The daughter of ’90s rapper MC Supreme, legally Dewayne Lawrence Coleman, who was killed on Pacific Coast Highway near Corral Canyon Road in June when a pickup truck slammed into the parked car he was sitting in, has filed a legal claim against the City of Malibu, according to City Clerk Lisa Pope.
News of the claim was first broken by celebrity gossip website TMZ, which stated that Yahdiya Coleman, MC Supreme’s daughter, filed against not only the City of Malibu but also the State of California and Phillip Torres, the driver of the pickup that crashed into Supreme’s Honda Civic.
In the suit, Coleman charges the city for a number of things, including “failing to install warning signs, lights or guardrails in the area,” TMZ reported.
“We did get a claim,” Pope said in response to questions about Coleman’s filing. “I haven’t received any litigation.”
According to City Attorney Christi Hogin, the claim must be evaluated in conjunction with the City of Malibu’s insurer before any further steps can be taken and before litigation enters the equation.
“We’ll look at it to see whether or not there’s liability,” Hogin said.
Because PCH is not owned by the City of Malibu, there is a fair probability that the city’s insurer, California Joint Powers Insurance Authority, will deny liability, although they will defend the suit.
“Usually when there [are] accidents that occur on PCH, people are often unaware that the city doesn’t own or control the highway, so it’s often unlikely that there’s city liability for things that occur on the highway,” Hogin said. “We’ll take a look at all the circumstances, then we’ll either deny the claim or not, and that’s the point where a lawsuit can be filed.”
The accident, which occurred at 6:22 a.m. on Saturday, June 13, involved a full-size GMC pickup truck that crashed into two parked cars, Supreme’s Civic and a GMC Sierra pickup, which was also occupied. In addition to Supreme’s fatal injuries, four others were injured in the crash, including Torres, who sustained minor injuries, according to the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station.
The accident occurred mere days before the final draft of the City of Malibu’s extensive $20 million PCH safety study and improvement plan was presented to City Council and earned unanimous approval. Because PCH is a state highway, the California Department of Transportation, the agency that largely paid for the PCH safety study, is in charge of any improvements to the roadway.
The plan includes a few improvements to the area where the crash took place.
One of the improvements, which would stretch from Corral Canyon Road to Puerco Canyon Road, is a shoulder widening on the inland side of the road, reconstruction of the median to provide full height curb and the opportunity to narrow the median and increase shoulder width.
“Many of the existing medians in the area have almost zero height curb because of numerous overlays. This project will reduce the opportunity for vehicles to cross into oncoming traffic,” the study read, adding that a recent fatality occurred in the area. In other words, the project would build a raised median in the highway designed to stop vehicles from crossing into oncoming traffic.
Another improvement would be to “install post delineators on outside of curves north of John Tyler Drive where feasible, per Caltrans standard spacing guidelines, especially where adjacent land is undeveloped or installation of delineators is well suited,” according to the study. “Roadway is dark and difficult to follow the alignment at night for persons with low vision, delineators increase effectiveness of headlights at night without requiring new light fixtures.”
Both of these improvements would help cars stay on the correct side of the road, though that would not have affected the June accident.
Torres’ pickup truck was traveling eastbound at the time and crashed into cars parked on the eastbound (beach-facing) shoulder. The truck did not cross into oncoming traffic. In addition, the accident happened at 6:22 a.m., about 40 minutes after the 5:43 a.m. sunrise of June 13.
If the claim does become a lawsuit, it would join seven other suits the city is currently involved in, including three cases pending in the trial court and four cases pending in the court of appeals.