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# Crosswalk accident trial yields to judge
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/crosswalk-accident-trial-yields-to-judge/
- Published: 2004-10-14T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T05:17:32.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Crime, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*City of WeHo accepts no responsibility in car accident*

*By KATHLEEN BISHOP Special to the Daily Press*

SM Courthouse — Lawyers here made their closing arguments Wednesday in a case brought against the city of West Hollywood by a man who was permanently injured in a 2001 accident at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Alta Loma Road.

Santa Monica attorney Browne Greene, who is representing Jason Eli Sayers, finished his closing statements on Wednesday. Defense attorney Scott C. Haith was expected to finish his final arguments late Wednesday.

Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Valerie Baker is expected to make a verdict in the next few days.

Sayers was brain damaged after being hit by a car driven by Danielle Mason on April 24, 2001\. Sayers filed suit against the city on Dec. 6, 2001 for negligence and dangerous condition of public property.

Greene attempted to prove that the condition of the intersection was dangerous and that the city’s defenses didn’t have merit. He cited letters from residents alerting city staff about problems at the intersection and the city’s decision not to improve the conditions. He also cited expert testimony and referred to Sayers’ and Mason’s cautious behavior as evidence that the city was at fault for the accident.

Greene said Mason slowed down from 35 miles per hour to about 28 miles per hour as she approached the intersection, and Sayers made contact with her at the time of the accident. However, an expert witness testified earlier that there was only 1 1/2 seconds of response time after Sayers and Mason saw each other.

Pavement lights, three pedestrian signs, a pedestrian crossing warning painted on the street, and a crosswalk marked by two painted lines were all safety precautions at the intersection at the time of the accident. Greene claimed many of them were not functioning properly, causing dangerous conditions. The pavement lights were broken, the signs were obstructed by foliage, and the lack of zebra lines in the crosswalk made it was difficult to see, he argued.

Both the city and Greene agree that the pavement light system was broken for up to nine months before Sayers’ accident.

“Why wait and expose thousands of people, not only pedestrians, but drivers as well, to these conditions?” Greene asked. He called the light system unreliable and said the city was negligent for not fixing it at a high-traffic, high-speed intersection, especially when they knew it wasn’t working.

Haith argued that Sayers’ and Mason’s lack of care was the cause of the accident. He also argued that Greene failed to prove that the conditions were inherently dangerous and they didn’t show substantial risk of injury. He said Sayers didn’t take the precaution of looking around the two cars yielding to him to see if more were coming in the other lane. Haith also disputed Greene’s claim that Mason slowed down and thought yielding cars were pulling into a driveway, or were double parked.

“Ms. Mason did not know there was a driveway there until after the accident,” Haith said. “They’re saying every possibility was running through her head except for the most logical thing — that there was an intersection and a crosswalk.”

> “Ms. Mason did not know there was a driveway there until after the accident.” — – BROWNE GREENE Attorney

Mason’s home is two blocks from the intersection and she had driven past it before, Haith said.

Haith called the light system experimental rather than unreliable and said the city had adequate cause not to fix the lights, mostly because a traffic signal was planned to be installed there.

Even without the lights, Haith argued that the intersection was just like every other unsignaled crosswalk in the city and Sayers exaggerated the obstruction of the signs. Haith said since 1990, the intersection had about one pedestrian accident per 35 million cars, which is less than the expected accident rate of one accident per 40 million. A 1997 State of California report said West Hollywood had the “worst pedestrian accident rate for the 98 cities in the state.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 14, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/101404.pdf?ref=smdp.com)