nader, agreed that “the single system is defective,” adding, “a system that is as vital to the operational safety of the vehicle as the brakes should have a backup.”

Hurd said NHTSA cannot order an auto maker to retroactively install safety features that were not required when a vehicle was manufactured.

The agency keeps no statistics on the number of single-brake system trucks involved in accidents, Hurd said. But he noted that the agency has seen “no indication of a safety defect trend with these trucks.” Even were a defect to be found, the statute of limitations on recalls is eight years, Hurd said.

The average age of medium- and heavy-duty trucks--trucks with gross vehicle weights of 10,001 pounds and more--in use in this country is 7.9 years, according to R.L. Polk, a Detroit-based research firm.

As of July 1, 1989, 1.7 million medium- and heavy-duty 1975 through 1983 trucks, made by all manufacturers, were still on the nation’s highways, Polk’s statistics show. Of that sum, 202,000 were GMC trucks.

Meanwhile, the Gasses, married for 24 years with a 20-year-old son, say they are grappling with the effects of the accident.

Lois Gass had been a respected curriculum coordinator at Mira Monte Elementary School in Los Angeles and aspired to become a principal or rise “even higher.” She had earned a master’s degree in educational administration at Cal State Northridge by attending night school for three years.

Now, the diploma “is not worth the paper it’s printed on,” said Gass, who after the accident spent four months with her torso encased in a metal vest attached to a metal brace that was bolted into her head. The device was designed to fuse her neck bones back together and straighten her vertebrae, but she said she still suffers from constant, debilitating pain in her neck and back and “can’t stand, sit or walk for any length of time.”

Now, she said, “my life consists of very sedentary activities with very few challenges. I haven’t driven a car in six years. I live in the hills so I can’t even run out for a loaf of bread. I can’t go shopping unless my husband will take me.

“I absolutely hate it. If I could get my life and job back I would be the happiest person in the world. Nothing is the way it used to be and it is devastating. I’ve become a different person than I was six years ago and I don’t like me the way I am now.”

However, Grace, GM’s attorney, claimed Gass is not as seriously disabled as she alleges, pointing out that since the accident she has traveled to the Bahamas, Hawaii, Puerto Vallarta, New York and other destinations.

But Gass said most of her vacation spots have been places “you lay around” and that getting there requires medication.