Injured Cyclist to Collect $1 Million : Lawsuit: City of Torrance, developer and subcontractors pay man whose bike collapsed after hitting potholes.
A federal auditor who was severely injured in a bicycle accident five years ago will collect more than $1 million in a settlement with the city of Torrance, a developer and two subcontractors.
James Geibel, 36, will be paid $500,000 by the development firm Watt Homes, and $350,000 by Torrance. Two subcontractors, Cohlich & Sons and C. A. Rasmussen, will pay Geibel $150,000 and $35,000, respectively.
For the record:
12:00 a.m. April 18, 1993 For the Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday April 18, 1993 South Bay Edition Metro Part B Page 7 Column 1 Zones Desk 1 inches; 26 words Type of Material: Correction
Bicycle Maker--A story in Thursday’s South Bay section about a $1-million settlement of a bicycle accident should have said the bicycle was manufactured by Junior Werke of Austria.
Geibel suffered permanent spinal cord damage as a result of the January, 1988, accident, according to attorneys involved in the suit. He was riding a bicycle on Maple Avenue near Plaza del Amo when he ran over potholes that encircled two water-valve covers, smaller versions of sewer main covers.
He rode another 100 feet, when the bicycle frame collapsed, sending him headfirst onto the pavement. The street had been widened two years earlier as part of a Watt Homes development project, said Larry Booth, Geibel’s attorney.
Booth said the street’s defects had not been repaired, however, and had caused the collapse of the bike’s poorly constructed frame. The Australian bicycle manufacturer, Junior Werke, has since gone out of business, but there have been more than 100 suits involving the company’s bicycles, Booth said.
A. B. Chettle Jr., special counsel for Torrance, said the bike frame was “an accident waiting to happen.” Nevertheless, Torrance agreed to the settlement, he said, rather than risk the possibility of a multimillion-dollar judgment in the case.
Attorneys for Watt Homes could not be reached for comment.
Geibel was originally left a quadriplegic but is now able to walk haltingly and has regained limited use of his hands, Booth said. He has returned to his job, part-time, at a branch of the General Accounting Office.
