Pants on Fire

This is not what Fire Department officials wanted to hear. In fact, the department had gone out of its way to avoid this version of the story, first by glossing over some of the facts in the incident report, then by helping Stapper try to pin the blame on Genie during the trial. No one likes to admit error, especially if the error has caused loss of a life. But in this case, department officials had an added financial incentive to obscure the facts: If a jury found the manufacturer of the garage door opener to blame for the disaster, the city would collect the money it paid for Stapper's medical expenses -- and probably more. Stapper's lawsuit began as an attempt to hold a supposedly negligent corporation responsible. The suit revealed a more complicated story about how the Fire Department deals with loss, and how it deals with mistakes, especially when those mistakes could significantly affect the city's bottom line.Following the fire, Stapper suddenly became the center of attention. Lying on her back, her face swollen and shiny, she teetered on the brink of death for weeks. The heat had inflicted third-degree burns on almost half her body. The sweat in her pants had scalded the inside of her legs; the metal buttons of her uniform left permanent brands.For weeks, Stapper's room was filled with colleagues trembling at the sight of her. There were vases everywhere erupting with flowers, and metal tins filled with cookies. Stapper received hundreds of letters from people she didn't know. At last, she had gained entrance to the firefighting family.

The sense of community affected everyone who came to see her, especially those who, like Stapper, had agreed to put their lives on the line in the name of the department. Caroline Paul, a San Francisco firefighter who wrote the memoir Fighting Fire, describes the scene in Stapper's hospital room as a personal catharsis. "Through the grief and the shock, I realize that something feels different inside me," she writes. "Today I feel, for perhaps the first time, unequivocally a part of the San Francisco Fire Department."

More than 1,000 firefighters from around the state attended Louis Mambretti's funeral at St. Mary's Cathedral. They all wore white gloves in honor of the fallen veteran, whose retirement had been only a few months away when he died. Then-Mayor Frank Jordan said a few words, according to newspaper reports, declaring that Mambretti instinctively "knew what to do" at the fire that night. Mambretti and his crew went inside, Jordan said, because that's what firefighters do.

During the funeral, according to Paul's book, Jacobs, the pump operator at the fire, was found stumbling around in the rain, crying in front of the house where his commander had died.As Stapper began the long process of recovery, spending more than 100 days in intensive care, then months at Davies Medical Center learning how to walk again, she filed a lawsuit against the Genie Corp., hoping to recoup a little of the life she had lost.A Fire Department review of the incident had focused on the garage door opener; the review's top recommendation was to teach firefighters how to disable the machines when they have to enter a house through the garage. The report never suggested simply making sure to prop open the door, a rudimentary mistake made by Stapper and her colleagues. It glossed over other mistakes as well. While it acknowledged Jacobs' error attaching the hose to the hydrant, it speciously concluded that the error had no effect on the crew's water supply inside the garage. It never addressed the question of why Battalion Chief Bob Boudoures failed to retrieve his people from inside the house, nor did it mention the crew's failure to activate their personal alarm systems. (None of the firefighters involved in the incident has been disciplined. Fire Department officials have declined requests to comment for this story.)

Stapper hired Browne Greene, one of the top trial lawyers in the state, to handle her case. Given the tragic circumstances, the lawsuit looked like a sure winner. The articulate Stapper seemed the perfect victim. She had found her dream job with the Fire Department, and this seemingly preventable accident had taken that away. On the other side, Genie, a faceless corporation, appeared to be a made-to-order deep pocket. The local media, smelling an easy exposé, began running garage-door horror stories. Television news programs showed the automatic doors chomping down on plastic baby dolls.

The trial got off to a good start, from the city's point of view. The Fire Department had gone out of its way to help Stapper prepare for the lawsuit, providing fire engines to re-create the scene and witnesses at a moment's notice. When Stapper took the stand, a few jury members broke down in tears, always a good sign for a plaintiff seeking millions of dollars.