Company Must Pay Injured Man $18 Million
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By: Robert Iafolla LOS ANGELES - A Taiwanese company must pay $17.7 million to a man severely injured in a road accident because the wife of the company's U.S. president had failed a California driving test four days before she struck the man with a company car, a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury has found. The jury actually awarded $18.6 million, thought to be the largest personal injury-verdict in the state this year, but decided Thursday that the plaintiff, Joyson Mallabo, was 5 percent at fault. Mallabo v. Wan Hai Lines (America) Ltd., VC043698 (L.A. Super. Ct. filed Jan. 19, 2005). Mallabo was riding his motorcycle on Oct. 23, 2004, at an uncontrolled intersection in Cerritos when Wen-Ting Tai turned a Wan Hai Lines company car into the motorcycle's path while attempting a left turn, causing a violent crash. "Anytime a plaintiff is on a motorcycle, the jury will find them some-what at fault, just because they're on a motorcycle," said David M. Ring, who represented Mallabo with his partner John C. Taylor. The lawyers are name partners at Taylor & Ring in Los Angeles. Douglas D. Cullins, of Cullins & Grandy in Laguna Beach, represented Wan Hai Lines in the case and was unavailable for comment Monday. Mallabo, who was 23 at the time of the accident, suffered internal injuries, a fractured pelvis and lost the use of his right leg from paralysis and nerve damage. After extensive surgeries, he is able to walk with a cane, Ring said. The jury found that Wan Hai Lines, a Taiwanese deep-sea shipping company, must pay Mallabo $3.6 million for medical bills and lost wages and $15 million for past and future pain and suffering. The $18.6million verdict may turn out to be the largest in a personal-injury case in California this year. In 2006, there was one larger: a $23.4 million verdict in a case where a teenage boy was severely brain-damaged in an auto accident, according to the Web site VerdictSearch.com. Tai moved to Southern California from Taiwan a few months before the accident, when her husband, Ching Tarng Lin, was transferred to the company's office in Long Beach. California law allows drivers to rely on foreign licenses as long as they don't move permanently. Tai attempted to obtain a California license four days before the accident but failed the road test. Failure means a driver made at least 16 mistakes during the test, Ring said. "If you can't pass the test, you shouldn't be driving here," Ring said. The trial took 2 ½ weeks before Superior Court Judge William J. Birney Jr. The jury deliberated for two days before rendering the plaintiff's verdict. |
