$20 Million Florida Personal Injury Settlement for Deadly ATV Accident
The parents of a 13-year-old boy who was killed in a 2002 Florida ATV accident were awarded a $20 million personal injury settlement earlier this month by a Pasco County civil jury. A St. Petersburg Times story detailed that Donald “D.J.” Roberts was killed when he lost control of someone else’s four-wheel all-terrain vehicle and crashed head-first into a barbed wire fence. Donald and Terry Roberts, the parents of the deceased boy, had alleged in their personal injury lawsuit that the defendant, Timothy Mark Taylor, had invited the boy to ride the ATV. The story said that neither Taylor nor any lawyers showed up to court for his defense.
Witnesses and investigators told the newspaper that D.J. and a 10-year-old boy were riding a nearby resident’s ATV without permission prior to the deadly accident. Despite their shouts to tell the boys to slow down on the vehicle, witnesses said that the boys did not listen to them and continued to ride at high speeds. D.J. Roberts then lost control of the vehicle and was nearly decapitated. The other boy on the vehicle was also injured in the accident.
In their 2004 wrongful death lawsuit, Donald’s parents claimed that Taylor invited their son to ride the 1986 ATV. While it is unclear if Taylor owned the vehicle, the lawsuit said that he was responsible for the ATV and consequently failed to provide adult supervision, “properly secure” the ignition key, and keep the vehicle in a “safe” condition.
Hendrik Uiterwyk, the family’s Tampa personal injury attorney, said in the story that Taylor never contacted the family after the accident. He added that while the family got the settlement they wanted, they could never bring back to their 13-year-old son.