A settlement has been reached between the family of Sabrena Carrier and the State of Tennessee for $20,000. The lawsuit itself was filed after Carrier “died when her car hit a guardrail terminal along Highway 394 near Blountville” back in 2008. According to court documents, the “guardrail pierced her car, killing Carrier who worked as an emergency medical technician for Sullivan County EMS.”
A settlement has been reached between the family of Sabrena Carrier and the State of Tennessee for $20,000. The lawsuit itself was filed after Carrier “died when her car hit a guardrail terminal along Highway 394 near Blountville” back in 2008. According to court documents, the “guardrail pierced her car, killing Carrier who worked as an emergency medical technician for Sullivan County EMS.”
As a result of the horrific accident, Carrier’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the State of Tennessee, Trinity Industries, “the maker of the ET-Plus guardrail terminal,” and others, on claims that the “terminal head failed, resulting in the guardrail impalement.”
However, while the State of Tennessee is paying $20,000, that amount is actually “less than one percent of what the guardrail maker is paying,” according to Tennessee’s Attorney General Herb Slattery. In fact, Slattery thinks the potential damages for the family will be in the millions. He said, “the potential damages in this case in the the range of $2.5 million – $3.5 million, not including punitive damages, which would not affect the State obviously.” He added:
“The only reason the state agreed to pay money to the Carrier family was that there were witnesses who testified that the guardrail had been damaged months prior to the accident but never repaired by TDOT. If this is indeed the case, the damaged guardrail could be deemed as being a reason the guardrail did not extrude as well as it should have.”
So what has been done about the damaged guardrail? Are others at risk? Well, “the ET-Plus terminal involved in the crash had a 4-inch channel,” and TDOT “replaced the damaged guardrail terminal with the same type of terminal head” shortly after the crash. However, in 2014 a “federal judge in Texas ruled Trinity Industries committed fraud when it modified the terminal’s design without telling the government,” resulting in TDOT removing the flawed product “from its approved products list.” However, despite being removed from the approved products list, “the ET-Plus 4 inch terminals remain in use along Tennessee roads.” Why? Well, according to Paul Degges, TDOT’s Chief Engineer, “the state has not seen evidence of performance problems with the ET-Plus 4 inch terminal.”
So far neither the Carrier family or Trinity Industries have commented on the case that is now being kept confidential. All a Trinity spokesman has revealed is that the case is settled. “We will not comment beyond that,” Jeff Eller, a Trinity spokesman said recently.
Sources:
Settlement reached in Sullivan Co. guardrail death lawsuit
Tri-Cities family suing guardrail manufacturer claiming deadly design flaw
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