Victims Hit by Blind Driver Claim DMV Office at Fault : Courts: Suit claims Brea man who failed vision test but got a license anyway should never have been behind wheel.

George Edgar Lizarralde is legally blind. Three times, he applied for a driver’s license and was turned down.

On the fourth try, the state Department of Motor Vehicles approved his application, even though he failed the vision test, court records show. His driver’s license arrived in the mail and the Brea man hit the road in his Mazda RX-7 sports coupe.

Lizarralde plowed through a pedestrian crosswalk on Aug. 4, 1990, seriously injuring three people who were on their way to church.

On Friday, those three pedestrians took Lizarralde and the DMV to trial in Orange County Superior Court, alleging that state employees were negligent in allowing Lizarralde--who receives federal disability payments because of a debilitating eye disease--to legally drive a car. They are seeking unspecified damages.

“It’s just common sense that a blind person should not be driving,” said Deborah Mohr, a Whittier resident who said she suffered brain damage and other injuries in the accident.

Mohr broke into tears as she spoke. “It’s like giving a blind person a license to fly a plane. My life can never be the same. Why did (the DMV) do that?

Jacqueline Rucker, a deputy attorney general representing the DMV in the civil trial, declined to comment Friday as jury selection got underway.

DMV spokesman Evan Nossoff in Sacramento also would not discuss the case beyond saying that the agency is “constantly examining and improving our procedures” to ensure that unsuitable drivers are not granted licenses.

In court papers, DMV attorneys contend that the state has no liability for what happened and is not responsible for a negligent driver.

Lizarralde, 31, has blamed the DMV for what happened. His attorney, Roberta Coughlin, said her client “feels badly about the accident, but he doesn’t feel it was his responsibility. He relied on the DMV to follow proper procedures.”

Lizarralde still has a valid license, DMV records showed on Friday. But Coughlin said her client has not driven since the 1990 accident.

She said her client is legally blind and has had surgery, which failed to improve his vision.

In a recent interview with attorneys on both sides of the case, Lizarralde said his vision was so poor that if he sat across a table from someone, he could clearly see only the person’s nose but not the entire face, said attorney Christopher J. Day, who is representing the plaintiffs.

The Norwalk police report on the crash indicated that Lizarralde was cited for failing to stop for a posted stop sign and failure to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk. But DMV officials said their records do not reflect those citations.

“It’s really a difficult task keeping track of 5.7 million pieces of paper on traffic infractions for 20 million drivers in the state,” said Nossoff, the agency’s spokesman.

The crash occurred when Mohr, her fiance, Brian Barber, and Barber’s 4-year-old son, Dane, were walking to church in Norwalk and they were hit at Shoemaker Avenue and Tom White Way.

A Norwalk police report quoted Lizarralde as saying that he had stopped to pick up a cassette player that had fallen from a seat. He looked up moments later, but he was unable to avoid hitting the pedestrians, he told police. The three were rushed to the hospital.

Day said Mohr and Brian Barber suffered permanent head and knee injuries. The boy’s injuries were less serious.

Mohr, who said she is still undergoing medical treatment, appeared in court Friday limping and leaning on a steel cane.

Mohr said the accident had forever changed her life. She and Barber were planning to be married months after the crash, but the marriage plans collapsed because of the accident.

“It’s absolutely outrageous that this could happen,” Day said. “But I don’t think he’s the only one out there who shouldn’t have a license. . . . It should be a wake-up call because this could have been anyone’s child.”

The case is not the only legal action to question the soundness of DMV procedures in screening drivers. Earlier this week, the surviving daughters of a Mission Viejo couple killed in a crash sued the DMV, claiming the agency should not have issued a temporary driver’s license to a suspected drunk driver, Dr. Ronald Allen, because his Illinois driver’s license was revoked after he failed a drunk-driving test.

Allen is charged with murder and driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol for the July 11, 1993, crash that killed the couple and injured one of the girls.

In Lizarralde’s case, court records indicate that he had filed three unsuccessful requests for a driver’s license before 1985. That year, he applied a fourth time, and again he failed his vision test, but later received his license in the mail.

Court records indicate that two doctors, including Lizarralde’s private physician, said he should never have qualified for a driver’s license.

The DMV has claimed immunity from civil liability in the case. The agency’s lawyers state in court papers that the pedestrians’ attorneys have no grounds for collecting damages. “This simply is not the law, nor is it practical to suggest that it could be, given the millions of motorists in this state whose various disabilities would be required to be ferreted out by the DMV at its peril.”

Jury selection in the civil trial continues Monday before Orange County Superior Court Judge Logan Moore in Santa Ana.