Chris Clark (left) and Melvin Hewitt

The Georgia Department of Transportation paid $2 million to settle claims stemming from a 2013 wreck where a car traveling down Interstate 20 in Warren County west of Augusta hit the end of a guardrail, which speared the vehicle and killed two people.

The breakaway cable terminal, or BCT, guardrail has been known to be a safety hazard for decades, and GDOT was under federal notice to replace them when it did other maintenance work, said Isenberg & Hewitt partner Mel Hewitt.

“The Highway Safety Administration sent out a number of notices going back … years ago saying these things are dangerous, and there were a lot of crashes where they were intruding into the passenger compartment, and injuring and killing people,” Hewitt said.

Under the federal advisories, GDOT was supposed to replace BCT guardrails whenever it did any repair, reconstruction or rehabilitation, or 3R work, around the state, Hewitt said.

“But we discovered that they'd done 3R work in that area in the years between and never replaced this one,” said Hewitt, who handled the cases with Chris Clark of Macon's Clark & Smith Law Firm.

According to Hewitt and other sources, 22-year-old Jacob Spradley of Milan was at the wheel of a Ford Mustang in November 2013 when he lost control and hit the guardrail.

Instead of cushioning and redirecting the impact, the rail pierced the passenger door, killing 41-year-old James Joyner of Savannah, and went straight through to kill Spradley, as well.

“The vehicle was exceeding the speed limit,” said Hewitt. “Not terribly, but it was speeding.”

There were no allegations of drug or alcohol impairment, he said.  

Representing the estates and mothers of both men, Hewitt and Clark demanded $1 million for each but were denied, Hewitt said.

They filed separate suits in Warren County Superior Court in 2016.

They learned during discovery that GDOT should have replaced the fatal guardrail well before the accident as part of 3R work on the highway, and that GDOT had not worked to identify and map the locations of BCT guardrails around the state so they could be replaced, Hewitt said.

Hewitt said the litigation was hard-fought, with the state arguing that Spradley's speed and failure to control the vehicle caused the wreck. The litigation included a mediation before Tom Tobin with Henning Mediation & Arbitration Services.

GDOT ultimately agreed to a global settlement under which Joyner's estate received $1.4 million and Spradley's received $600,000, Hewitt said.

The settlement was finalized on March 14, Hewitt said.

GDOT's media representative did not respond to requests for comment.