Monterey County Jury Holds Caltrans 60 Percent Liable for Double Fatality on Highway 156, Awarding $18.7 Million to Two Families

On the afternoon of November 5, 2010, Maria Angeles Almanza-Romero, a 48-year-old caregiver, came to a stop on State Route 156 in Monterey County to wait for traffic to clear before turning left into her private driveway. It was a maneuver the highway's design effectively required of residents with driveways off that stretch of road. Ronn Charles Williams, driving a big rig for Bhandal Brothers Trucking, Inc., failed to stop in time. The commercial truck rear-ended Almanza-Romero's vehicle, triggering a multi-vehicle collision. Almanza-Romero and a young boy, Alex Navarro, who was traveling with his mother Cassandra Jones, both died. Jones was also seriously injured.

The families filed suit in Monterey County Superior Court (Case No. M111007) against Williams, Bhandal Brothers, and the State of California through Caltrans. Plaintiffs' counsel, B. Robert Allard and Lauren Cerri of Corsiglia McMahon and Allard, argued that the state bore primary responsibility, not merely the driver.

At trial, the plaintiffs introduced Caltrans-produced Project Study Reports dating back to 1997 showing that 55 percent of accidents on Highway 156 were rear-end collisions, most of them triggered by motorists slowing or stopping to cross oncoming traffic. Caltrans engineers had documented the pattern and recommended eliminating left-hand turns in at least three separate internal reports over more than a decade. None of those recommendations led to action. When Caltrans finally intervened in 2008, it installed rumble strips aimed at head-on collisions, a crash type that accounted for only about 2 percent of incidents on that stretch. The modification did nothing to address the rear-end hazard and, plaintiffs argued, reinforced the dangerous left-turn behavior by keeping the access pattern intact.

Expert witnesses presented by plaintiffs estimated that corrective measures such as signage, delineators, and a continuous rumble strip across the left-turn zone would have cost the state under $25,000.

The matter went to trial on January 13, 2014. The jury assigned 60 percent of fault to Caltrans and 40 percent to Williams and Bhandal Brothers, rejecting Caltrans' position that the highway was safe and that the truck driver was solely responsible. On February 27, 2014, the jury returned a total verdict of $18,681,052.49: $9,406,186.53 to the heirs of Almanza-Romero and $9,274,865.96 to Jones and Navarro's estate.