SAN DIEGO — San Diego is set to pay $4.8 million in a death and injury lawsuit after two pedestrians were hit by a car outside Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns in 2015.
On Sept. 15, 2015 Jaime Leonen died and Jorge Lopez suffered severe spinal injuries and is permanently disabled after they were hit by a car on Health Center Drive in Kearny Mesa.
City Council Tuesday, July 25, unanimously approved the settlement in open session, just two months after the civil trial closed out with a hung jury.
The 2016 lawsuit filed by the Lopez and the Leonen family alleged the city is responsible for the crash for failing to maintain the 3000 block of Health Center Drive, a well-documented hot spot for accidents. The suit also claims Sharp personnel had warned pedestrians about the area since 2001.
"They weren't the first, the fifth, or even the tenth people to be struck midblock by a passing motorist," the court documents read. "By the City's own admission they would ultimately become the fourteenth - and hopefully last - victims to be seriously injured and/or killed along Health Center Drive."
In a CBS8 exclusive interview, Lopez, who was severely injured during the crash, said the accident and loss has been difficult for he and his family emotionally.
"I was really, really happy for my daughter because she was so happy," Lopez said. And I think when those things happen, and you wake up and you find out that we lost him, my first initial reaction was why him and not me. And I dealt with that for quite awhile."
The Accident
Lopez, his wife Dianna, daughter Danielle and her boyfriend Leonen were on their way to visit a family member who had just had a baby Sept. 15, 2015. The family had parked along the western side of Health Center Drive around 8 p.m.
The lawsuit claims Lopez looked both ways and believed they were in the clear. However, a steep dip in the road prevented the pair from seeing how close the oncoming vehicles were. They were hit seconds later.
Leonen was vaulted nearly 30 feet, according to the court documents, and his skull crashed against both the vehicle and the pavement when he landed. He died in the hospital, while Lopez suffered serious injuries that resulted in a week's long hospitalization, multiple surgeries and over $1 million in medical expenses.
The lawsuit claims the city is responsible and knew of the dangers this stretch of road brought to pedestrians.
In an email obtained by CBS8, a San Diego Police officer warned city officials after a nurse was struck just eight months before Lopez and Leonen were hit.
Despite the warning, the city did nothing.
Experts in the trial testified that the dip in the roadway is akin to an approaching vehicle shutting off its headlights for roughly five seconds if the vehicle is going 35 mph. At night, it can give pedestrians a false sense of security when starting to cross the street.
Lopez said he later learned of the myriad accidents that happened in the area.
"At this point in my life, I know how to cross a street," he said. "And I did a check and there was nothing coming. I couldn't see anything."
He said Leonen also did not see any oncoming vehicles.
"And the next thing you know, we're struck by the car."
Myriad collisions
At least 13 others have been hit by cars while crossing Health Center Drive since 1998, but Leonen was the first to die. He was one of 54 traffic deaths in 2015, the year San Diego's Vision Zero initiative was implemented.
Vision Zero is part of a larger concept that traffic fatalities, whether you’re in a car or on a bike or on foot, are preventable by addressing flaws in road design and making intersections safer.
Public records obtained by CBS 8 show that 427 people have died in traffic-related collisions since 2015.
While Leonen was the first to die when crossing the roadway, the family's attorney Brett Schreiber said hospital staff such as doctors and nurses had historically been victims in the collisions.
"We had information from Sharp executives, going back to leaders within the city for well over a decade, asking them, imploring them, to do something to make this section of roadway safer," Schreiber said. "Whether it was a combination of indifference or apathy, or just bureaucratic inability to make the change. Nothing happened."
Schreiber said an easy solution was for the city to put up no parking signs and enforce it.
"And not surprisingly, when you stop people from parking on the north side of that roadway, you now no longer have hundreds of people a day trying to cross the street, and therefore, people are not being hit," said Schreiber.
The family initially asked for $12 million. In the trial earlier this year, only eight of the 12-person jury voted to hold the city liable — nine votes were required. Schreiber said they were one vote short of costing the city "quite a bit more" than the $4.8 million now set.
"We respect and we appreciate the city finally taking some accountability and taking some responsibility," he said.
Lopez agrees accountability is important, but he hopes he and his family can move on with their lives.
"It's never going to be gone because of the fact that my injuries are such that they'll always be there," Lopez said. "But at least emotionally, we'll be able to move forward and be whole again, because it put a lot of stress on the family, our relationship."