Injured Woman to Get $5-Million Settlement in Bridge Accident

San Diego city officials agreed to an out-of-court settlement worth as much as $5 million Friday in a lawsuit filed by a woman who was severely injured when the car she was riding in crashed through the railing on the Midway Drive Bridge and plunged into the water.

Attorney Tom Schaefer, who represented Sharon Kerssens, said her injuries could have been prevented if the city had installed an adequate guardrail on the bridge. Schaefer said that Caltrans officials had warned the city in 1975 and again in 1980 that railings on the Midway Drive Bridge and other city bridges were not up to state and federal standards.

Kerssens, 38, was left a paraplegic as a result of the Aug. 28, 1984, accident, which occurred at about 1 a.m. after a tire blew out. She was a passenger in the car driven by her husband, Johannes Kerssens, 37. Johannes Kerssens was drunk at the time, with a blood alcohol level between .13 and .10, said Deputy City Atty. Anthony Shanley.

Shanley said the city agreed to settle on the eve of trial because officials accepted liability.

“We’re prepared to concede that, if built today, the bridge would not be built the same,” said Shanley.

The Midway Drive Bridge, which crosses the flood channel of the San Diego River between Sea World and Point Loma, was built 40 years ago, “but you don’t tear down a 40-year-old bridge simply because it could be built better today,” Shanley added.

Schaefer said that Kerssens probably would have been spared her injuries if city engineers had heeded state warnings and installed a guardrail to retain autos rather than relying on handrails along the sides of the bridge.

“It (the handrail) gave you the facade of a guardrail. . . . But, once a vehicle came in contact with it, it popped loose. It served no purpose in stopping a vehicle,” said Schaefer.

According to Schaefer, the handrail on the Midway Drive Bridge “had been the subject of many other accidents going back to the 1950s and right up to the year before” Kerssens’ accident. It is not known if the other accidents resulted in lawsuits against the city.

Shanley said the railing in place at the time of Kerssens’ accident was “what people were using 40 years ago.”

The city installed approved barriers on the Midway Drive Bridge in 1989 and is retrofitting the adjacent Sunset Cliffs Bridge, said Jonathan Levy, deputy director of the city’s traffic engineering department. Those are the only bridges being altered, he said.

The cost of retrofitting the Midway Drive Bridge was about $375,000, he said. In addition to installing barriers on the Sunset Cliffs Bridge, the city is widening the span and installing a bicycle lane at a cost of about $2.3 million, Levy added. Most of the funds for retrofitting the bridges are coming from state highway funds, he said.

Levy said he does not know how many city-owned bridges might have to be retrofitted.

“We have a surveillance system where we track accidents. As we identify locations, we look at them and see if something can be done,” said Levy.

However, Schaefer, who has researched the issue extensively, said that at least five of 200 city-owned bridges need retrofitting. In addition to ignoring Caltrans warnings of unsafe bridges, Schaefer charged, city officials routinely ignore the state’s frequent bridge inspection reports.

“Right now there are tons of bridge inspection reports sitting in the city’s street division. They know they’ve got reports, but they just take them and file them away. Each report is for each separate bridge in the city with a rating safety code,” said Schaefer.

The safety code ratings were the source of another controversy in the case. According to Schaefer, Caltrans bridge inspectors use a numerical code to rate the safety of each bridge.

“City engineers told us in depositions that they didn’t know what the rating code meant until some time in 1990. . . . The coded information was telling city officials that the railings were unacceptable by state and federal standards,” said Schaefer.

“Those bridge reports used coded numbers under the heading of railing type,” said Shanley. “What it says is, if you translate those coded items, various aspects of the guardrail system . . . are not of the standards permissible if the bridge were built today.”

Shanley said city liability in the $5-million settlement is limited to a $200,000 deductible payment. The rest will be paid in annuities by the city’s insurer, Transcontinental Insurance Co. of Chicago.

The agreement between Kerssens and the city calls for her to receive a minimum of $3.3 million. But, if Kerssens lives her full life expectancy, she will receive the entire $5 million, Schaefer said. The couple do not have any children.