Jury Awards $1.7 Million to Paralyzed Man

A young man who was paralyzed three years ago in an automobile accident should receive $880,000 from the city of Oxnard and $850,000 from the makers of the Subaru Brat, a Ventura County jury decided Wednesday.

The award disappointed lawyers representing Oxnard resident Israel Echevarria, who had asked the jury for more than $17 million. Attorney Edward Steinbrecher vowed to appeal.

“Juries do absurd things. This is absurd,” Steinbrecher said immediately after the verdict was read. “I can’t explain it. The verdict is ridiculous.”

Echevarria, 21, sued the Japanese makers of the Subaru Brat after he was tossed from the back of the open-air vehicle on an Oxnard road and left paralyzed. Echevarria blamed the Brat’s trademark rear-facing seats as well as the design of the road for the accident.

The jury set Echevarria’s medical costs at $2.3 million and $500,000 for pain and suffering. But Subaru and Oxnard only owe a combined $1.7 million of the award because the jury found the two only partly responsible for the accident.

Those figures will increase once Superior Court Judge Joe D. Hadden awards court costs to Echevarria’s attorneys.

Jurors said they limited the award because they found earlier in the trial that Echevarria and the uninsured driver, Nathan Stevens, were 80% responsible for the accident. Stevens, a family friend, was not named in the lawsuit.

“We felt that since the majority of the blame belonged to Israel and the driver, they should be responsible for most of the damages,” juror Ken Jaeger said. “But by law, we had to award him something.”

Lawyers for Oxnard and Subaru said they were pleased by the judgment in a case closely watched by the Japanese media and industry analysts.

“We sure can live with this verdict,” said Richard Bowman, Subaru’s lead attorney on the case.

Oxnard attorney Korman Ellis said that while he was happy that Wednesday’s judgment was no higher, he remained disappointed that the city had to pay anything. He said he will recommend that the city ask a judge to throw out the jury’s original verdict finding Oxnard and Subaru partly responsible for the accident.

Witnesses testified during the trial that Echevarria distracted the driver moments before he lost control of the Brat, which left Teal Club Road and rolled over in a ditch near Oxnard Airport.

That ditch, the jurors said, was too close to Teal Club Road and is the reason they said the city was 11% responsible for the accident. They also said the Brat’s rear-facing plastic seats in the bed were placed too high and contributed 9% to the injuries Echevarria received.

“If you place seats in the bed of a truck, [the passenger’s] head should not be put above the roof,” jury member Jaeger said.

Under California’s so-called deep pockets law, Subaru and Oxnard are required to cover Stevens’ share of responsibility, which amounted to 45%.

The jurors rejected Steinbrecher’s claim that Subaru was running a “tariff scam” by installing the rear-facing seats and thus should be hit with millions of dollars worth of punitive damages.

Because of those seats, U.S. Customs officials classified the Brat as a passenger vehicle instead of a truck. Importers pay higher tariffs for trucks than they do for passenger vehicles.