Lawsuit Claims Field Fires Contributed To Accident Man Says Grass Smoke One Reason Truck Struck His Car, Injuring Him

A Freeman man injured in a 1994 car crash said in court Tuesday that field fires set by Spokane County grass growers contributed to the accident.

Ronald McCormick, 65, suffered severe leg and hip injuries when his compact car collided with a pickup truck that drifted across the center line on Campbell Road southeast of Spokane.

McCormick filed a lawsuit in 1995, seeking unspecified damages from the driver of the truck and the owners of the field.

McCormick said he was driving to Spokane the afternoon of Sept. 12, when he proceeded past Maple Leaf Farms, operated by Glen and Chris Ramsey.

As the road dipped into a low swale, McCormick claims he was unable to see the road clearly because of the grass smoke.

Brenda L. Sprenger’s truck, going about 25 mph, came three feet across the center line and hit his car head-on, he said. McCormick said he was driving about 20 mph.

McCormick testified he had worked as a machine operator for Inland Empire Paper Co. for 30 years, missing only two or three days due to illness or injury during that tenure.

Since the accident, he said he’s been unable to work.

During the trial, Sprenger is expected to testify that the Ramseys deserve the blame because they didn’t follow county regulations requiring growers to control traffic during field burns.

In his opening statement Tuesday, attorney Paul Kirkpatrick, representing the Ramseys, said Sprenger caused the accident by failing to drive carefully.

McCormick and his wife, Lee, have 10 children, two of whom still live at home. The family’s income has been drastically reduced because of the accident, according to their attorney, Max Etter.

Kirkpatrick is expected to describe efforts by the Ramseys to control traffic at the southeast and southwest corners of the 200-acre burn field.

But Etter said he’ll show that the Ramseys did not halt traffic at the other corners.

Etter said McCormick drove south on Campbell and crossed Stoughton Road where he should have been stopped by someone working as a traffic monitor for the grass growers.

At the time, Sprenger was about a mile south, approaching the intersection of Elder and Campbell, at the southwest corner of the burn field.

Etter said the pickup driver was originally stopped by one of the Ramseys’ workers at the intersection, but she convinced the person there she could proceed.

Sprenger’s attorney, David Goicoechea, said she was driving carefully on Campbell Road as the field was burning.

But as she approached the dip in the road, a large cloud of smoke suddenly engulfed her truck.

The trial before Superior Court Judge Michael Donohue is expected to last two weeks.

, DataTimes