About 0130 in the morning on October 28, 2012, Sharlene Simon was driving about 10 km over the speed limit on a country road outside Toronto, when she came upon three teenagers riding home from a late night coffee run. She hit the cyclists from the back with her SUV, injuring two and killing one, 17-year-old Brandon Majewski. Now she’s suing the boy’s estate for $1.35 million dollars because she says she has post traumatic stress and cannot work.
She is suing the “estate” of the 17-year-old boy that she killed while speeding.
“There’s no money to be gained from suing Brandon…. he was a typical boy who may have owned a video-game system. He was just a normal kid,” [the family’s attorney] said.
If Canada had “loser pays” legislation, lawsuits like this wouldn’t happen. If we had loser pays legislation, lawyers wouldn’t waste time and money on such frivolous lawsuits.
Philip Ngai says: Speeding by 10 km/h isn’t that unusual but of course I have no idea what kind of a role it played in the accident.
Given that she was tested for alcohol and not a trace was found, I’d tend to give weight to this:
the 26-page accident report by the South Simcoe Police Service concluded the cyclists’ lack of visibility “was the largest contributing factor,” which, combined with the darkness of the overcast night, meant Simon “did not see the cyclists on the roadway and was unable to take an evasive action.”
Also note they were riding three abreast which is probably illegal and makes it that much harder to avoid a collision.
GWB says: Actually, Kit, this is a defensive lawsuit. She is being sued by the parents of the boy, since they weren’t satisfied with the legal (or insurance) results. (The driver was not cited, which is not at all unusual.) The counter-suit allows discovery on the driver’s behalf, at a minimum. This is not really a frivolous lawsuit.
GWB says: It wouldn’t have mattered if she had been going the speed limit. She couldn’t see them. (Trust me, as I have personal experience with this – fortunately my son survived with nothing more than a few stitches in his noggin and me getting a big CAT scan bill for his stupidity.)
Also, the family’s lawsuit could be considered legal libel, given that it accuses her of being legally impaired (drink or drugs). That is more than adequate reason (imho) to counter-sue.
Yes, it’s a “tragedy all around”, but the grieving parents are the ones who took it the extra step and turned it into a game of revenge.
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