WOMAN FACES BIG LEGAL FEES; LOSING LAWSUIT AGAINST GM MAY COST HER $20,000, UNLESS APPEAL SUCCEEDS.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Daily News Staff Writer

First, her car's air bag blew up in the face of 79-year-old Norma Pruitt.

Then her lawsuit did.

Pruitt lost her lawsuit this spring against General Motors Corp., in which she sought $349,000 for a shattered jaw and facial numbness she says she suffered when the air bag in her 1991 Chevrolet Beretta inflated in a low-speed collision two years ago.

Having incurred nearly $200,000 in legal and medical bills, she now is fighting GM's efforts to have her pay $20,000 in trial costs - a situation she says would force her to sell her two-bedroom condo in Ventura or declare bankruptcy.

``Being right doesn't mean you're going to win,'' she said. ``Anyone can sue for the $180 filing fee. I don't think people realize that if you lose you pick up the whole tab.''

A judge is set to rule this week whether to grant Pruitt's motion for a new trial. He also is considering GM's request that Pruitt be ordered to reimburse the automaker for $20,000 in trial costs.

``Mentally, I can't accept this - it's just not real,'' said Pruitt, a widow who underwent $40,000 in medical treatments because of injuries suffered when her car hit another vehicle in Oxnard back in March 1995.

``GM was one of the biggest money-making corporations in America at the time of the verdict and they can't afford to pay their own lawyers' costs and let me go to a doctor or dentist to help me out of this pain?''

In papers filed in Ventura Superior Court, GM attorneys are pressing to recover $20,000 in trial costs, such as fees for expert witnesses who testified during the three-week trial this spring.

Derek Whitefield, a Los Angeles attorney who represents GM, said the automaker offered Pruitt $25,000 to settle the case before it went to trial, but was rebuffed.

He said the air bag in Pruitt's car worked properly and that she was responsible for her injuries by causing the accident and because she suffered from an unusual medical condition that made her jaw highly susceptible to fracture.

Pruitt suffers from osteoporosis, a condition common to elderly women in which the bones become very brittle. In addition, Pruitt's teeth had been pulled when she was 38, and at the time of the accident her jaw bones were being absorbed into the soft tissue of her mouth, Whitefield said.

``Three Ventura-area dentists described it as the most fragile jaw they had ever seen,'' Whitefield said. ``There isn't anything GM could have done to protect her from injury in this accident because of her condition.''

Whitefield said a settlement is still possible, but ``so long as plaintiff continues pursuing the case, GM will pursue its costs.''

Characterizing this case as a corporate Goliath vs. a frail David is unfair, he said.

``To me, the very suggestion that GM would go out and try to beat up a little old lady is just not correct,'' he said. ``It's kind of ridiculous.''

Pruitt's attorney, Kevin M. Fillo of Ventura, said he has told General Motors' attorneys they are wasting their time seeking money from Pruitt, who lives on a monthly Social Security stipend.

``They responded, `Well, she owns her home doesn't she?' '' said Fillo, a consumer rights attorney.

``It's not even about money anymore,'' Fillo said. ``These people have no ethics. They're first going to cheat to win and then try to squeeze costs out of this little old lady?''

Fillo said he accepted the case on a contingency basis and is not pursuing Pruitt for the legal costs associated with her case. He said he and co-counsel John H. Wolf did $100,000 work on the case, and his firm also incurred $50,000 in actual costs.

Fillo said if the judge refuses to grant a new trial this week, he expects to prevail on appeal. He also said he is ready to retry the case because it is the only way he can recover his own costs.

Fillo says he was hired when Pruitt misspelled the name of another attorney and called him by mistake.

Unfamiliar with vehicle air bags, he said he did some research and subpoenaed internal GM documents that he says show GM knew its air bags could cause injuries.

``These documents also demonstrate that GMC consciously decided to withhold critical information regarding the general safety of its air bag systems for fear that the truth would chill consumer interest in its products,'' Fillo said in a recent court document.

Whitefield said Ventura County Judge Marvin H. Lewis acted correctly in barring the plaintiffs from using a ``consumer expectation test'' at trial. This theory would have allowed the jury to consider, based on their own experience, if the air bag met ordinary consumer expectations of safety.

GM's attorneys argued that few people have firsthand experience with air bags and that the intricacies of its mechanics would be beyond them as jurors.

Pruitt says she is grateful for her attorneys' effort and hopes to find some way to deal with the mounting bills, constant pain and prospect of more surgery.

``I'm devastated,'' said Pruitt, who now drives a 1987 Honda Accord - without an air bag. ``It's got to the point of either laughing or crying.''

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Photo: (Ran in Simi and Conejo editions only--Color) Norma Pruitt claims the air bag in her car is what broke her jaw in 1995.

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News