LOS ANGELES : Quake Victim’s Family Gets $1.4 Million in Suit

Relatives of a Cal State Los Angeles honor student who was crushed by a concrete slab during a 1987 earthquake have settled a lawsuit against the state and a construction company for $1.4 million, lawyers for the family said Tuesday.

The parents of of Lupe Elias-Exposito will receive $700,000, as will her sister, Rosie, who was walking across campus with Elias-Exposito when the slab fell three stories from a parking structure, crushing her during the Whittier Earthquake on Oct. 1, 1987, said Lawrence R. Booth, the family’s attorney.

The university initially said the student’s death was caused by an act of God, but Booth discovered that a concrete slab had fallen from the structure in 1976. He said that metal anchors for the 12-by-5-foot slab were set only three inches deep, when the design called for them to be at least six inches deep.