San Diego’s recent payout of nearly $5 million to an injured bicyclist is the result of flawed city policies that don’t prioritize promptly fixing dangerously damaged sidewalks, the attorney for the injured man said Tuesday.

City officials inspected the tree-damaged sidewalk in Del Cerro that launched Clifford Brown 28 feet on his bike nearly five months before the September 2014 crash, but the problem wasn’t quickly fixed despite an inspector deeming it “a serious condition which needs immediate repair.”

And city records show that the 7-inch sidewalk bump wasn’t fixed until six months after Brown’s crash, which tore some of his spinal cord ligaments, knocked out several teeth and caused brain damage that left him incapable of functioning independently.


“When they receive notice of damaged sidewalks they may earmark them for inspection, but once they review them they don’t prioritize the dangerous ones,” said attorney William Berman, in his first public comments on the settlement. “There’s an internal flaw in the system.”

Berman said such a policy flaw leaves San Diego vulnerable to many more hefty payouts to people injured by damaged sidewalk elsewhere in the city.

“They knew about this break in the sidewalk,” said Berman. “They had a city maintenance crew go out and mark the sidewalk for repair and they let it go for five months without getting back to it.”

RELATED: San Diego OK’s $4.85M for bicyclist injured by sidewalk


City spokeswoman Katie Keach didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The $4.85 million settlement, the largest in city history for a case involving sidewalks, was unusually big because of Brown’s medical bills, his need for future medical care and the possibility he won’t be able to work again, a spokesman for City Attorney Mara Elliott said.

The last three city settlements of sidewalk cases before Brown were for $75,000, $98,000 and $235,000.

The settlement is smaller than $7.6 million that a jury awarded in 2012 to a Mission Hills man who was paralyzed when a 60-foot-tall queen palm tree fell on him during a storm in 2010, crushing his legs.


In that case, victim Michael Burke argued the city was liable because it had slashed funding for tree maintenance and inspection as part of budget cuts during the Great Recession.

After the City Council approved Brown’s settlement on March 7, Councilman David Alvarez renewed his previous requests for a new policy shifting the responsibility of repairing sidewalks almost entirely to the city.

RELATED: San Diego may change sidewalk policy in wake of $5M injury settlement

Alvarez says the existing policy, which makes adjacent property owners responsible for repairs in all but a small number of circumstances, has resulted in too many damaged sidewalks and large injury payouts.


Making property owners responsible leads to inaction because they are reluctant to incur the costs and go through the complex process of hiring a contractor and obtaining city permits.

Under existing policy, the city is essentially responsible only when sidewalks are damaged by utility work, heat expansion or changes in grade.

Alvarez would shift the policy to say that the city is responsible unless it is determined that the damage was caused by the adjacent property owner or a third party.

A lawsuit filed by Brown says despite that policy, the city should have taken “corrective measures” to eliminate the sidewalk ramp that a tree root had created on the east side of College Avenue just south of Eldergardens Street.


Because the sidewalk wasn’t repaired, the raised curb threw him and his 21-speed Schwinn bike 28 feet. Brown then skidded another 10 feet and landed on his head, leaving a small pool of blood, according to a police report.

The investigating officer, Mark Hodges, said Brown was primarily to blame because he violated a section of California Vehicle Code requiring people not to drive vehicles or bikes “at a speed greater than is reasonable or prudent.”

Brown was not at fault for simply bicycling on the sidewalk, which is illegal in most of San Diego’s commercial areas but is allowed in residential areas as long as cyclists “exercise due care” and yield the right of way to pedestrians.

Despite finding Brown primarily at fault, Officer Hodges determined the damaged sidewalk was a contributing factor in the crash.


david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick