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The Court And Kathee Lewis' LegacyBy Charles Bierbauer/CNN HEALDTON, Okla. (Feb. 19) -- The silvery grey words light up against the black stone: KATHEE It's all crammed on Kathee Lewis' tombstone. It's all she crammed into her 19-year life. Kathee Lewis died in a boating accident in Georgia in 1993. She was thrown from the boat when it hit a wake and chopped to death by the outboard motor's propeller. There's no gentler way to put it. Her long red hair at first hid the damage to her face. The wounds went from her head to her knee. Kathee's parents sued the engine manufacturer Brunswick for $1 million, contending there should have been a guard on the boat's propeller. "If prop guards had been installed on this outboard motor, had she been struck by the bottom part of the engine, she might have had a concussion," says her father Gary. He contemplates other possibilities. "She might have had a broken shoulder. She might have had broken ribs or a broken arm. She might have lost some fingers or may have gotten her hair in the prop." "She had very long hair," her mother Vicki adds. "But she wouldn't have been chopped up," says her father. "She'd have been alive," her mother finishes. The Lewises are sitting on the sofa in their modest, comfortable home at the end of a gravel road in rural Healdton. Except for the oil well pumping away in the corner of their lot (they don't own the oil rights) it could be a middle class home almost anywhere in America. Except someone is both missing and enormously present. A large photo portrait of Kathee hangs over the mantle. Her sisters find an eerie presence of Kathee in her three-year-old nephew whose name replicates her initials -- KC. He says things she would say, though he was born after her death. Gary Lewis is a truck driver. Vicki Lewis has a cause. She wants to see boating safety laws changed to require prop guards. With lawyers working on a contingency fee basis the Lewises have been able to carry their case all the way to the Supreme Court. The Lewises have, in fact, lost their case at every lower court level. "I don't walk away from things," Vicki Lewis says. "My wife is not a quitter," Gary Lewis echoes. This is what the justices call a "bottom-line case." There's a bottom line that means something to someone -- a person, a business -- rather than a judicial philosophy. There's a "poor soul" who cries out for help and may deserve it. But that's not the function of the law, especially not at the appellate court level. The Lewises' case will not turn on the fact that they lost their daughter and a prop guard might have saved her life. It will turn on a legal point -- whether or not the justices sustain the manufacturer's argument that a federal law preempts state law. In this case, it's the absence of a federal law. The U.S. Coast Guard prescribes boating safety regulations. The Coast Guard decided years ago not to require prop guards after a commission found the incidence of accidents comparatively small and the cost substantial to try to fit guards to hundreds of boat propeller configurations. The guards exist in a number of forms, though trying to find one is not easy. At a Washington boat show salesmen said most boaters don't want the guards because they can slow a fast boat. A Coast Guard Auxiliary official handing out safety literature said he'd thought of putting one on his boat because it would save a $200 replacement cost when he cracks the prop on a rock. But, no, he'd not heard too many people talk about prop guards as a safety measure. "It seems to me that states ought to be able to have laws to protect the citizens of their state. I don't see where the Coast Guard should have the right to say 'No, you can't'," Gary Lewis says. He raises a point the justices might also raise, since the court has in recent years often favored the states over the federal government when jurisdiction is in question. Product liability, not jurisdiction, is the issue as Vicki Lewis sees it. And that's why manufacturers across the country will watch closely to see what the Supreme Court does with this case. "If anybody makes a product and sells it to the general public, they are liable for that product," she reasons. "Power saws, lawn mowers, anything." The odds may not favor the Lewises, but they see precedent that helps their argument. "It's very much similar to the attitude people had when they started putting air bags in cars," Gary Lewis notes. "Oh, it'll drive the price of the cars up. People won't want to pay that. But we have air bags in cars and lives are being saved because of it." "Or even seat belts," adds Vicki Lewis. The Supreme Court will hear the case -- Lewis v. Brunswick -- on March 2. The Lewises will have to wait until about June to find out if their daughter Kathee might add a legacy to her list of accomplishments. |
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| In Other News | ||
Thursday February 19, 1998
• Tapes: Lewinsky Interested In Presidential Travel |
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