Trial Over Car Crash Could Be Costly If Torrance Found Liable

Before his world came apart, James Carroll was a 22-year-old avid skier and motorcyclist with a passion for life.

On Nov. 8, 1985, Carroll’s neck was broken in a traffic accident near South High School in Torrance. Now 28 and a quadriplegic, he has only limited motion in his arms and hands and must rely on the assistance of people and a trained dog to perform even the most routine tasks.

This week, more than six years after the accident that changed his life, trial began in Torrance Superior Court to determine who should be liable for Carroll’s injuries.

Carroll’s attorney, Thomas Stolpman of Wilmington, told jurors during opening statements Tuesday that he will try to prove that mistakes by the Torrance Police Department and the Torrance Unified School District, as well as a driver pulling out of a South High School entrance, all contributed to the crash. The suit seeks an unspecified amount of damages from the defendants.

The accident occurred on Calle Mayor, just north of Pacific Coast Highway, after a Friday night football game between South and Rolling Hills high schools, attorneys said.

Police said a woman who had gone to pick up her daughter after the game, Soo Yang, was westbound in a long alleyway that leads from the South High School campus to Calle Mayor. As she attempted to turn left onto Calle Mayor, her car pulled in front of a northbound Toyota pickup truck driven by Mark Allison, a friend of Carroll’s.

When Allison veered to avoid hitting Yang’s car, he lost control of the truck, blew out a tire against a curb on Calle Mayor and hit a telephone pole, attorneys said. Carroll, who was riding in a camper shell in the back of the truck, suffered a fracture in the lower part of his neck. Allison and another passenger in the front cab of the truck were not seriously injured.

City Atty. Kenneth L. Nelson said efforts to settle the lawsuit have been fruitless.

“We think it’s a slim liability, but if it hits us, it’s going to be a big hit,” Nelson said, noting that the accident took place before a state law was approved limiting a public entity’s liability in civil cases.

Because of the old law, if the city or school district is found to be even slightly responsible for Carroll’s injuries, and Yang or her insurance is unable to pay all damages awarded to Carroll, the public agency must make up the difference.

“That’s one of the reasons why this case is worrisome and hard to evaluate,” Nelson said.

In the last 20 months, Torrance has been hit by more than $10 million in large legal settlements, most of which has had to be paid from the city’s self-insurance reserves.

Seven months ago, the city paid $6.5 million to the family of a 19-year-old motorcyclist killed in a collision with an off-duty police officer.

Last year, the city agreed to pay a construction worker $1.9 million because a police officer accidentally shot him in the neck during a traffic stop. Also last year, the city paid $2.26 million to a homeowner who claimed that the city should not have condemned his Hollywood Riviera home after a landslide.

According to Stolpman, the accident that injured Carroll was caused in part because the Torrance Police Department failed to maintain traffic controls long enough after the football game.

Stolpman said the school district routinely contracted with police to provide crowd and traffic control at the games. At the end of the game, he said, a squad car would be parked on Calle Mayor at the alleyway and flares set out to force drivers leaving the game to turn right onto Calle Mayor.

On the night of Nov. 8, 1985, however, police had doused their flares and left the scene before the accident took place, attorneys for both sides agree. What remains in dispute is whether they packed up too early under their agreement with the district.

According to police reports, the accident took place at 9:50 p.m., a time disputed by attorney Lawrence Weisberg, who is representing the school district. Weisberg said emergency crews were not called to the scene until after 10 p.m.

The officers who worked the game that night charged the district for 3 1/2 hours of service, from 6:30 p.m. until 10 p.m.

But John A. Daly, one of the city’s attorneys, said the officers always put in for 3 1/2 hours of service on football nights, regardless of how long they actually were on the scene.

“It was an arbitrary time element, recognizing that sometimes these games last only two hours and sometimes three hours or more,” Daly said.

The officers serving on Calle Mayor would wait until the flow of traffic from the campus had stopped, then pack up their emergency gear and go home, he said.

Daly told jurors that the accident happened because Allison was in a hurry and did not want to yield to Yang’s car.

“There were no skid marks,” Daly said. “There was ample time for Mr. Allison to stop that vehicle after seeing Mrs. Yang. Why didn’t he stop?”

Weisberg told jurors that the evidence will show it was a case of youthful impatience.

“You’ve got a young man driving a brand-new vehicle with two friends inside,” Weisberg said. “All he had to do was simply put his foot on the brake, slow his vehicle or stop it, and none of this would ever have happened.”

Times staff writer Deborah Schoch contributed to this report.