Amanda Arthur, Mother Drop Lawsuit Over Crash

It was the right thing to do for Amanda, her mother said. And, she said, it was the right thing to do for the community that embraced the Newport Harbor High School cheerleader after a tragic car accident nearly took her life.

On Friday, Amanda Arthur and her mother announced they have dropped their lawsuit against the city of Newport Beach. The suit alleged unsafe conditions along the winding stretch of Irvine Avenue where the May 1997 accident took place.

“This suit has been heavy on our hearts from the beginning,” said Amanda’s mother, Chris Maese. “The decision we made is one of honor and integrity, and I believe that in the long run Amanda’s life will benefit.”

The crash killed one Newport Harbor High School student and injured six others who had packed into a Chevrolet Blazer after a night of partying. Although the driver of the car had not been drinking, other teens had been, including Amanda, then 17, and the teen who was killed, 18-year-old Donny Bridgman.

Repercussions in the tightknit community were felt long after the crash, tearing apart former friends and neighbors.

On Friday, Amanda, now 19, said she had no interest in blaming anyone for what happened. With quick wit and a lopsided smile, the girl who awoke from an 11-week coma to capture local and national attention, said she is now looking forward to the day she can live on her own.

“It was my fault too,” she said of the accident that left her with a severe limp and permanent brain damage. “All the kids were at fault. I got into a car without a seat belt and I’m still paying for that now.”

The popular teen has made a remarkable recovery from the days when the right side of her body was paralyzed and some doctors offered little hope. Prior to the start of Friday’s news conference, with reporters and camera crews packed into their Newport Beach townhome, Amanda’s mother brushed her daughter’s dark, bobbed hair from her cheek.

“So all I have to do is sit here and look pretty?” Amanda joked.

The decision to drop the suit against Newport Beach and a landscaping firm responsible for sprinklers along the road, brings to a close litigation on behalf of Amanda. She was without medical insurance at the time of the accident and has already accrued about $400,000 in medical bills. Community donations and support from family members have helped pay most of these bills.

The family’s attorney, Gregory Munoz, said his clients decided to drop the case even though he had advised them that they had a good chance of success. The road where the accident took place has a history of one-car accidents, Munoz said.

Lawsuits against the city on behalf of other accident victims are still pending. Also unresolved, Munoz said, is the distribution of $2.6 million in settlements from the insurance companies of the car’s driver, Jason Rausch, and the car’s owner, the parents of Donny Bridgman.

Maese, a devoutly religious woman, said she never felt right about the lawsuit against the city. After talking to her pastor and others, she decided to drop the lawsuit.

“We’ve been so blessed and I’m so proud to be a part of this community,” she said. “We truly feel that the community has lifted us up.”

As for the accident, Amanda said she was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

She and her mother said they are only in occasional contact with Rausch, the driver of the car who was sentenced to three years’ probation, fined $1,000 and ordered to do 250 hours of community service for misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter. But they wish him well.

Amanda has dreams of getting her driver’s license and a promised new car from her grandfather. Some other aspirations have been set aside, though. After falling when she tried to pick up her 4-year-old nephew, Amanda said she is no longer sure she wants a career working with children, something that had been a lifelong dream.

“I don’t know with my brain injury,” she said. ‘I wouldn’t want to drop a baby.”

She is determined to move out on her own and attend a four-year college.

For now, the focus is on Amanda’s continued recovery. Doctors recently told her that while her right side is no longer paralyzed, it remains very weak. She is now determined to go back to physical therapy after quitting in frustration last August.

“I want to run,” she said. “And I have to go back to do that.”