Syracuse, NY - A town of Clay woman has been awarded $345,000 for injuries she suffered in a 1999 crash blamed, in part, on a road defect along the Onondaga Lake Parkway in Salina. State Court of Claims Judge Diane Fitzpatrick found the state 60 percent liable for the crash because a dip at the edge of the pavement caused...
Syracuse, NY - A town of Clay woman has been awarded $345,000 for injuries she suffered in a 1999 crash blamed, in part, on a road defect along the Onondaga Lake Parkway in Salina.
State Court of Claims Judge Diane Fitzpatrick found the state 60 percent liable for the crash because a dip at the edge of the pavement caused the motorist to veer across the highway into oncoming traffic as she tried to re-enter the road from the right shoulder.
Fitzpatrick found the motorist, Tiffany Michelle Patton, was 40 percent responsible for the crash for not stopping when she initially veered onto the shoulder to avoid colliding with a vehicle that had cut in front of her on the highway.
Patton was heading home from the Carousel Center about 5 p.m. Dec. 30, 1999, when she pulled into the passing lane on the parkway -- it was clear and dry at the time -- and another vehicle pulled into the same lane right in front of her, according to Fitzpatrick’s 31-page decision.
To avoid striking that vehicle, Patton braked and steered to the right, causing her vehicle to travel off the pavement onto a graveled area on the side of the road, the judge noted. Rather than stopping before trying to pull back onto the highway, Patton turned her steering wheel to the left and the car bounded back onto the roadway, crossed the center line and collided with an oncoming van, Fitzpatrick noted.
Patton, then 28, suffered a neck injury that has healed but has left her with chronic pain, the judge wrote.
In her decision, Fitzpatrick pointed to a 1996 parkway resurfacing project that contributed to leaving a drop of between four and eight inches between the side of the pavement and the shoulder.
Although the project called for angling or beveling the side of the pavement to avoid such a drop-off, that work was not done in the area of the highway where the crash occurred, the judge found.
The Highway Maintenance Guidelines considers a drop-off of four to five inches to be “questionably safe” and a high number of drivers would have difficulty maintaining control of their vehicles trying to get back onto the pavement, Fitzpatrick noted.
A drop-off of five inches or more is considered “unsafe” under the guidelines and would cause “almost all drivers great difficulty” getting back on the pavement and maintaining control of their vehicles, the judge wrote.
Experts testified that the problem with such a drop-off is that when a motorist tries to get back on the pavement, the tire will ride along the edge of the pavement in what is called “scrubbing,” forcing the driver to turn the wheel more to the left, Fitzpatrick explained. When the tire then catches, the vehicle will “pivot onto the highway and will be catapulted across it,” the judge noted.
Fitzpatrick concluded that the addition of 1 ½ inches of new pavement on top of the existing pavement in 1996, coupled with erosion of the gravel material on the shoulder of the road, created the unsafe condition that state Department of Transportation workers either failed to discover or address.
In her decision, the judge concluded Patton’s past pain and suffering was worth $350,000 and her future pain and suffering was worth $225,000. With the adjustment for Patton’s 40-percent fault, that reduced the award to $345,000.
Patton was represented by Syracuse lawyer Sidney Cominsky.