Paralyzed Athlete Settles Lawsuit for $3.8 Million

An amputee who battled back to world-class racing form, only to become a quadriplegic when struck by a van during an Orange County triathlon three years ago, announced a $3.8-million court settlement Wednesday.

As a disabled athlete, Jim MacLaren, 33, of Boulder, Colo., had been invited to race in the 1993 Mazda/Orange County Performing Arts Center Triathlon held in Mission Viejo. During the cycling portion of the race, an Orange County sheriff’s deputy waved a van through an intersection. It struck MacLaren, who hit a traffic pole and broke his neck.

On Wednesday, MacLaren said the settlement would “enable me to accept a lot of work that doesn’t pay me, like when I work with inner-city kids who are disabled. I’m still positive after this injury, you know? Look, my attitude is, you just have to go on.”

MacLaren’s left leg had been amputated below the knee in 1985 after an accident in New York City.

“He had just graduated from Yale where he played football,” said Richard A. Capella, an opposing attorney who represented Mission Viejo in settlement talks with MacLaren. “He was a big guy, like 6-5, and weighed 260. He finished drama [his major] and was in New York riding a motorcycle when he crossed an intersection on a green light and was hit by a New York bus.

“He flew 80 feet in the air and on the way to the hospital he was pronounced dead twice,” Capella said. “At the hospital, they had to remove the lower portion of his left leg. They told him it would take at least a year of rehabilitation to do things again, but he was back out in eight weeks.”

By 1993, MacLaren was regarded as one of the premier disabled athletes in the world, having raced in Hawaii’s Ironman triathlon five times with the aid of a prosthetic leg, said his attorney, Wylie A. Aitken of Santa Ana. MacLaren set an Ironman record for amputees in 1992 at 10 hours and 42 minutes.

The next year at the Orange County triathlon, MacLaren was on his bicycle when a sheriff’s deputy directed the driver of a van onto the race course near the finish line. MacLaren, who was in the lead, was coming down the street as fast as he could, Aitken said.

“The policeman waved the guy across my path,” MacLaren said from his home Wednesday. “The driver was looking at the cop, not the race, and I guess to the policeman I looked far away. I had a helmet, but people told me I went head first into a lamp post. I don’t remember much after that.”

MacLaren sued the event organizers: Michael O. Braunstein, who operated California Athletic Productions, which designed the course; Triathlon Federation/USA, the sanctioning body for the race; the van’s driver; Sheriff’s Deputy David Lowenstein; Orange County; the Orange County Performing Arts Center; and the Guilds of the Center and Mission Viejo.

“Jim, unfortunately, gives new meaning to the term lightning strikes twice,” Aitken said. “He’s now facing the ultimate challenge, but he’s one of those classic people who considers himself challenged and not disabled.”

Capella said the bulk of the settlement came from a special insurance policy the city and race promoters had taken out before the race. The driver’s insurance carrier paid an estimated $30,000 of the settlement, Aitken said.

“Each of the defendants, except for the van’s driver, were insured by the federation which put on the triathlon,” Capella said. “No taxpayer funds were used for the settlement.”

After the accident, MacLaren and several Colorado triathletes began the Jim MacLaren Fund, which raised $100,000 last year. Funds go to support disabled athletes in the United States, he said.

With the settlement, he said, “I have the ability not only to save for my retirement, but it gives me an opportunity to try to help young children with a disabled athletic fund.”

Although he was told by doctors that he would never be able to move his body below the neck, he has regained limited use of his arms and hands. He said he spends most of his day in a wheelchair but can basically care for himself, although he has hired an assistant.

He said that he has been hired on occasion by corporations to give motivational talks.

Aitken said MacLaren’s attitude won over opposing attorneys in his lawsuit.

Capella, echoing sentiments expressed by other attorneys in the case, said he “was impressed with Jim; he’s an incredible individual. It’s hard not to like him.”

The case, which was filed in Orange County Superior Court, was delayed from December 1994 to November 1995 because of the county’s filing for bankruptcy, which automatically stayed litigation.