Setback

Since we were trading services with Lee for the grading, it seemed that it was not on the top of his priority list.  Or perhaps it was because he was waiting for more dirt.  But the grading just seemed to be taking a long time to complete.

One evening Kathy was driving a van load of scouts from our troop over to the Bonita Building for a Court of Honor.  This was back before the freeway.  She had to turn onto Valley Road from the two lane highway that was referred to as the "South Bay Freeway".  There wasn't a traffic light there.  As she made the left turn onto Valley Road, she was broadsided by a motorcyclist.  This unexpected event threw a wrench into the works.  Lee never discussed it with me, but it seemed he stopped working on our job, perhaps out of fear that we might lose the property.  We had $50,000 liability insurance on the van, which was not very much considering he hit her at nearly 60 miles per hour, with no helmet.  (After three months in a medically induced coma, the motorcyclist began a long recovery process.)

Soon we received papers regarding the dreaded lawsuit.  Kathy was called in for depositions.  We were not sure we would come out of this situation financially intact.  There was a good chance we would lose everything.  There was a lot of emotional turmoil as well.  As each month passed, we saw little if any progress on the grading.  We stressed over the outcome of the lawsuit.  Life just was not fun at the point. 

Nearly a year after the accident, as I was perusing the lawsuit papers, I noticed that it named "Does 1 through 20", but I did not see Kathy's name listed in the suit.  I talked to Tom's wife, Terry (our neighbors) about this.  She seemed to be a bit more knowledgeable then I was.  She explained that in a law suit they often put "Does" (like John Doe) into the lawsuit to include anyone that may be liable, but was overlooked when they first filed the paperwork.  But Terry said that Kathy could not be considered as one of the Does, since she was the primary defendant.

I called the attorney who was representing us from our auto insurance company and brought this to his attention.  He called the plaintiff's attorney and explained the situation, and offered him one last chance to accept the $50,000.00 settlement.  By this time a year had passed, and apparently there was some technicality why he could not file a personal injury lawsuit after that much time had passed.  So the defendant's attorney hurriedly tried to have his client declared "incompetent", so the time limit would not apply.  But for some reason that did not happen.  They accepted the settlement, and the issue was favorably resolved for us.

After one long year of stress and concern, things seemed to return to "normal".  Lee found a source for lots of free dirt, and was able to finish the grading to an elevation were downstairs sewer, with slope, ended up being about three feet above the connection point in the street.