JETT v. DUTTON
Construction Defect/Personal Injury. Our client, the Diocese of Orange (the Catholic Church) was accused by co-defendant Orange County, under oath, of being the owner of Antonio Parkway adjacent to the entrance to Santa Margarita High School, where this car accident took place. We had to prove, with the help of our expert, that the public employees responsible for reading the plat maps were doing a superficial job instead of actually reading all the map pages, which disclosed that the developers of the subdivision had arranged things so as to absolve the church and their school from any responsibility for the road. The jury came back 11-1 for the defense. The one adverse voter was a County employee, who apparently felt that lazy public employees were entitled to lie about stuff if it meant less work and the County getting dismissed.
