RPV man awarded $11.6 million for traffic crash

Cletus Schmidt had no warning that a remote highway near Joshua Tree National Park was coming to an end, and crashed into a rock-hard embankment on Jan. 6, 2006. The collision left him a paraplegic dependent on a ventilator.

On Monday, a Riverside jury ordered the state Dept. of Transportation to pay Schmidt and his wife, Marlene Schmidt, $11.6 million because the agency failed to maintain safety features that were in place to warn motorists that the road was coming to an end. It turned out that there were eight crashes at that same T-intersection of highways 62 and 177 in the 21 months before Schmidt's wreck.

Schmidt was represented by Hermosa Beach attorney and Palos Verdes resident Albro Lundy III, who grew up with the elderly couple's four children, attending St. John Fisher and Rolling Hills High schools together. When Lundy's father died at age 11, Schmidt stepped-in as a  father figure. They became close, and Schmidt stood by Lundy's side when he got married 25 years ago. In a press release, Schmidt said: "What goes around, comes around. When Albro was little, we took care of him. Now he's taking care of us." Lundy, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor during the course of the litigation, was assisted by attorneys Joe Barrett, Norm Coe and Gary Dordick.

I'm working on a full story about the case.