Jury finds piled-up snow a factor in fatal crash

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Salt Lake City jury awarded $1.3 million in damages Wednesday in the case of a woman who was killed in a car crash that her family said was caused by improper snow removal and bad road design.

The jury reached the verdict in the wrongful death case of 40-year-old Diane Berg, according to court records.

The amount awarded to the family will be reduced to $750,000 because the jury found Berg bore some responsibility for the crash, though the panel said more of the blame lay with state transportation authorities, said attorney S. Baird Morgan. He said the family feels vindicated by the verdict.

A spokeswoman for the Utah Attorney General's Office did not immediately return a call seeking comment on the verdict Wednesday night.

Deliberations began Wednesday after the seven-day trial. The lawsuit claimed that state transportation authorities allowed piled-up snow to form a kind of ramp that launched Berg's car over a guardrail and off an overpass as she tried to drive onto Interstate 215 in January 2011.

"This case is not about money," Morgan said during closing arguments Tuesday. While he argued that the family should be compensated, he said the suit is more about holding the state accountable for keeping roads safe. The ultimate damages in the case could be limited by laws controlling suits against public entities.

State attorneys countered that Berg's driving caused the accident that happened while Utah Department of Transportation crews were trying to clear roads after a record snowstorm.

Assistant Utah Attorney General Steve Combe argued that the death was tragic, but the state wasn't liable.

"This isn't complicated," he said during closing arguments.

Combe pointed to testimony from another driver that day who said Berg seemed to be distracted the morning of January 4, 2011.

Morgan countered that records show Berg wasn't using her phone that morning, and that suggesting she was "smacks of desperation on the part of UDOT."

The family says in the suit filed in 2012 that the Holladay woman found herself in a "no escape" situation as she tried to enter the highway from an unreasonably short merge lane at 3900 South in suburban Salt Lake City on her way to work. Her car went off the overpass and landed on its top, killing her.

Morgan says that authorities had three days of clear weather after the storm to clear the roads, and a lack of planning contributed to the fatal crash.

The state countered that the accident could have been avoided if Berg had hit her brakes.

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