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rgatijnet1's avatar
rgatijnet1
Explorer III
Dec 14, 2015

RV driver in fatal Tennessee accident pleads guilty

As some of you remember there was an accident that happened in Nashville, Tennessee where a Class A pulling a trailer hit and killed a police officer that was directing traffic. There was quite a bit of discussion on this forum about who was at fault.
The driver of the Class A has plead guilty to Reckless Homicide, a felony, and was placed on two years probation. The charge of fail to yield resulting in a death was dismissed.
There is still a civil lawsuit against the driver by the family of the officer that was killed. Obviously there are no winners in this incident. Be careful out there as your life can be destroyed in an instant. Driver pleads guilty
Class A
  • DutchmenSport's avatar
    DutchmenSport
    Explorer
    Dec 14, 2015
    I well remember the previous thread and all the discussion. The bottom line is, in this situation, absolutely everyone looses. Before anyone jumps on board about the "punishment" results, regardless of our personal feelings, you have to remember, everything was settled within the confines of the law, (regardless of how each of us may feel about the "law").

    Thank-you for posting the results of this incident for us.
  • rgatijnet1's avatar
    rgatijnet1
    Explorer III
    Dec 14, 2015
    There must have been a great deal of thought that went in deciding to plead guilty to Reckless Homicide since that may have a direct bearing on the outcome of the civil suit brought by the family of the victim.
  • donfrump's avatar
    donfrump
    Explorer
    Dec 14, 2015
    rgatijnet1 wrote:
    There must have been a great deal of thought that went in deciding to plead guilty to Reckless Homicide since that may have a direct bearing on the outcome of the civil suit brought by the family of the victim.


    knowing how everyone in the US plea bargain iam pretty sure he agreed to plead guilty in return for no jail time
    If he was properly insured his insurance will cover most of the settlement
  • Kayteg1's avatar
    Kayteg1
    Explorer II
    Dec 14, 2015
    I assume he had good lawyer and 2 years probation for taking the life does seem light.
    I observe that topics about the law always get hot and I blame it to the fact that US law is not consistent.
    It is based on person, or judge character, where the same charge will differ between the judge, color of defendant skin etc, etc.
    Learning how civil suit end would be interesting.
    I doubt the liability coverage on his RV policy covers $1 + million.
    Hope he had umbrella policy.
  • Janss's avatar
    Janss
    Explorer II
    Dec 14, 2015
    A reminder to us all to slow way down when approaching an incident in the road or on the side of the road...no matter what the signs say.
  • donfrump's avatar
    donfrump
    Explorer
    Dec 14, 2015
    Kayteg1 wrote:
    I assume he had good lawyer and 2 years probation for taking the life does seem light.
    I observe that topics about the law always get hot and I blame it to the fact that US law is not consistent.
    It is based on person, or judge character, where the same charge will differ between the judge, color of defendant skin etc, etc.
    Learning how civil suit end would be interesting.
    I doubt the liability coverage on his RV policy covers $1 + million.
    Hope he had umbrella policy.


    the liability on my bus policy is 3 million that's what I assumed people kept? maybe us is different than Canada?
  • Kayteg1's avatar
    Kayteg1
    Explorer II
    Dec 14, 2015
    I figured out in California almost 20 years ago that $1 mil on auto policy, or umbrella is good idea.
    With cars costing $200,000 and high hospital bills that adds pretty fast.
    Actually I heard about accident when a guy got his legs crushed between cars when he was trying to put registration sticker on his car and drunk driver hit car park behind. The $1 mil went on hospital bills within a year.
    BUT, from what I remember CA require only about $150k coverage and lot of people have it.
    I can only assume that Tennessee has even lower requirements.
  • rgatijnet1's avatar
    rgatijnet1
    Explorer III
    Dec 14, 2015
    What is the value of a healthy 25 year old?
    Hard to say what a jury will recommend but you have to tack legal bills on top of that and I can see a typical $1 million liability policy going away very quickly. Just for the defense of his traffic violation for the last year and 1/2 he may be close to $1 million already.
    A $5 million civil judgement would not surprise me.
  • gbopp's avatar
    gbopp
    Explorer
    Dec 14, 2015
    Janss wrote:
    A reminder to us all to slow way down when approaching an incident in the road or on the side of the road...no matter what the signs say.

    X2. Too many don't have enough sense to slow down, for anything.
  • jwmII's avatar
    jwmII
    Explorer
    Dec 14, 2015
    A reminder of the greed in this country. We're gonna gitcha anyway we can and since we can't stick you in jail for the rest of your life we're gonna break you financially and take everything you have worked all your life for by ignoring the double jeopardy clause of the U.S. constitution. We are bottom feeders, We are called Lawyers and we've found sneaky little ways to do this. Never mind that there was a horrible tragedy and loss to families. Now we're gonna rub it and get all we can out of it. What a great system. A big pond with scum all over it.

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