Kellie R Kennedy

Wayne County jury issues large award in DUI-wrongful death case

A jury in Wayne County has ordered two defendants to pay substantial damages to the families of four people killed in a drunk-driving accident on April 17, 2008. The defendants in the wrongful death case were a man from Louisa, Kentucky, and a car dealership from which he allegedly stole the pickup truck he was driving at the time of the fatal accident .

Law enforcement investigators believe that the Kentucky man stole a pickup truck from a dealership in Ashland, Kentucky, and then drove around drunk until he ran head-on into another vehicle in Kenova, West Virginia. All four people in that vehicle -- a man, his two children and a family friend -- were killed.

Driver, convicted in criminal case, now faces his victims' families in civil court

After the drunk-driving accident, a grand jury indicted the Kentucky man on four counts of DUI causing death along with one count of third-offense DUI and one count of driving on a suspended license. In 2009, the man entered a "Kennedy plea" to those charges, which means that he did not admit his guilt but agreed that the State of West Virginia had a provable case against him. In accordance with the plea, he was sentenced to serve 6 to 26 years in prison.

According to reporters, the families of those killed in the car accident agreed to allow the man's plea in the criminal case so they would not have to relive the details of the tragedy through a trial.

In addition to the criminal case, a wrongful death lawsuit was filed in civil court by the families of the victims. The jury found that both the drunk driver and the car dealership's negligence contributed to the deaths of their loved ones.

The jury awarded a total of $2.69 million in damages to the families, 80 percent of which is to be paid by the drunk driver. The other 20 percent is to be paid by the car dealership. Although news articles did not specify what the car dealership did to contribute to the fatal accident, the jury decided that it was negligent. The dealership may have negligently entrusted the vehicle to an obviously drunk person, or it may have failed to secure its vehicles adequately from theft.

Introductory statistics with R

The R book

Robert Kennedy and His Times

Bayesian computation with R

Profiles in Courage