http://www.sacbee.com/127/story/2293355.html
Sacramento jury awards $16.6 million for mom's death in Wii radio contest
By Andy Furillo
afurillo@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 - 12:00 am
A Sacramento jury set an eye-popping standard Thursday on the cost of radio station contests that kill and the resulting loss of a mother's love and a wife's companionship.
The tab for Entercom Sacramento LLC came to $16,577,118 in the water-intoxication death of Jennifer Lea Strange in a contest put on by radio station KDND "The End" (107.9 FM).
Such was the award rendered by a Sacramento Superior Court jury of seven men and five women in the trial to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of Strange's survivors. The 28-year-old woman died Jan. 12, 2007, after she participated in KDND's "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest.
"I think the message of the verdict is these stations need to be more cognizant of what they're doing and they need to take the time to do the research to make sure no one's harmed," juror La Teshia Paggett said in an interview after the panel concluded nine days of deliberations with Thursday's eight-figure award.
Juror Tammy Elliott, echoing the closing arguments of plaintiffs' lawyers, said the evidence against the Sacramento subsidiary of the Philadelphia-based Entercom Communications Corp. was "overwhelming" in the trial that began Sept. 8 and featured testimony from 41 witnesses.
Entercom Sacramento, she said, failed to follow the parent company's guidelines in its contest promising the hard-to-get video game for the participant who drank the most water without urinating or vomiting.
"And if it had been done, I don't think this contest would have gone on, or if it did, it would have went on with medical personnel and it would have been put on in a safe way," Elliott said.
The jury voted unanimously to hold Entercom Sacramento negligent and found that its negligence harmed Strange. It just as unanimously exonerated the station's parent company, Entercom Communications Corp., of any liability.
By a 10-2 vote, the panel awarded $1,477,118 in economic damages to Strange's husband, Billy Strange, individually and as guardian for their children Ryland, 6, and Jorie, 3; and to Ronald Sims, father and guardian of the woman's 13-year-old son, Keegan. On a separate vote of 9-3, jurors awarded the plaintiffs $15.1 million for the loss of Jennifer Strange's love, companionship, comfort, care, assistance, protection, affection, society, moral support, training and guidance.
Plaintiffs' lawyer Roger A. Dreyer said he believes it was the largest wrongful death award ever presented by a jury in Sacramento.
Billy Strange and Ronald Sims sat in a row of seats behind the lawyers' table in Judge Lloyd A. Phillips' courtroom. Jennifer Strange's mother, Nina Louise Hulst, and her husband, Mark, accompanied them into the courtroom and sat in the audience.
The four portrayed a sense of subdued relief afterward.
"I'm very thankful and appreciative that the jurors took their time and that they held the appropriate people accountable," Billy Strange said.
Defense attorneys for Entercom argued that the jury should reduce the damages by whatever percentage of "contributory negligence" it found on Strange's part. The jury, however, voted 10-2 to stick Entercom Sacramento with 100 percent of the fault.
"This case has always been about accountability, and today this jury verdict establishes without question accountability and provides for this family some tremendous level of relief," plaintiffs' attorney Dreyer told reporters afterward. "We never thought Jennifer did anything that would legally rise to a level of responsibility."
Elliott said that some of her fellow jurors held out for a finding that Jennifer Strange "as a human person had personal responsibility for things that you do." But Elliott said the majority held firm that the woman was not negligent and that "there was nothing she needed to research" to ensure her safety.
Most of the acrimony in the deliberations, Elliott said, revolved around the award for non-economic damages. She said discussions became very heated leading up to the final $15.1 million finding.
"We were all over the board on the numbers," Elliott said. "We had to come to the fact that we had to take an average. That way, every juror's number, or their opinion, was weighted evenly and equally."
Paggett said one member of the jury refused to endorse the non-economic damages.
"He felt love – those categories – were invaluable," Paggett said. "And since it was invaluable, he didn't want a dollar amount on it. He felt that we were taking away from the sanctity of the issue. So he didn't want to give anything."
Donald W. Carlson, the San Francisco lawyer who represented Entercom during the trial, was not in the courtroom for the verdict. He had argued that nobody knew anybody could die from drinking too much water and that the death was unforeseeable.
A Los Angeles-based spokesman for Entercom called Strange's death a "tragedy" and said in an e-mailed statement that "our hearts go out to all of her loved ones, including in particular, her husband and children."
The statement from spokesman Charles Sipkins said, "We respect the jury's decision and hope that it will assist the Strange family in coping with its loss."
Sipkins declined to comment when asked if the company planned to appeal or ask the judge to reduce the award.
Dreyer predicted the company will not appeal.
"I believe the defendants want to put this behind them," he said.
Dreyer and co-counsel Harvey R. Levine, who represented the Sims plaintiffs, sought to make the case a statement about the lengths radio stations will go to obtain a ratings edge by promoting potentially dangerous contests.
"This is a very powerful verdict that's going to resonate across the country to the media," Dreyer said. "Every single radio station is going to understand what happened today."
Even though the parent company was exonerated in the action, Dreyer said that officials from Entercom Philadelphia "are wearing this result."
"It's theirs," he said. "Whether it's home or local, it's their responsibility, their failure."
If there was a turning point in the trial, it may have come through the repeated displays by the plaintiffs on a courtroom projector of photographs of Jennifer Strange with her children.
As they showed a younger Keegan Sims locked in the glance of his mother in her wedding dress on the day she married Billy Strange, Paggett and others on the panel wept openly.
"It was difficult," Paggett said. "I'm a mother, so I thought what it would be like if my son was left without me."
http://www.sacbee.com/127/story/2293355.html
