Posted on 08/04/2010 8:11:53 AM PDT by MissTed
In an unusual legal maneuver, Justine Winter — the Evergreen teenager charged with deliberate homicide in the traffic deaths of Erin Thompson and her 13-year-old son — has sued Thompson’s estate and the construction company that built the U.S. 93 overpass at Church Drive where the accident occurred.
Winter, 17, with her father, Randy Winter, filed the lawsuit in Flathead County District Court July 15 against Knife River Corp., Western Traffic Control Inc., Mountain West Holding Co. and the estate of Erin Thompson. The complaint lists Thompson’s husband, Jason Thompson, as personal representative of the estate. *
The lawsuit was filed in District Judge Katherine Curtis’ court. Curtis recently presided over a preliminary trial for Winter and has yet to rule whether she will face trial in juvenile or adult court. Winter was charged as an adult.
Winter alleges that Thompson, of Columbia Falls, negligently operated her vehicle in a manner that caused it to collide with Winter’s vehicle on U.S. 93 in the vicinity of the Church Drive overpass bridge.
The allegation flies in the face of the prosecution’s stand that Winter deliberately drove her car into oncoming traffic in an apparent suicide attempt.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailyinterlake.com ...
This is generally done to obtain the benefit of civil discovery in a criminal case. The discovery done in the civil case is intended to be used in the criminal case.
Winter deliberately drove her car into oncoming traffic in an apparent suicide attempt?............and SHE’S suing the dead woman?.............
When you have the law on your side, argue the law.
When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts.
When you have neither the law nor the facts on your side, pound the table.
This defendant’s attorney is pounding the table.
I doubt that this case gets that far..............
I would suggest the widower who is the executor of the estate sue the parents of the defendant as they very likely gave her both the vehicle and the cell phone knowing she was a bad driver, was an often distracted driver, and was potentially suicidal. I suspect they have resources since they have hired “expert” witlesses, er, withnesses to interpret photos and text messages.
What is with ramming another car to commit suicide? Are there no bridge abutments near Evergreen, Washington?
The testimony of the engineer is interesting. If the lanes in the construction zone are not marked properly, then Winters has a case.
I was in an accident where the other driver was at fault and cited, yet her attorney demanded to know the limits of my coverage.
I told him to go to hell.
End of story.
FWIW, it’s “pound the law”, “pound the facts” and “pound the table”. They way you wrote it it loses it’s cache.
is it me, or did anyone else pick up on the implications that she was texting while driving?
Unfortunately,Jason is my nephew, and a nicer young man you would never find. He, up until now, was only questioning why no apologies came from any of the family of the other driver. You can imagine his reponse on receipt of law suit. My brother, Jason’s dad was real pissed. We actually think not of the family’s doing but lawyers, and insurance co.
Happened to my brother, a 15 year old girl (no license) in her mothers Town & Country station wagon purposefully blew thru an intersection doing about 90 to “kill herself” and hit the side of the car my brother and his friend were in (a small Toyota)- and continued with her foot on the gas until she drove them into a pole on the other side of the road. Dennis, my brothers friend needed months of surgery. My brother was in a coma for a month before he finally started recovering (he is fine now - 30 years later).
The girl had to get 3 stitches for the small cut on her head.
Had it been me, I would have probably hunted her down and killed her entire family.
“Psychological autoposies” purport to show that most single car fatals are suicides. Of all the things I would hit in an effort to kill myself, another car is about the last. I might drive out to Middlesex Sand and Gravel and center punch a cement truck, but a Miata? (I remember hitching a ride on a cement truck as teenager. The good natured black driver explained that when you drive a cement truck, people get out of your way. And if they don’t, you don’t particularly care.)
I remember in High School, one of my classmate’s father was a local Queens pol. His car center punched a tree on the meridian of the Northern State Parkway one day. We were in high school, so we thought that that was normal. In retrospect, no way was it possibly an accident. Probably faced a date with a grand jury and decided to go out on top.
bump
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