The family of an African-American basketball player, killed after a fight in a Romanian bar, have filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Connecticut against the Romanian man that beat him to death, the Romanian government, two doctors, a Romanian hospital, the Romanian Basketball Federation, his former team and the Romanian team, as reported by the Connecticut Post.
Sacred Heart basketball player, C.H., played against a Bucharest team on the day of his death.
The wrongful death suit states that at a celebratory party held after the game on October 9, 2011, C.H. was beaten. He was taken to an area hospital for treatment, however he was misdiagnosed and later, while in a comatose state, died of multiple heart attacks.
The suit seeks $210 million for negligence, in failing to protect, advise and properly treat C.H. prior to his death.
In addition to the claims of negligence, the suit also claims that C.H.'s contract was breached as the team failed to continue paying his estate $1,000 a month after his death. The suit also states that the team should have warned its African-American players about the animosity they should expect to encounter while in Romania.
The suit was filed on behalf of C.H.'s mother and her two daughters and has been assigned to Bridgeport's Senior U.S. District Judge Warren W. Eginton. West Haven attorneys Richard Altschuler and Sandy Moore represent the family.
O.H., C.H.'s mother, said that her desire in filing the lawsuit was that she wanted to "help provide some kind of protection" to other American athletes that compete overseas.
Altschuler said, "On Oct. 9, 2011, (C.H.) was killed three times. First by the actual assailant (I.T.); then by Romanian court system, where the criminal defendant was tried by a judge who found him guilty only of a misdemeanor public outrage charge; and then by the appellate system, which denied civil compensation to (C.H.'s) mother based on a technicality."
Because C.H. signed his contract in Middletown and his pay was wired back home, according to Altschuler, the suit had to be filed in Connecticut federal court.
Altschuler believes that the case will be resolved within three months, accounting for the time it will take to serve the Romanian defendants using procedures laid out by the Hague Convention.
Altschuler will request that Eginton order the 55-page FBI investigation into C.H.'s death. He believes that the report will confirm what occurred the night of C.H.'s beating.
Altschuler suspects that the Romanian that beat C.H. may have been a gang leader that spied C.H. as he danced with a woman in the bar. The two men engaged in a short verbal altercation before the assailant landed a blow on C.H. with such force that C.H. fell to the ground and struck his head on a step. Other gang members may have joined in to kick him while he was down.
Once C.H. arrived at the hospital, he was treated for alcohol consumption and not for the beating, contends Altschuler. Approximately five hours later, after being taken to a Bucharest area hospital, he died due to multiple heart attacks brought on by a fractured skull and neck, a broken nose, and substantial brain hemorrhaging.
If you have lost a member of your family due to a wrongful death, contact a personal injury lawyer to file your lawsuit today!