DOTD Ordered To Pay
$8.25 Million
Reprinted From: Morning
Advocate, May 7, 1991
Florida Parishes Bureau
LIVINGSTON - An $8.25 million court
award against the state Department of Transportation and
Development was issued Thursday by Judge Edward Brent Dufreche in
21st Judicial District Court.
Testimony was completed last fall in
the case brought by Laurie Jenkins, 29, of Denham Springs after an
accident on La. 42 near Port Vincent in April 1988.
The court found that the state was
responsible for defects in the roadway, for the elevation of its
surface for a double curve in the road, according to Baton Rouge
attorney Jerry McKernan, who represented Jenkins.
The highway had recently been
overlayed and there was a dropoff of more than five inches from
the road surface to the shoulder. No signs warned of the dropoff
or the curve, McKernan said.
According to the attorney, Jenkins
was a passenger in a car that was east-bound on La. 42 when the
wheels on one side went off the roadway and the driver was unable
to get the car back onto the road. The car hit an embankment and
Jenkins was ejected. She will be a quadriplegic for the rest of
her life because of the injuries, McKernan said.
In addition to the $8.25
million award to Jenkins, Dufreche ordered that her 6-year-old
son receive $100,000 for loss of relationship, McKernan said.
McKernan said the state usually
appeals such verdicts.
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