CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / LOS ANGELES

The family of a man who died after losing control of his car and plummeting into a flood-control ditch is suing the city and county of Los Angeles for not building a barrier along the freeway he was driving on.

Ernesto Beltran’s family members say in their wrongful-death suit that the city and county acted negligently when they did not install a barrier along the stretch of the 110 Freeway where he slid into the Arroyo Seco channel.

An attorney for Beltran’s widow says state transit officials recommended that a safety barrier be constructed more than a year before the 46-year-old’s death in February 2007.

California Department of Transportation spokeswoman Maria Raptis says that a $21-million plan to build a barrier is in the works and that construction should begin in the spring.