Richard Kunzler was killed in a crash on July 18, 2006 when he crested a hill and crashed into the back of vehicles stopped on the road.  The vehicles were backed up and stopped on the road because construction was taking place on a bridge some distance further on.  After crashing into the back of another vehicle Mr. Kunzler lingered for 13 days in the hospital before dying.

After an eight day trial in Provo the jury unanimously returned a verdict awarding totaling $4,396,268 - $2,896,268 for economic damages and $375,000 each for Kunzler's wife and three children.  The jury also found Mr. Kunzler 20% at fault decreasing the amount paid by $879,254.  UDOT was found 35% responsible and the contractor Staker & Parson found 45% responsible.  UDOT's share of the verdict will be reduced to about $500,000 under law that restricts the amount of money a governmental entity has to pay.  Essentially the case was about insufficient highway signing or its absence and the failure to adequately warn drivers that there was construction ahead and to be on the lookout for stopped or slowing traffic.

I have written about highway construction issues and the failure to properly sign and warn about highway construction and I am investigating a wrongful death case of a Utah motorcycle rider on I-84.  Motorcycles, because they only have two wheels, are inherently less stable than four-wheeled cars and trucks.  When we go over a bump we feel it, when we enter roto-milled surfaces our bike seems to take on a mind of its own and goes where it wants and fine sand or gravel is particularly hazardous causing increased braking distances and causing us to fall.  It is incumbent upon UDOT and its contractors to make sure that there is adequate and correct signing that is often mandated by their own rules and procedures either at the state level or the federal level.

To prove these cases you need an arsenal of well-trained professionals available to investigate the crash.  The well-trained professionals include of course your lawyer who orchestrates the investigation and foots the bill, crash reconstructionists, mechanical engineers, human factors experts, often medical experts and a forensics team that will do the work of gathering pictures and other evidence.  These types of road defect or inadequate signing cases are often costly not only to the responsible parties but to the injured client or his surviving family.

It is a curious thing to read the comments posted in response to the Salt Lake Tribune article.  One comment talks about this being an outragious verdict - something like the McDonald's coffee case - outrageous they say.  In the coffee case there had been numerous people before the plaintiff that had been scalded with coffee so hot that skin grafting was required to repair the damage.  One expects coffee to be hot but hot enough to boil the skin off of you - I do not think so.  This crash case also documented that there numerous skid marks on the highway showing that others had near misses.  UDOT and Staker knew they were creating a dangerous condition and did nothing to fix it - that is the bottom line.  For those who write on the comments board I ask you one question - what if it were your husband, wife, son or daughter that had been needlessly killed.

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