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KANSAN
The University Daily
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
Friday, February 26, 1982 Vol. 92, No. 105 USPS 650-640
Hyatt report may be crucial factor in lawsuits
From Staff and Wire Reports
A federal report on Kansas City's Hyatt Regency Hotel skywalk collapse could become important evidence in litigation, an attorney has said, moving more than 20 of the victims said recently.
Max Foust, a Kansas City, Mo., attorney with Morris & Foust, said the report "is a very critical piece of evidence because it was done by an independent, disinterested firm."
The National Bureau of Standard's report, released yesterday in Washington, D.C., said the two 32-km skywalks that collapsed at the hotel, a property built barely able to support their own weight.
The report said that a change in construction design—which doubled the load suspended on the 6th-floor walkway—compounded the problem. Because of the change, the skywalks were able to support only 27 percent of the load standard set by the city.
The study made no judgments about whose work led to the failure.
THE SKYWALK collapse occurred during a popular Friday evening tea dance July 17. A fourth-floor skywalk, loaded with people swaying to the strains of Duke Ellington's "Satin Doll," fell atop a crowded second-floor skywalk directly below.
The accident injured at least 121 persons and spawned billions of dollars in lawsuits.
Foust, who already has settled two Hyatt cases and won each plaintiff at least $3 million in damages, said the government report would strengthen the plaintiffs' cases.
Foust said the report "confirmed what experts I hired already said." He commissioned his own study in anticipation of the official NBS investigation.
However, a Lawrence attorney said that the government report may not be admissible into court.
"This is a very possible result," said John Lungstrum, of Stevens, Brand, Lungsturm, Golden & Winter.
LUNGSTRUM said that a number of government reports were not admissible because of statutes limiting their use.
"But it provides a solid basis for plaintiffs to conduct the groundwork for their inquiries."
Tom Deacy, an attorney for the Hyatt Corp., said there was no question that the government study indicated the cause of the collapse as a part of the company's attempt on the corporation's part to cut costs.
"Although we deeply regret this deep tragedy, we really didn't have anything to do with the design of or construction aspects of the building," he said. "It was tendered to us as a first-class hotel, and we accepted it as such and believed it so to be."
"In that aspect, our corporation was just as much a vietnam as the others."
Barney Berkowitz, an attorney for Stinson, Mag & Fizzell, one of 15 firms representing the hotel, refused to comment on the report's possible legal implications.
BUT A Lawrence victim of the disaster said that the government report "doesn't really change anything at all."
Rachel Hanson, a lawrence minister who
had been a victim of 7 disaster,
the said 340-paper study did not say any
impact.
Hanson, who had been at the hotel only 10 minutes before the collapse occurred, is involved in a class action suit against the building's owners, the Crown Center Development Corp., and a host of design, architectural and construction claims, than 200 claimants are involved in the action.
"It doesn't really change my feelings about what happened," said Hanson, who found the study was similar to other commissioned by the Kansas City Star.
In looking for a probable cause, NBS researchers simulated collapses with skywalk mock-ups and subjected thousands of pounds of steel and concrete debris from the actual collapse.
Kansas City Mayor Richard Berkley requested the NBS study, which has cost taxpayers more than $250 million.
A FORMER KU professor, commissioned by the Kansas City Star, said yesterday that a study he did for newspaper last year determined the same cause at a fraction of the cost.
B. O. Kuzmanovic, a former KU engineering professor who now works for Beiswenger, Hoch and Associates in North Miami Beach, Fla., said in a report "was completely as I had predicted it."
"Under even partial deadload (the weight of the skywalk alone), the stresses in the suspension connection were far above local standards," said Kuzmanovic.
Kuzmanovic admitted there was a difference between what was constructed and what was designed. But he said that the blame for the collapse did not lie on one party alone.
"In almost every disaster, there are always two or three errors that make up for a big mistake."
Kuzmanov said the study's price tag was much too high, but he said that the investigation required an even higher price.
authorization. Somebody said to it,
"It's most unfortunate that so many people perished, but you just can't say that one thing caused the disaster."
JOHN EISELE/Kensan Staff
"I wasn't even allowed to look through debris," he said. "The study had to be done by some organization that had official authorization. Somebody had to do it."
Rob Mabry, Overland Park sophomore, carries his backpack over one shoulder, as many students do. Medical experts say the uneven weight can cause back problems.
Book-ladened pack might lead to out-of-whack back
By LISA GUTIERREZ
Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
Backpacks. They're everywhere on the KU campus.
"Several doctors have found that they can cause rather moderate to severe muscle pain," Martin Wollman, director of Student Health Services, said yesterday.
Blue ones, red ones, green ones. Their zippered bodies on many students' backs=mobile depositories of books never read and pennies never spent.
Students stuff and oversize them tighter than the leading heavy-duty trash bag, and they are very likely to break.
Jean Hiebert, supervisor of physical therapy at Watkins Memorial Hospital, said students could experience spasms in the upper back or shoulder area and muscle strain in the lower back if they wore packs improperly.
The problems range from muscle pain to sway-back and can be avoided if students use a proper chair.
Wollman said that overstuffed backpacks, in northeastern could cause physical problems.
the weight of the pack to be unevenly distributed.
Backpacks should be worn high on the back and snug, according to Mike Sullivan, co-owner of Sunflower Surplus, 804 Massachusetts St.
THE BIGGEST problem, she said, is that students try to carry too much in their backpacks, or they don't know how to wear their backpacks properly.
"If they get the backpack too low or too heavy, they get sway-back," she said. "To compensate for that, the head usually juts forward."
"If you see a lot of students, they wear them on one shoulder." "Hiebert said."
"Sometimes I see them too low at the back," Sullivan said. "Backpacks should be worn up higher so that the main body of the pack is between the shoulders."
"If they're worn the way they should be, it would be with both shoulder straps on."
Hiebert saw sway-bac occurred when students didn't wear packs correctly.
He said backpacks that hung away from the back could cause continuous pressure on the
The amount of weight carried in the pack, if excessive, could cause physical problems, he
By COLLEEN CACY
See BACKPACK page 5
The 7.5 percent recommendation is lower than the Reents' request for 13 percent.
Salary boost wins tentative approval
The committee voted to grant Regents schools about the same number of dollars recommended
Staff Reporter
The Senate Ways and Means Committee voted on all the Regents budget issues except faculty salary increases, which it will take final action on next week.
But it changed the method of allocating funds for changes in enrollment, transferring $2 million from the faculty salary fund to the enrollment adjustment fund.
THIS METHOD of enrollment adjustment would allocate to the University of Kansas $688,000 more than the governor's proposal, and thus increase your enrollment increases since the fall of 1979.
But if the Legislature adopted the method recommended by Carlin—a method that allows a
certain number of faculty positions based on the number of students enrolled, which was dropped several years ago—KU would lose $292,722 and have a slight decrease in enrollment last fall.
The committee voted to reject Carlin's enrollment adjustment proposal and return to the "corridor concept" that the Legislature began using last year.
Under the corridor system, an institution would not receive more or less money or faculty positions if enrollment increased or decreased less than 1.5 percent.
One year is used as a base to measure changes for the next three years, so enrollment changes are taken into account.
COMMITTEE Chairman Paul Hess, R-Wichita, said the $2 million being transferred would allow schools more flexibility in determining where to spend their money and hired in how they distributed salary funds.
In adopting the corridor method, the committee rejected Carlin's proposal to use full-time equivalency enrollment figures to adjust funding.
Full-time equivalency is figured by dividing the number of undergraduate hours by 15, the number of graduate hours by nine and the number of law student hours by 12, and then
adding the three numbers. Carlin's method would use the enrollment figures from each fall to determine increases or decreases in money and in number of faculty.
Capital improvements and special requests from individual schools will also be considered in committee. After the committee recommendations, the budget will pass to the Senate floor.
Hess said the committee would make its final recommendations for salary funding next week.
"It is important that we stick with the corridor system." Hess said. "It's a more accurate measure of what's really happening on that campus."
THE BOARD of Regents request a 13 percent salary increase, a total of $6 million for KU.
The 7.5 percent increase the committee discussed applied to all faculty and did not include students.
Carin had recommended an 8.75 percent increase for all faculty, and an extra 1.25 percent for areas with a high market value—including the arts, science, library science, and the physical sciences.
Hess said that because Carlin had recieved $2.5 million in a proposed proposal amounted to an 8 percent increase.
See BUDGET page 5
Spencer bequeaths $1.5 million to KU
Mrs. Spencer, who was in her late 70s, died Feb. 15, possibly of a heart attack.
The Kansas University Endowment Association was notified Wednesday that the University of Kansas would receive $1.3 million from the estate of Halo Foreman Snapper.
Mrs. Spencer was the philanthropist who donated the money to build the Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art and the Kenneth A. Research Library on KU's Lawrence campus.
"We were totally surprised and very happy about it," said Doug Tilghman, assistant director of administration at Spencer Museum. "We had nooking it was going to happen."
"Mrs. Spencer has made a lasting impact on the quality of life at the University of Kansas," Chancellor Gene A. Budig said yesterday. "Her presence will touch the lives of countless people.
HER WILL, designated that $1 million go to the
SpongeBob Museum Art and $500,000 to the
Spencer Museum Art.
"We are indebted to her and her far-sightedness. She will never be forgiven."
Mrs. Spencer's will, which was signed on Oct. 12, was admitted to probate Wednesday in Jackson County Circuit Court in Kansas City, Mo.
Tilghman said Mrs. Spencer had already
He said that Mrs. Spencer, in her will, also
gave the name Ming Dynasty decorative
screen from D.A. D.160.
contributed most of the money used to build the $5 million museum.
Mrs. Spencer's bequest will be used for art acquisitions, Tilghman said, including paintings, sculptures, drawings and decorative arts from States, Great Britain, Europe and the Far East.
Spencer Library also will use its gift money for acquisitions.
ALEXANDRA MASON, Spencer librarian, said she did not know all the stipulations of the bequest, but that the money designated for acquisitions would be used "to strengthen and expand the existing scholarly resources of books and manuscripts."
"We were not aware that anything was contemplated," she said, but it was a charac- ture of her own.
Mrs. Spencer was the wife of Kenneth A. Tambora and died in 1945. Mr. Bao based Spencer Chemical Co. who died in 1968.
Mason said Mrs. Spencer also had contributed the money to build the $2 million research facility.
She said Spencer Library would receive Mrs. Spencer's personal papers and books.
See SPENCER page 5
Mrs. Helen Foresman Spencer
Weather
COOL
It will be partly sunny today with a high of 40 to 45 and southern winds of 5 to 15 mph, according to the National Weather Service in Topeka.
Tonight will be fair with a low of 25 to 30 degrees.
Tomorrow will be mostly sunny and mild with a high in the low 50s.
KUSA requests legislation
Staff Reporter
By KEVIN HELLIKER Staff Reporter
TOPEKA-The KU Committee on South Africa yesterday appealed to Kansas lawmakers to support the divestment of state funds from South Africa.
Calling the state of Kansas a traditional vanguard in human rights, members of the KU group said it was inconsistent for the state to declare that 80 percent of the South African people.
KUSA MEMBERS also called for investment out of Poland, but apparently no significant impact.
Through the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System alone, more than $55 million has been invested in companies that deal in South Africa.
"Kansas investors would have been skeptical to "invest in Nazi Germany," said Laird Okle, a Lawrence graduate student, "and they should be similarly skeptical to invest in South Africa."
However, State Rep Norman Justice, D-Danawas City, who is sponsoring a bilingual calling for the governor to be elected,
tries, urged the House Pensions and Investments Committee to approve this request on principle.
"Oppression and captivity breed the same." he said. "When they are found in one spot in the world, the rest of the world is not safe until these horrors are stamped down beyond submission."
If the bill is passed, KPERS and other state agencies would be required to divest funds from such companies as General Motors, Champion Spark Plug, Johnson and Johnson and the Coca-Cola Co., all of which have operations in South Africa.
The Kansas University Endowment Association and similar private corporations would not be affected. But Todd Seymour, Endowment Association president, said earlier this year that if the bill was passed, Endowment Association should discuss whether they would conform to state policy.
ALTHOUGH JUSTICE produced statistics of U.S. companies that support the minority white regime in South Africa, one KU student, Eric Gumbi of South Africa, said he did not need evidence to convince him that oppression occurred there.
"Living in South Africa is hell, if you are a See AFRICA nare5