City to Pay $1.2 Million in Suit Over Death in Crash

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday settled the latest of three wrongful death lawsuits resulting from traffic accidents on La Tuna Canyon Road by voting to pay $1.2 million to the family of a crash victim.

After the vote, Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents the Sun Valley area where the accidents occurred, demanded that city engineers repair the section of roadway that floods in heavy rains.

The city has paid $450,000 to settle two other claims--one in 1979 and one in 1987--in which motorists died in collisions on the rain-slicked road near Elben Avenue, west of the Foothill Freeway in Sun Valley.

The $1.2-million payment settles the suit filed by the family of Rafeek Teraberanyans, who was killed on a rainy March 24, 1994, when a trash truck lost traction in a pool of water and slid into the path of Teraberanyans’ car.

The family sued Browning-Ferris Industries, the landfill firm that owned the truck, and the city, charging that the speed of the truck and the poor drainage on the roadway caused the accident in which Teraberanyans was killed.

Geoffry Wells, attorney for the family, said it is clear from past lawsuits and accident reports that the city knew about the dangerous conditions on La Tuna Canyon Road.

In each case, the families of the victims argued in lawsuits that the city shared in the blame for the accident by failing to install spillways that would keep rain from pooling on the roadway.

The history of the roadway should have put the city on notice about the hazard, they argued. In the past 20 years, four other deaths and 30 accidents--including 17 head-on collisions--have occurred during rainstorms on that stretch of roadway.

Despite the deadly history, a recent report by the city attorney’s office said there is still “substandard drainage throughout the length of La Tuna Canyon Road.”

City engineers have said that two or three spillways washed away in past mudslides or were paved over. But they have insisted that the overall problem on that road has been excessive speeding, not flooding.

In the Teraberanyans case, an accident analysis expert hired by the city determined that the Browning-Ferris trash truck was traveling at 40 to 50 mph in an area with a posted speed limit of 40 mph.

Although the truck may not have exceeded the posted speed limit, the lawsuit alleges that the truck was driving too fast for the rainy conditions. Browning-Ferris paid the Teraberanyans family $4.5 million. But in cooperation with the family, Browning-Ferris filed a cross-complaint against the city, alleging that roadway problems contributed to the accident.

During settlement discussions, a Superior Court judge recommended that the city pay $1.2 million for its share of the damages already paid out by Browning Ferris.