Mediation Is Sought for Angels Flight Suit

A two-day settlement conference has been scheduled to begin July 20 in a lawsuit filed over a death and serious injury in the Feb. 1 Angels Flight funicular accident, according to attorneys for both sides.

Representatives of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, the Angels Flight Railway Foundation and operating company and Pueblo Contracting Services have agreed to go before an Alternative Dispute Resolution mediator, along with representatives of the Leon and Lola Praport family.

Leon Praport, 83, a Holocaust survivor from New Jersey, was killed in the downtown Los Angeles accident when one car of the famed funicular slipped off its cable and plummeted into the other. Praport’s wife, Lola, 80, suffered brain damage and will require full-time personal care, said Praport family attorney Gary Dordick.

Dordick said all parties will have doctors, psychologists and other medical personnel conduct examinations of Praport before the settlement conference to ascertain her condition.

Two companies that the Praports also are suing, design consultants Harris & Associates and the engineering consulting firm of Parsons, Brinkerhoff Quade & Douglas, declined to join in the settlement conference, Dordick said.

Stephen Schwartz, the attorney representing both of the firms, said this week, “Our policy is not to comment while the matter is in litigation.”

Chris Bisgaard, an attorney representing the Community Redevelopment Agency, said Thursday that he and others are hopeful that there will be a settlement.

Yantrak, of Carson City, Nev., the firm that performed much of the construction work on the funicular, later declared bankruptcy and went out of business. Dordick said attempts to serve principals of the firm had been unavailing so far.