Family Gets $1.77 Million in 3-Fatality Crash

A jury decided Thursday that Caltrans must pay an Orange County family $1.77 million, after their parents and sister were killed in a head-on collision on a state road near Twentynine Palms.

After a four-week trial in San Bernardino Superior Court, the jury determined that Caltrans was mostly to blame for the deaths of Salvatore and Filomena Parise, 55 and 54, and their 20-year-old daughter, Mary, in a 1989 crash on State Highway 62. The jury found that the road was poorly marked, and that Caltrans did little to correct the problem, even after nearby residents warned the agency of dangerous conditions.

The Parises’ four surviving children, who filed the wrongful-death lawsuit against California, will divide the $1.77 million. They are Tony Parise, 29 of Brea; Angela Tamme, 32, and Teresa Longo, 34, of Laguna Niguel; and Joe Parise, 33, of Whittier.

“I would rather have my parents and sister back. But I’m glad that this proves that my dad wasn’t at fault,” Longo said.

The accident occurred as the Salvatore, Filomena and Mary Parise and the latter’s boyfriend, David Romero, were driving overnight from their home in Montebello to Parker, Ariz., for a Fourth of July weekend.

Salvatore Parise lost control of his car on a sharp curve and crashed into an oncoming car. Both people in that car, Chester and Mary Green of Los Angeles, died. Romero was critically injured.

Frank Barbaro, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said Caltrans was at fault because it failed to meet its own safety standards when it placed its warning sign only 300 feet before the curve. They also did not have raised pavement markers.

Although Caltrans attorney Robert Schoenburg said warning signs normally are placed about 500 feet before curves, he said the sign’s location was not responsible for the accident.

“Our position is that the road was not in a dangerous condition, and the road did not cause the accident,” Schoenburg said. “We believe it was the inattention of Parise that caused the accident.

“If Mr. Parise had missed the sign, he would have gone straight ahead and swerved off the road. We believe he saw the sign, started to curve, but looked away and went across the yellow line.”

Barbaro said residents had complained before the fatal crash that the sharp curve was responsible for numerous accidents.

Tamme said she believes the jury’s verdict proves that her father lost control of the car because the road was poorly marked.

Barbaro said Caltrans placed raised pavement markers on the road in early 1990, and repainted the center line after another driver was killed in the same location in September, 1989. However, in that case, the driver was found to be driving at 90 m.p.h. and under the influence, Schoenburg said.