Accident Victim Gets $4.2 Million : Courts: A waste company is held liable because containers on a truck protruded farther than allowed. One struck a biker, who lost his leg.

A jury has awarded a Valencia motorcyclist more than $4.2 million in damages for the loss of his leg when he was struck by a can sticking out of a passing garbage truck.

Burbank jurors ruled Tuesday that Waste Management Inc., the nation’s largest trash company, was responsible for the January, 1987, accident in Sun Valley that injured Gregory M. Dibene, 35, once a stagehand at NBC Studios in Burbank.

The damage payment, though not the highest ever in a personal injury case, is considered to be a substantial award, lawyers said.

“It’s been a long six years,” Dibene said. “I’m just glad the jury saw the facts.”

Dibene was riding his motorcycle around a curve on Stonehurst Avenue when an oncoming Waste Management truck collided with him, said Irwin (Rob) Miller, Dibene’s attorney.

The truck’s trailer--which was loaded with large trash canisters--strayed into the opposite lane of traffic, Miller said. One of the metal canisters struck Dibene’s left leg, which was crushed and had to be amputated 15 days later.

Eighteen months after the injury, Dibene returned with a prosthetic leg to work as a stagehand on the Johnny Carson show, but the frequent lifting and carrying duties involved in the job took their toll on him and the limb, Miller said.

“They once had to wheel him into special effects to try to fix the leg,” he said. He left work permanently in late 1992.

The garbage truck operators argued that the city of Los Angeles was partially to blame for the accident because the street’s yellow lane divider had faded and was not easily visible. But the eight-woman, four-man jury concluded that the waste company and driver were completely at fault.

The truck’s trash cans illegally protruded more than a foot from the side of the trailer, Miller said. Jurors rejected assertions that Dibene was speeding and riding on the wrong side of the road.

After a two-month trial, the jury awarded Dibene $4,269,168.59, including more than $1.25 million for future medical costs, $1.5 million for pain and suffering and $6,000 to cover costs of vocational training, possibly as a computer operator.

“A couple of the jurors thought the award was a little high, but several indicated that they were inclined to give another million dollars,” said Miller, who took the case on a contingency basis.

Alan Lazar, an attorney for Waste Management Inc., said he was considering whether to appeal.