State Settles Crash Suit for $12.5 Million

Caltrans has agreed to pay a $12.5-million settlement to the relatives of six people killed on a dangerous stretch of Interstate 15 when the driver of a motor home fell asleep and crashed into a dirt wall near Barstow, attorneys confirmed Wednesday.

Ten family members were heading home to Utah after taking a Valentine’s cruise out of Los Angeles in 1998 when the motor home veered off the road in Yermo. Four passengers survived the crash and were among the 27 relatives who sued the state. The vehicle was owned by family patriarch Clemont Atwood, 75, who died in the crash.

The civil trial was underway in San Bernardino Superior Court in Victorville and was about to be handed over to a jury when attorneys agreed on the settlement Monday.

“The state increased their offer to a point we felt it made sense for our clients to not take a chance that a jury would not see evidence as we saw it,” said Gary Dordick, one of three attorneys representing the plaintiffs.

The family members argued that lack of a guardrail caused the crash, which ended with the motor home being sheared in half. The roadway had only a narrow 4-foot shoulder, then dropped 4 1/2 inches to a steep slope that ran down to a concrete pipe and then a dirt wall, Dordick said.

“When the motor home drifted off the roadway, there was no way to recover it. It launched off the concrete pipe, and when it hit the dirt wall, the motor home separated into two,” he said.

Had there been a guardrail, the vehicle would have slid along it without causing death or major damage, Dordick said.

Caltrans attorney Christopher Hiddleson said that if a guardrail had been in place, the Friday afternoon accident would have been much worse. The motor home would have bounced back into heavy traffic bound for Las Vegas.

“No mater what, there was going to be a horrible outcome. You can not have a vehicle going 70 to 80 mph with a driver asleep and not expect something disastrous to occur,” he said.

He said he believed the trial had been going well, but acknowledged the sympathy a jury would feel toward the plaintiffs.

“Whenever you have this loss of life and this amount of damages, you never know what’s going to happen with a jury,” he said. “It’s like a roll of the dice.”

However, Hiddleson questioned whether the outcome could have been different if they had been allowed to tell the jury that 18 of the plaintiffs in the case had also sued the estate of the motor home’s driver. The driver’s insurance company paid $350,000 in that case.

“It would have been very powerful evidence,” he said. “It would have certainly undercut the testimony provided by some of the survivors.”

The roadway remains unchanged since the accident, though Hiddleson said Caltrans was reviewing safety concerns.