Florida

TexasTowelie

(112,209 posts) Sat Oct 28, 2017, 11:57 PM Oct 2017

Parents of med school student killed in wreck awarded $45 million

The parents of a medical school student killed in a 2015 Pembroke Pines crash were awarded $45 million in damages.

After a three-week trial that concluded Thursday, jurors awarded Jennifer and Reginald Astaphan damages in connection with the death of their 29-year-old son, Jonathan Raymond Astaphan, of Dominica.

Ranger Construction Industries, of West Palm Beach, was ordered to pay $35 million in damages; Juan Calero, the driver of the tractor-trailer in the chain-reaction crash, was ordered to pay an additional $10,005,000.

Astaphan was killed May 28, 2015, along Interstate 75 near Pines Boulevard as he crossed paths with a flatbed tractor-trailer hauling concrete barriers out of a construction area on the median. Calero blocked all of the highway’s lanes as Astaphan and other drivers approached.

Read more: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-sb-45-million-lawsuit-for-fatal-crash-victim-20171027-story.html

3 replies

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Parents of med school student killed in wreck awarded $45 million (Original Post) TexasTowelie Oct 2017 OP

The construction company's answer to this verdict Kittycow Oct 2017 #1

I saw that and felt it was callous. TexasTowelie Oct 2017 #2

Thank you for the enlightening reply! Kittycow Oct 2017 #3

Kittycow

(2,396 posts)

1. The construction company's answer to this verdict

Reply to TexasTowelie (Original post)

Sun Oct 29, 2017, 12:53 AM

Oct 2017

was to call for tort reform!

TexasTowelie

(112,209 posts)

2. I saw that and felt it was callous.

Reply to Kittycow (Reply #1)

Sun Oct 29, 2017, 01:15 AM

Oct 2017

I used to the statistician that worked on tort reform at the state insurance department so I have a clue as to what is a just verdict and what is excessive. In this circumstance, a student who has an interest in neurology is well worth $45 million--not only for his own life, but the potential impact on those he may have tended to during his career.

They can try to appeal to judgment amount, but this appears to be a case when the insurer for the corporation should settle if they can muster even a small reduction in the $35 million awarded against the corporation. They are not going to find a sympathetic jury and it was made even less likely with the crass comments by the defense attorney.

Kittycow

(2,396 posts)

3. Thank you for the enlightening reply!

Reply to TexasTowelie (Reply #2)

Sun Oct 29, 2017, 10:49 AM

Oct 2017

I don't know much about the nuts and bolts of how these things work.

Anyway I agree that the remark about tort reform was appalling and tone-deaf. I'm wondering if the company will settle on the pending suit re: the teen-ager killed, or will the hubris of the general counsel just make him double-down and go to trial.

It also really galled that people are dead in a completely preventable accident. (My husband is a trucker so I kind of took this accident personally.) The more I dig into the details of the road conditions/scenario, it just gets more moronic on behalf of the truck driver He deserves the criminal charges.

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