A jury awarded $3.55 million Thursday to the family of an Arizona man who died in a 2005 crash on an icy stretch of interstate east of Gallup.
The six-person jury held the state Department of Transportation "100 percent" negligent for failing to make the road safe. Damages were awarded to the estate and family members of Philip Chaky of Surprise, Ariz.
Chaky died April 10, 2005, after his truck and horse trailer flipped and crashed into an Interstate 40 guard rail east of Gallup.
Two other people died in a separate accident the same day on the same stretch of I-40's eastbound lanes in icy conditions. Both wrecks took place on bridges.
"I wouldn't wish (his death) on any other person," said Tamara Chaky, Philip Chaky's widow, after the jury's decision.
"My thoughts are now that Phil's death is not in vain, and I hope the New Mexico Department of Transportation will use this to prevent other deaths," she said.
Part of the jury's award, $250,000, went to Tara Chaky, the couple's daughter.
At the time of the crash, Philip Chaky was trying to avoid a car that had turned over after skidding on ice and striking a median.
Chaky hit a patch of black ice, which caused his truck and trailer to flip in the air and crash as State Police officers— already at scene responding to the other crash— looked on.
Chaky's crash occurred at about 7 a.m., four miles east of the other deadly crash. In that accident, two travelers were killed after a sport utility vehicle collided with a tractor-trailer.
Carolyn "Cammie" Nichols, co-counsel for the Chaky family along with Bob Rothstein, told jurors in closing remarks that DOT "failed" to prepare for icy conditions.
Before state District Judge James Hall, Nichols said that DOT did not have enough workers laying salt and cinders, especially between mile markers 30 and 31, where the Chaky crash occurred.
Nichols also argued that just one DOT worker was doing the work of several employees who should have been on the job that morning.
"The tragedy here is that (DOT) had four trucks in that yard just sitting there while people were dying on those roads," Nichols said, referring to the Gallup location where area highway maintenance crews are headquartered.
DOT attorney M. Karen Kilgore argued that Chaky was driving too fast for road conditions and it was unfair to place blame on "hard-working" DOT workers.
"They are miracle workers," said Kilgore of the workers. "But they cannot prevail over Mother Nature every time."
Kilgore argued that the simplest explanation for the crash placed no blame on the DOT. "If there are two theories that lead down the same road, look at the one with the least baggage and the fewest assumptions," Kilgore said.
But Nichols tried to flip that point on its head. "The simplest explanation for this is untreated black ice," she said.
Nichols also reminded jurors of testimony by a DOT worker who tried to call for more help the day of the crash.
"We need more guys out!" Nichols said, quoting DOT worker Louie Leyba.
Rothstein, a Santa Fe lawyer, was also the lawyer for the family of a Los Alamos woman who sued the DOT after she died when her car slipped on a dry road treated with anti-icing solution in the days before a predicted snowstorm in 2006.
The DOT paid a $750,000 to settle with the woman's family and a man who was hurt in the same crash.
