
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 17, 1994                   TAG: 9408170064
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

CITY WORKER WHO LOST FOOT SUES RECYCLING-TRUCK MAKER

A former Roanoke sanitation worker who lost his foot when a recycling truck he was riding on overturned two years ago is suing the truck's manufacturer and distributor for $5 million.

Jerome Claytor is blaming General Engines Co. and Solid Waste Equipment Co. of Virginia in a lawsuit filed in Roanoke Circuit Court.

Claytor, 29, lost his lower right leg in the Aug. 17, 1992 incident.

At the time, city officials blamed the accident on human error - saying the driver of the truck was going too fast when he made a U-turn about 25 mph at the dead end of Gilford Road Northwest.

But the lawsuit states that the truck was designed and manufactured "in such a way that the weight differential caused the truck to be unstable."

Claytor's injuries "were caused by the negligent and unreasonably dangerous and defective design, manufacture, fabrication, marketing, shipping and distribution" of the city truck, the suit alleges.

by CNB