JURY awards $3.5 million in fatal accident

<br>TULSA, Okla. (AP) _ A federal jury has awarded $3.5 million to the family of a Kansas man killed in a wrong-way accident on the Cherokee Turnpike. <br><br>Jurors said EZ Go Foods Inc. did not post

Saturday, August 25th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

TULSA, Okla. (AP) _ A federal jury has awarded $3.5 million to the family of a Kansas man killed in a wrong-way accident on the Cherokee Turnpike.

Jurors said EZ Go Foods Inc. did not post sufficient signs in its parking lot to keep customers from driving the wrong way onto the highway's exit ramp.

EZ GO was ordered to pay $2 million to the estate of Jeffrey Karl Brandt, 36, who was killed Oct. 22, 1994, when a car driven the wrong way by Kimberly Dowdy of Bristow struck his motorcycle. Brandt was nearing an eastbound turnpike exit ramp to the convenience store near Leach.

EZ Go was ordered to pay $1.5 million to Brandt's father, Frederick Brandt, whose motorcycle also was struck. The elder Brandt sustained a crushed pelvis, left wrist and left forearm, plus nerve damage.

EZ Go attorney K. Clark Phipps claimed the facility featured numerous signs and said Dowdy missed several ``visual cues'' that should have made it clear she was going the wrong way.

But plaintiffs' attorneys said the facility lacked red, rectangular ``Wrong Way'' signs on the ramps and claimed that the directional signs that were in place were insufficient.