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Jury Awards Family $1.3 Million
Kansas News
The Topeka Capital-Journal
Last modified at 12:55 a.m. on Saturday, September 16,
2000The Associated Press
WICHITA -- The Wichita Police Department
has been ordered to pay $1.3 million to a Derby family whose
son was killed in a collision with a patrol car.
The sum awarded by a Sedgwick County District
Court jury this week is five times the maximum Kansas law
allows in wrongful death suits.
"This was a statement by the jury that
the police should treat all their citizens with decency and
respect," said Tom
Erker, an Olathe attorney representing the family
of Shay Vangas.
Vangas, 23, died March 8, 1998, in a crash
with a patrol car driven by Officer William Perkins on rainy
streets in Wichita.
Wichita City Attorney Gary Rebenstorf said
he was disappointed in the verdict, after his staff argued
that Perkins wasn't solely to blame for the accident.
Perkins was responding to another officer's
call for help when he hit Vangas' sport-utility vehicle. Reports
showed Vangas' blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit.
The city didn't dispute that Perkins violated
a department policy that requires patrol cars to come to a
complete stop even in emergency situations.
Court records report Perkins didn't know
how fast he was going when he hit Vangas, who was traveling
about 20 mph.
After reviewing the case, Judge C. Robert
Bell ruled in a summary judgment last month that Perkins should
bear 100 percent of the fault for Vangas' death, leaving the
jury to decide only the amount of damages to be awarded.
"This kind of procedure is fairly unusual,"
said Barb Conant, of the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association,
in Topeka. "Usually the jury determines all the issues,
including those of fault."
Judge Richard Ballinger, who presided over
the three-day jury trial, will have to reconcile the verdict
with a state damage cap of $250,000. The actual award could
surpass $300,000 because part of the jury's awards were for
damages not covered under the cap.
Rebenstorf said the city will review Ballinger's
final judgment before it decides whether to suggest that the
Wichita City Council approve an appeal of the case.
Perkins, meanwhile, remains on the police
force. In 1999, an investigation by Sedgwick County District
Attorney Nola Foulston charged Perkins only with running a
red light and speeding.
Police Chief Norman Williams said the department
doesn't conduct internal investigations until after the resolution
of any criminal or civil court cases.
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