Timing Plays Role in City Negotiations to Settle Crash Suit : Courts: Victim says traffic signal changed too soon. L.A. may pay claim because accident occurred just before liability limits were passed into law.

A split second could cost the city of Los Angeles $500,000.

That is the amount the city attorney’s office is offering to settle a lawsuit which alleges that a traffic light at a Chatsworth intersection was improperly timed and caused a traffic accident that left physical therapist Jane Czech with a limp and other disabilities.

A day after selecting a wedding dress, Czech was on her way to a gym when she stopped at a red light at De Soto Avenue and Parthenia Street on the morning of May 26, 1986.

The light turned green and a moment later Czech’s northbound car was hit by an eastbound automobile. Czech was thrown from her car and suffered a skull fracture and massive internal injuries.

Czech, a physical therapist at Northridge Hospital Medical Center at the time, sued the city on the grounds that the traffic signal had a history of mechanical problems and that it should have displayed a yellow light for at least 3 1/2 seconds instead of 3.

As a result, the eastbound vehicle was crossing the intersection on a yellow light “when Jane’s light turned green at the same instant his light turned red,” said Czech’s brother, attorney William Czech, who filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on his sister’s behalf in October, 1986.

After the accident, Jane Czech was in a coma for two weeks and underwent several operations to treat the skull fracture, which her attorney said resulted in some permanent brain damage.

“She walks with a limp, has lost use of much of her right side and can’t even help her 13-year-old daughter with homework,” her brother said.

Although the city has not accepted blame for the accident, the yellow-light phase was extended in April, 1988, to 3 1/2 seconds at the corner, where eight to 12 right-angle collisions are reported each year, city officials said.

Now, the city attorney’s office is recommending that the City Council settle the case for $500,000 because the signal was arguably faulty--and because the accident occurred four days before “deep pockets” provisions were stricken from state law.

In June, 1986, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 51, which limits liability for non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering, to a defendant’s degree of fault in a lawsuit with more than one defendant.

The city could be held responsible for the entire verdict, which in this case could be as high as $3 million, Assistant City Atty. Philip Sugar said.

“If it (the accident) had happened after the law changed . . . we would have been offering little or nothing,” Sugar said.

The Council’s Budget and Finance Committee is expected to consider the settlement offer next week. The case had been scheduled for trial before the end of the year but was postponed pending the completion of settlement negotiations.

The settlement proposal culminates thousands of hours of research into traffic laws and traffic theory by William Czech and his partner, attorney Walter Bansley.

In legal filings, William Czech argued that the traffic signal’s 3-second yellow-light phase was inadequate for traffic conditions at the intersection.

He also alleged that electronic signal controllers at the corner had a history of mechanical problems, and that the location required an all-red phase to allow traffic to clear the intersection before flashing green.

Transportation Department officials said the 3-second yellow-light phase was adequate for the intersection’s posted speed limit of 35 m.p.h. They said the intersection’s yellow-light phase was extended in 1988 to provide an extra margin of safety, and not as a result of the suit’s allegations.

In a letter sent to City Council members on Sept. 30, however, Sugar acknowledged that city records indicated that the prevailing speed at the location is in excess of 40 m.p.h.

“Based on this standard, the minimum yellow phase should have been 3 1/2 seconds for all directions, a modification which the city made after this accident,” he wrote.

Sugar also noted in the letter that the electronic controller at the intersection had been replaced four times in less than two years before the accident.

“This is an unusually high failure rate,” Sugar wrote.

The driver of the other vehicle involved in the accident has already settled with Czech for $500,000 paid by his insurance company, Sugar said.

Jane Czech, 40, of Northridge could not be reached for comment. But her brother said the settlement would help defray medical bills that have already exceeded $200,000.

Meanwhile, her brother said Czech has married a man she met since the accident and has been working at “low-level part-time physical therapy jobs obtained through an agency.”