Intending to sue a law protecting a fetus at any stage of development, a lawsuit has been filed by the parents of two adults, two children and an unborn child that perished in a car crash, as reported by the Associated Press for the San Francisco Gate.
This will be the first civil lawsuit to cite the 2003 Nebraska law. Other states that have used the law – Utah and Alabama, among others – have led to appeals court battles.
Denver-based attorney James Chalat, in representing the parents, said, "I think it allows for the expansion of victims' rights in these cases. There's no case law about it in Nebraska that I've seen."
A spokesperson for the Nebraska Attorney General's office said that prosecutors in criminal cases have used the law before but it had not been cited yet in any civil cases.
Nebraska State Auditor Mike Foley, who was responsible for introducing the measure said, "I don't know if there's any precedent for it, but it seemed to me at the time I got the bill enacted that inevitably there would be such a case."
The parents of C.S. and D.S. filed the suit after loosing five of their family members just before 5 a.m. on September 9. D.S., pregnant, was driving one car with her two children while C.S. followed them in a separate car.
J.S., driving a truck, crashed into the rear of C.S.'s car. The force of the impact caused C.S. to ram D.S.'s car – and her car drove under a semi. The entire family died instantly.
Prior to the chain-reaction crash, traffic on the interstate was at a standstill due to an earlier crash involving two trucks. However, according to investigators, J.S. was driving at a speed of 75 mph when he came into contact with C.S.'s car, and J.S. failed to apply his brakes.
Facing a trial in the Cheyenne County District Court, J.S. has been charged with four counts of manslaughter, four counts of vehicular homicide and one count of vehicular homicide of an unborn child.
The S. family was on the road that morning as they were relocating to California from Washington to be nearer to their family. C.S. was a U.S. Air Force veteran, previously employed by the Department of Energy in Washington and headed to begin a job with the U.S. Social Security Administration in California.
D.S.'s parents B.B. and N.B. of Rocklin filed the lawsuit, Calif., along with C.S.'s mother, D.C., of Antelope, Calif.
The suit states that J.S., employed as a trucker, failed to take the mandatory off-duty time. Instead of getting off the road for 10 hours after driving 14 hours, J.S. allegedly continued to drive for three hours longer.
Defendants named in the lawsuit include J.S. and his employer, as well as the two other truck drivers that were involved in the previous accident, and their employers.
The suit claims negligence, vicarious liability from the trucking companies and wrongful death.
Damages are yet to be specified.
This case of wrongful death, involving the death of an unborn child, cites a law that has still yet to be successfully used in a civil case. Contact a personal injury lawyer that is an expert in wrongful death cases to file your lawsuit today!