Articles Posted in Head-On Crash

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Amy Skiba, 43, was driving with two children, both 12 years old, when an oncoming driver lost control of his vehicle, crossed the center line, and struck Skiba’s vehicle head-on. Skiba suffered fatal injuries. She was survived by her husband and three children, one of whom is an adult.

Skiba’s adult child and representative for the two minor children sued Eaton Asphalt Paving Co., which completed a resurfacing project on the road approximately two months before this incident.

The Skiba family asserted that the defendant pavement company negligently performed the project by choosing not to mill the road and install a safety wedge as required by its contract with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.

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Sammie Pendergrass, 24, was driving on a highway when Franklin Burgess lost control of his tractor-trailer, crossed the median, and collided head-on with Pendergrass’s van.

Pendergrass was thrown from his vehicle into a ditch; he suffered blunt force trauma and other serious injuries.

He lost consciousness approximately 30 minutes after this crash and died of cardiac arrest the same day.  He was survived by his parents and siblings.

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Steven Parker was an employee of Black Toppers Inc. when he was driving on Interstate 95 in a Black Toppers truck pulling a loaded flatbed trailer owned by Sam’s Paving. Parker lost control of his truck, which swerved to the right, and over-corrected, which led to him crashing through the highway’s guardrail.

Parker’s truck collided head-on with Carlos Mendez’s vehicle.

Mendez, 28, was killed in the crash. He was survived by his common-law spouse and five minor children. Mendez had been an electrician earning approximately $40,000 per year.

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Jerry Troutwine, 46, was traveling eastbound on a two-lane local highway on a rainy and slushy morning. He was driving his employer’s vehicle.

Justin Nichols was traveling westbound in a dump truck filled with concrete when he lost control of his truck near a downhill curve. The truck’s brakes locked, and the truck crossed the centerline, colliding head-on with Troutwine’s vehicle.

Troutwine died as a result of his injuries. He had been a truck driver and mechanic earning almost $30,000 per year. Troutwine was survived by his wife and teenage daughter.

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Janet Pulver, 66, was several yards away from an intersection when a vehicle driven by Bennett Dunbar crashed into Pulver’s car head-on.  Pulver suffered serious injuries, including traumatic brain injury, and died only 28 hours later. She had been retired but was taking care of her grandchildren everyday. She was survived by her two adult children and grandchildren.

Pulver’s family and estate sued Dunbar alleging that he was driving recklessly and traveling at almost 80 mph in a 40-mph zone at the time of the crash.

Dunbar lost control of his vehicle, which crossed the center line of the highway and hit Pulver’s car head-on. The report of this case inexplicably stated that defendant disputed the plaintiff’s damages claim.

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A Cook County jury signed a verdict for $1,100,000 for Martin Bader and his wife Julia. They sued Giovanni Melendez-Ortiz in 2015 when it was alleged that the defendant, Melendez-Ortiz, was negligent as he drove across the center line on Green Bay Road near Keith Avenue in Waukegan, Ill., and drove the wrong way on Green Bay Road. In doing so, Melendez-Ortiz crashed head-on into the Bader vehicle.

The jury’s verdict of $1.1 million was made up of the following damages:

  • $72,487.48 for past medical expenses;
  • $50,000 for future medical care;
  • $250,000 for past loss of normal life;
  • $250,000 for future loss of normal life;
  • $250,000 for past pain and suffering; and
  • $250,000 for future pain and suffering.

The total verdict reached was $1,122,487.48.

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In April 2010, the plaintiffs Rose Schurer and Andrea DeVivo were driving westbound on Lawrence Avenue in Norridge, Ill., when an oncoming van crossed the center line and struck their vehicle. The eastbound van was driven by the defendant, 56-year-old Pawel Pawlowska.

The plaintiff, Schurer, suffered four fractures in her right leg and ankle, which required surgery. The second plaintiff, 42-year-old DeVivo, sustained a fractured pelvis requiring surgery. She later developed arthritis resulting in a total left hip replacement.

The plaintiffs Schurer and DeVivo maintained that Pawlowska was acting as a volunteer agent of the Catholic Bishop of Chicago (Archdiocese of Chicago) at the time of the crash because he was driving to a church to perform non-profit electrical work with installation of materials he recently purchased using the church’s tax-exempt status.

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In the model years 2009 and 2010, Toyota’s Corolla has been targeted as a dangerous vehicle because of the electric power steering (ETS) system. In fact, two Toyota Corolla owners, one in New York and one in Pennsylvania, filed suit. The Corolla owners have alleged that the steering system’s defect caused their cars to drift out of control. The lawsuits claim that the steering system defect is a serious safety problem and that Toyota was aware of the problem but did nothing to fix it.

It was alleged in the lawsuit that the defect in the electric power steering system caused a driver to spin out of control on a highway, cross the center line into oncoming traffic before crashing into an embankment. The plaintiffs have alleged that the defect in the electric power steering system is significant and widespread, and they seek to have a class certified by the court.

Toyota, on the other hand, has argued that the court should not allow class certification nationwide because the vehicle shares no common problem. Toyota said the defect in the steering system affects only a small number of Corolla owners. Toyota also said it has reviewed the reports of steering problems and has found that the individual complaints may relate to the way steering feels to them or tire conditions on the particular vehicle.

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The Illinois Appellate Court has affirmed a defense verdict in a multi-vehicle crash on an icy Indiana highway that caused severe injuries to motorists. The big issue in the case was which state’s law should be applied at a Cook County Circuit Court jury trial.

On Dec. 26, 2007, Clifford Ruse, a truck driver for Harvey, Ill.-based Envirite of Illinois Inc. was driving eastbound on Interstate 80/94 in Hammond, Ind., when he was struck by an SUV whose driver had lost control on a patch of black ice.

Ruse swerved his truck to the left and hit the highway’s median wall. On impact, the container of mill dust in tow was detached from his truck and that container crossed into the westbound lanes of the interstate highway. The plaintiff in the case, Daniel Kovera, was one of several drivers injured when the container landed on their cars. In March 2008, Kovera and his wife filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill.

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On Sept. 10, 2007, Paul Ermel was driving a semi-tractor northbound on Route 47 in Sugar Grove, Ill., when the defendant, Zachary McVeigh, who was approaching in his car from the southbound, attempted a left turn. He was trying to turn on at Waubansee Drive, which is the entry for the Waubonsee Community College. McVeigh misjudged Ermel’s truck, thinking it was stuck and stopped as part of the construction work that was going on at the area. McVeigh turned his vehicle into the front driver’s side of Ermel’s semi-truck.

Ermel, 38, alleged that the impact of the crash caused him to sustain bulging discs or aggravation of pre-existing degenerative conditions in his cervical and thoracic spine, damage to neck ligaments, cervical instability and a cervical fistula. He required two cervical fusion surgeries. The first was at the level C6-7, and the second was at the level C4-6. His alleged medical expenses were $326,136. He also lost 10 weeks of work as a Teamsters union truck driver.

The defendant McVeigh admitted negligence but contested the nature and extent of Ermel’s injuries. The defendant contended that Ermel suffered only soft tissue strains, which resolved within 4 months. It was also argued that there was a 9-month treatment gap before Ermel sought further medical care, that he continued working full time and raced a stock car during this 9-month period and that there were no recorded complaints of neurological symptoms in his medical records until 1½ years after the accident.

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