Legal Advice on Lion Suit: Settle, County : Courts: Panel says contesting $2-million award to mauled girl could cost ‘a good deal’ more.

A panel of appeals court justices strongly urged attorneys for Orange County on Thursday to negotiate settlement rather than continue to contest a $2-million jury award to a girl mauled by a mountain lion in Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park seven years ago.

“You stand to lose a good deal” in an appeals court decision, Associate Justice Henry T. Moore Jr. warned the county’s attorneys. “Don’t you think it is time to discuss settlement?”

On Aug. 23, 1991, a jury unanimously found that the county was negligent in failing to protect 5-year-old Laura Small, and awarded her $2,018,638 in damages. One month later, the Board of Supervisors voted to appeal the decision.

Laura was looking for tadpoles with her mother in the park, east of San Juan Capistrano, when a cougar leaped from the bushes and grabbed her head in its mouth. A hiker heard her mother’s screams and came to the child’s rescue, beating the big cat with a stick until it released the girl.

Laura, now 12, has started junior high school, her mother, Sue Mattern-Small, said after the hearing. Laura is blind in her right eye and, as a result of brain damage, requires therapy for a weakened right arm and hand, and a brace on her right ankle.

Associate Justices Edward J. Wallin and Sheila Sonenshine, the other members of the 4th District Court of Appeal hearing the case, also advised the county to accept the judges’ offer of a settlement conference with attorneys for the Small family, which would be overseen by David G. Sills, presiding judge of the 4th District Court of Appeal.

Wylie A. Aitken, the family’s attorney, told the justices that he has been amenable to settlement talks since before the jury’s verdict. He called the judges’ remarks on settlement “unusual” and “dramatic.”

Barry L. Allen, one of the county’s attorneys, told the judges that he would confer with county officials about settlement talks.

During the oral arguments, the justices focused on the county’s contention that California law and recent appeals court decisions protect government agencies from liability in the operation of wilderness areas.

Regardless of negligence or improper conduct, according to Debra E. Allen, another of the county’s attorneys, no damages can be assessed if an injury or accident takes place as a result of a “natural condition”--such as the presence of a mountain lion--on “unimproved public property.”

Justices Wallin and Sonenshine questioned the county’s attorneys closely about the Small case. Park officials had testified at the trial that they knew that mountain lions had been active in the park and had held meetings to discuss how to respond, but did not inform visitors of the situation.

Was there no negligence, the justices asked repeatedly, when brochures, exhibits and even a ranger at Caspers’ entrance assured visitors that the lions presented no danger to humans?

No, Debra Allen said, as the question was asked in a variety of ways.

Attorney David B. Casselman, who supported the county’s position on behalf of more than 80 California municipalities, argued that holding agencies responsible for the safety of visitors to wilderness parks would “handcuff” them and make it financially prohibitive to keep such facilities open.

But Aitken, the Smalls’ attorney, argued that they and other visitors “had a right to expect serious risk management” to protect them, said Aitken, their attorney. “That is the simple message of this case.”

Aitken, who was ignored in much of the questioning, also argued that the section of the park where Laura Small was attacked, near a picnic area, was not “unimproved public property” as defined by the Legislature.

After listening to extended oral arguments, Justice Moore commented that county attorneys were being “very foolish if they don’t sit down to a settlement conference.”

The same jury awarded Mattern-Small, who was with the girl at the time of the attack, $75,000 in damages for pain and suffering experienced while witnessing the incident. The county is also contesting that award.