Joggers struck
Award: $50,000,000
Two young mothers struck by a car while jogging along the Pacific Coast Highway were rendered quadriplegic and attributed the accident to negligent construction and maintenance of the bike lanes (Daniel v. City of Dana Point, Orange County Superior Court, Plaintiff attorney: Daniel J. Callahan).

Whistle-blowing
Award: $1,063,115
Officer was retaliated against after reporting sexual misconduct on the part of the chief of police with several female officers (Christle v. City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Superior Court, Plaintiff attorney: Bradley C. Gage).

Auto design
Award: Defense
Passengers in a Kia automobile involved in a head-on collision blamed their injuries on a defectively designed restraint system (Delgado v. Kia Motors Corp., Los Angeles County Superior Court, Defense attorney: Mark V. Berry).

Bench collapse
Award: $1,700,000
Customer at a pizza restaurant was injured when the picnic bench on which he was sitting collapsed (Valencia v. Portola Pizza Factory, Plumas County Superior Court, Plaintiff attorney: Roger A. Dreyer).

Waitress assaulted
Award: $2,833,895
A restaurant patron dragged a waitress into a rest room where he choked and molested her while the manager ignored her predicament (Park v. Sun’s California Inc., Los Angeles County Superior Court, Plaintiff attorney: Amy E. Allemann).

Sunbather killed
Award: $2,750,000
Sunbather was run over and killed on a beach by two Oxnard police officers driving a 6,500-lb. SUV (Krieger v. City of Oxnard, Ventura County Superior Court, Plaintiff attorney: Mark O. Hiepler).

Ophthalmologist negligence
Award: Defense
Eye patient alleged that her cataract surgery resulted in the loss of her eye because of negligent post-surgical treatment (Barrientos v. Katzman, San Diego County Superior Court, Defense attorney: James D. Boley).

Infant brain damage
Award: $1,650,000
Ten times the ordered dose of total parenteral nutrition (TPN) administered to a newborn recovering from abdominal surgery, resulted in brain damage (Moc v. Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Superior Court, Plaintiff attorney: Arlan A. Cohen).

Motorcyclist injured
Award: $15,735,404
Sixty-two-year-old retired police officer was severely injured when he was struck and dragged on his motorcycle by a dump truck in an intersection collision (Bowman v. City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Superior Court, Plaintiff attorney: Michael Alder.)

Editor's Note: California Bar Journal publishes this abbreviated summary of important trials in California provided by Trials Digest, a Thomson West business. To report your case results, go to west.thomson.com/trialsdigest/form.asp or call 415-344-6000.