Highly Successful Road Design Case Leads to Safer Roads
for all California Drivers
Schmidt vs. California is the perfect example of consumer attorneys at work, not only for an individual but for all people. In Schmidt vs. California, Baker, Burton & Lundy fought with the same tenacity they fight every case, as they conducted several months of their own investigation and incurred the financial burden of putting on a case involving an elderly quadriplegic against a state agency with its governmental immunities and vast resources. The case involved a single car automobile accident that occurred on the night of January 16, 2006 when plaintiff, Clete Schmidt, a retired attorney age 77, was on his way to Lake Havasu. He was unable to see a stop sign in time, causing him to crash into a five-foot stony embankment just beyond the T-intersection resulting in destruction of his Ford Crown Victoria. The accident placed Clete in intensive care for two months where he nearly died on several occasions. The impact left him a ventilator dependent quadriplegic with some arm movement.
In the early stages of investigation it appeared that there was no concrete evidence of liability. Albro Lundy III characterized the case as having probably a "5%" chance of winning. As the partners considered the great difficulty and expense the case could toll on the company, the vote to accept the challenge was unanimous and immediate. It was simply the right thing to do.
As the case began, an extensive discovery campaign by Albro Lundy III and his team included multiple trips to the Caltrans archives in San Bernardino and Sacramento and literally hundreds of hours spent at and around the scene of the accident by Albro and his associates trying to uncover witnesses or evidence which would demonstrate that the roadway was unsafe. A longtime resident of Riverside County recalled that many years previously, the roadway had contained Botts dots (ceramic discs placed in the road to warn the driver through vibration) which had been removed or destroyed, and had not been replaced. Caltrans knew the Botts dots were an important warning system when approaching a stop sign in the desert and had even replaced them at least once in the 1990's; however, they did not maintain them and never replaced them subsequently in spite of pictures in their own files showing the deterioration. In addition, the team discovered that a large double arrow "End of the Road" sign had been removed or lost and not replaced. There also was a man-made berm cut into the road across from the stop that eliminated the recovery zone that is necessary for drivers across from a T-stop on a high speed highway. The legal team discovered that this was a highly dangerous intersection that had been ignored: there had been 23 accidents in the 10 years prior to the Schmidt accident, with predominantly elderly drivers.
With the case far off in the distant regions of Riverside County, Mr. Lundy developed an innovative way to present medical facts in a complicated case. He used a registered nurse to testify as a "medical fact" witness (summarizing the medical records) as to the history of the medical treatment the plaintiff received. Qualifying the registered nurse at trial as an expert allowed a good communicator to testify in simple terms as to the complicated medical history and injuries in the case. Creating, coordinating, and presenting the day in the life video, the courtroom graphics, the computer simulations, the life care planner, the economic expert, the medical fact witness, the liability experts and the ten lay witnesses in an isolated Riverside County school house courtroom during this month long trial also demonstrated the organizational and persuasive power of Baker, Burton & Lundy.
As the jurors cast their thoughts on the case the results came in with an astonishing outcome for Clete Schmidt. The verdict itself was remarkable both in terms of the liability apportionment and the damages awarded. Attorneys are generally not sympathetic clients, even ones with serious injuries. Elderly clients are not usually awarded significant damages. Jurors are generally reluctant to award significant damages against state entities. This was also one of the highest damage awards for loss of consortium ever. The fact that a 78-year-old retired attorney involved in a single-vehicle accident was able to obtain an $11.6 million verdict from a Riverside jury was quite remarkable. In the end, the evidence uncovered and the theories developed resulted in a jury verdict on liability of 90% to Caltrans and only 10% to the plaintiff Clete Schmidt.
In addition, the Baker, Burton & Lundy team caused many changes at Caltrans, as Caltrans reviewed and made sure that the safety devices across the state in similar T-intersections were installed, and not missing as they were in Mr. Schmidt's case. The implementation of these safety devices at the intersection of Mr. Schmidt's accident resulted in the absence of a single accident for over 18 months (the last time we had figures) following the changes made by Caltrans. The verdict showed immediate and lasting improvement in roadway safety. The often overused request of juries to "send a message" really came to fruition in the Schmidt case. This intersection and all T-intersections throughout the entire State of California will be safer because of this verdict.
Albro received the prestigious award of 2009 Trial Lawyer of the Year for California for his work on the Schmidt case.
