Supervisors Award Over $1 Million to Cycle-Crash Victim

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to pay $1.15 million to a man who was left paralyzed after a 1983 motorcycle accident on Bouquet Canyon Road in Saugus.

The award to James Burghardt, 25, is the largest out-of-court settlement by the county in a personal injury case, although the county has lost larger sums after trials in such cases, said Owen Gallagher, senior deputy county counsel.

Burghardt alleged in a lawsuit filed in San Fernando Superior Court in January, 1984, that he lost control of his motorcycle because of rock and other debris that county workers had failed to clear from the roadway. The motorcycle then hit a five-foot-high mound of dirt and a 20-foot-long rusted metal pipe on the road’s shoulder, causing Burghardt to fall and the cycle to flip into the air, according to court documents. The motorcycle landed on Burghardt’s back, fracturing his spine.

Burghardt, then a Lockheed Corp. assembly line worker living in Palmdale, lost the use of his legs and most of the use of his arms, Gallagher said.

The case went to trial Jan. 27 but was stopped Feb. 18 after Burghardt decided to accept the county’s offer, Gallagher said. He said the county Claims Board recommended the settlement after the county counsel’s office researched the amounts that Los Angeles County juries have awarded individuals recently in similar personal-injury lawsuits. The awards have been from $3 million to $14 million, Gallagher said.

The supervisors approved the lump-sum payment to Burghardt by a 4-0 vote without comment.

Burghardt, who is unemployed, now lives in San Bernardino.