Trial begins over county pedestrian crosswalk

A woman struck be a car in a crosswalk is in court claiming the design was faulty and dangerous.

WEST CHESTER » A Common Pleas Court jury on Monday began hearing a civil lawsuit that had been brought by a woman who was struck by a motorist while using a crosswalk outside the Chester County Justice Center. Her attorneys contend that the mid-street pedestrian walkway was designed without proper attention to the dangers it would create.

The engineering firm that designed the crosswalk, “did not do their job,” said attorney Chad Maloney of the firm of Goldberg, Goldberg & Janoski of West Chester, which brought the suit on behalf of the late Agnes Chesko. “The crosswalk was not safe.”

The suit accuses the engineers of disregarding pedestrian safety concerns in favor of making sure automobile traffic was disrupted as little as possible outside the new courthouse and its 500-car parking garage neighbor across West Market Street. Those who want to get from the south side of the street to the north side, or vice versa, are directed to use the crosswalk in the middle of the block, rather than at nearby intersections.

Maloney said that in designing the courthouse, the engineers created problems that eventually led to the traffic accident in which Chesko was seriously injured.

“At no point did the engineers say that a ‘mid-point’ crosswalk is dangerous,” Maloney told the nine men and three women on the jury. “You will not see anywhere the engineers putting their energy into making sure that pedestrians could cross the street safely.”

Chesko was using the crosswalk the evening of Dec. 18, 2012 after finishing work as a tipstaff in Judge John Hall’s courtroom. As she made her way toward the parking garage, a car driven by a Downingtown woman, Karen Johnson, on her way to a church choir practice, struck her in the right side, flipping her into the air.

Johnson, according to her attorney, apparently failed to see Chesko as she used the crosswalk. State law requires motorists to yield to pedestrians in similar situations.

Chesko, a longtime borough resident well known in the community for her civic activism, suffered back, head, neck, spine and torso injuries. In 2013, doctors amputated her right leg because of the injuries she suffered in the accident, the suit states. Her medical bills exceeded $1 million, Maloney told the jurors in his opening statement.

The suit seeks damages for negligence in compensation for her injuries, medical bills, and loss of life’s enjoyments, said Maloney.

Chesko, who was 94 when she died of unrelated medical issues in April 2015, was by all accounts a remarkable woman. She raised four children — one with special needs whom she cared for into his adults years — and taught school for more than 20 years. She loved to travel the world, swam into her 80s, drove a 1969 Firebird convertible, and was active in a host of community organizations.

Many of her activities, however, ended with the injuries suffered in the accident. “That crash took away her ability to live her life the way she wanted,” Maloney said. “None of us would be here if the engineers had just done their job” in making the crosswalk safe for pedestrians.

The trial is being heard in Courtroom One of the county’s Historic Courthouse so as not to expose the jurors to the daily experiences of using the new Justice Center crosswalk and tainting their view of the evidence in the case. The judge hearing the suit, Senior Judge Arthur Tilson of Montgomery County, was assigned to the case after the Chester County judges were taken off the matter because of their closeness to the issue.

The defendants include the multinational engineering firm of Stantec Inc., which acquired the engineering firm of Vollmer Associates of New York in 2007, which had previously taken over the local firm of Brandywine Valley Engineers, which the county had hired to design the courthouse that opened in 2008.

Also listed as defendants are Johnson, the driver; the borough of West Chester; and the state Department of Transportation.

In his opening statement, the lead attorney for Stantec, Frederick Michael Brehm, indicated that he would cast blame on the decisions surrounding the creation of the mid-block crosswalk not on the engineer who designed it but on the governmental entities that later asked for changes that were put into place when the accident involving Chesko occurred.

The initial crosswalk included only warning signs on opposite sides of Market Street telling motorists they had to yield for pedestrians. After the courthouse opened and a traffic and pedestrian study were conducted, additional signs were put up and pedestrian-activated flashing lights installed.

“The design of the crosswalk at the time of the accident was not the design” that had initially been approved, Brehm said.

Chesko’s children and her estate are continuing the lawsuit she filed in 2013. The trial is expected to last at least eight days.