Panel Endorses $900,000 Settlement for Comatose Boy

A $900,000 settlement was approved by a county panel Monday for an 11-year-old boy who has been comatose since February, 1985, when he climbed a fence at the San Fernando Swap Meet and was swept down a flood control channel.

In a unanimous decision, the three-member Los Angeles County Claims Board conceded that although the county made various repairs to the fences along the Pacoima Wash, dirt and debris left stacked near a fence at the swap meet made it easy to scale. As a procedural step, the settlement must be approved by the County Board of Supervisors and a Superior Court judge before it is final.

“It’s a very tragic thing,” said Louis V. Aguilar, principal deputy county counsel.

The insurer for swap meet owner William Hannon also recently agreed to pay $1 million toward the cost of German Gonzales’ 24-hour care, bringing the total settlement to $1.9 million, said Louis Dewitt, attorney for the Gonzales family.

Doctors have told Perfecto and Maria Gonzales, of South El Monte, that there is no chance their son will recover, DeWitt said, adding that German, then 5, was taken off a respirator about two weeks after the accident.

“They expected him to die immediately, as they were told by the doctors,” DeWitt said. “They really said goodby. . . . But he just kept on.”

The family could not be reached for comment Monday.

The amount of the settlement was determined by estimating what it will cost to care for German for the rest of his life, which doctors say could last from 7 to 35 years.

German is being cared for at Fairview State Hospital in Costa Mesa. Past medical expenses were estimated by the county at $500,000; it costs an additional $7,000 per month for his standard care and occasional acute care for respiratory distress and infections.

The outdoor swap meet, at 585 Glenoaks Blvd., San Fernando, caters to the northeast San Fernando Valley’s large Latino population, selling everything from produce to clothes.

The Gonzaleses had a booth selling fabric at the swap meet on Feb. 12, 1985. That day, while playing with a group of children, the boy apparently climbed the fence in a section used routinely by people to sneak into the swap meet, DeWitt said.

German fell into the water at the base of the concrete-sided ditch where shallow water was running about 15 m.p.h., Aguilar said in his recommendation to the claims board. Rescuers found German within 10 minutes about two miles downstream. He was already comatose.

The family sued for several million dollars in damages for their pain and suffering and for the boy’s loss of earning capacity. The trial was postponed several times because of court backlogs, attorneys said.

DeWitt said that he encouraged the family to accept the settlement amount because questions of parental negligence had been raised in a countersuit filed by Hannon’s insurer. The attorney for the insurer, Jeffrey Zinder, declined comment but acknowledged that the insurer had settled with the family earlier this month.

“There were some problems with the case,” DeWitt said. “The child was only 5 years old and he was apparently left alone for about a half hour before the accident with no explanation.”

DeWitt said that once approved by the county board and the court, the $1.9-million settlement will be invested in annuities so that interest gains will match rising hospital costs.