Family Wins Lawsuit After Car Accident Shortens Life of Child with Leukemia

It is emotionally traumatic to be in a car accident, but it is even more traumatic if your child is in the car with you.  Now imagine how it would feel to get in a car accident if you were driving your child home from a doctor’s appointment for cancer treatment.  This year, a jury in South Carolina awarded damages to the family of a young boy who later died from leukemia.  The issue in the car accident lawsuit was not that the defendant’s actions in causing the accident were extraordinarily reckless.  In some car accident lawsuits, the defendant was driving 100 miles per hour or had a blood alcohol content three times the legal limit, but that was not the case in this lawsuit; this was a car accident like any other.  The deciding factor was that the physical and emotional trauma from the crash worsened the child’s already fragile health.  If you have been injured in a car accident, even if you have pre-existing medical conditions, contact a South Carolina car accident lawyer.

Court Orders Driver to Pay Damages to Parents After Child Dies from Cancer

Jason and Mary Tannery live in Oconee County, but in late 2014 and early 2015, they frequently traveled to Charleston so that their two-year-old son could undergo treatment for leukemia.  The child underwent a bone marrow transplant in November 2014, and his condition steadily improved from the time of the transplant until February 2015, when the family was involved in a car accident in Charleston.  Hugh Van den Bergh failed to yield the right of way to Mary Tannery, and the impact of the crash caused her and the child to be “violently propelled” inside the car.  The child died from leukemia about three months after the accident.

In 2017, Jason and Mary Tannery filed a lawsuit against Van den Bergh.  They claimed in the lawsuit that the emotional distress caused by worrying about their son after the accident compounded the emotional distress that they felt because of his illness, and the stress of the accident prevented them from enjoying what little time they had with him.  While they acknowledged that Van den Bergh cannot have known about the child’s cancer diagnosis, it was his negligence that caused the accident.  At the conclusion of a jury trial in early 2020, the court awarded $141,000 in damages to the plaintiffs, which evens out to about 37 cents for every minute that the parents got to spend with their son during his remaining time on earth after the accident.

Let Us Help You Today

Not every heartbreaking story results in an award of damages for the plaintiff.  You need a Columbia car accident lawyer to demonstrate clearly that the accident is the defendant’s responsibility and that the accident is the cause of your injuries and financial losses.  Contact The Stanley Law Group for help.

Resource:

thestate.com/news/state/south-carolina/article239991163.html

https://www.thestanleylawgroup.com/can-a-car-accident-be-the-rental-car-companys-fault/