Stunner Verdict Against Utility for Failing to LIght Tower

When I was a young associate in an insurance defense firm about 300 years ago, our senior partner made one of the other associates try a plaintiff death case.  I say "made him" try it, because the theory was that our client's decedent, a small airplane pilot, was the victim of negligence when he flew his plane into the side of a mountain next to an air strip on a bright, sunny, cloudless day.  We always thought it was the senior partner's way of teaching the associate humility, and I think the jury was out just about long enough to choose a foreperson before coming back with a defense verdict.

Well, here's a verdict from a rather similar case, obtained by a pretty talented lawyer:  A San Diego jury awarded $15.2 million in compensatory damages and $40.4 million in a death case involving four Camp Pendleton marines killed in a 2004 helicopter crash.  The accident, of course, is tragic.  But the theory, which the jury apparently bought, was that San Diego Gas & Electric was negligent for not putting safety lights on a tower;  the pilot whose heirs were not parties to the case) crashed into the unlit tower.  Per the Los Angeles Times story, the cable (and presumably the tower) had been on the base without incident for twenty-five years.

Hat tip to California Punitive Damages, An Exemplary Blog.