Girl Runs Over, Kills Woman While High on Painkillers
Some incidents resonate in both the personal injury and criminal law contexts, which enables both our injury blog and our criminal law blog to examine the issue from both sides of the spectrum. The situation that will be discussed here and on www.tennesseecriminallawyerblog.com today is one of those situations.
An eighteen year old New York woman has been charged with manslaughter after she drove a van into the yard of a sixty-nine year-old lady while she was mowing, running her over and killing her. The young lady claims the car was out of control at the time of the incident and that she was pressing the brake to try to stop the vehicle. The young lady was apparently high on painkillers when she ran over her victim, having been released prematurely from drug rehab recently due to insurance issues. To make matters worse, the driver did not seem to express much remorse, reportedly telling the police: "The thing that made me feel not so bad was she was old. I mean, 70 years is a long time to live."
In the State of Tennessee driving while high on painkillers like the woman did in this scenario is automatically considered negligent because it is a violation of the DUI laws. This means that the girl will likely be liable for any of the damages suffered by the woman, which would probably consist in large part of a wrongful death suit considering the circumstances surrounding the incident. As this scenario illustrates, certain situations lend themselves to legal problems on multiple fronts. When this happens, defendants will need an experienced attorney who can help them sort through all of the challenges presented to the defendants. Likewise, victims of such accidents should also consult experienced personal injury attorneys who can help them recover for what they or their family members have lost as a result of the accident.
Source: http://www.1010wins.com/Woman-Charge...as-Old/6869742
