The Kansas Department of Transportation, the Kansas Turnpike Authority, a retired truck driver and eight businesses are defendants in a lawsuit being pursued by parents of three Topeka Girl Scouts killed in October 2022 in a Kansas Turnpike crash.
Each defendant bears some responsibility for what happened, the lawsuit petition says.
It alleges the Dodge Caravan in which the girls were riding was defective or otherwise unsafe; the driver of the semi that hit the Caravan and his employer were negligent; and that the KTA and KDOT negligently allowed the roadway involved to be unsafe for travel “due to the use, placement or implantation of emergency or maintenance crossovers.”
Amber Peery, who was convicted in August of crimes linked to the October 2022 traffic crash deaths of three Girl Scouts, isn’t among defendants in a pending lawsuit filed in October seeking damages linked to that crash.
Pending lawsuit was discussed at Amber Peery’s sentencing hearing
Most of the 11 defendants have filed court documents denying responsibility for the deaths since the suit was filed in October.
KDOT filed a motion for summary judgment Nov. 18 asking that it be removed as a defendant without a trial.
The pending lawsuit was among topics discussed at a hearing Tuesday in which Shawnee County District Judge Jessica Heinen sentenced Amber Peery, 35, to five years, four months in prison on convictions for five felonies and two traffic infractions linked to the Oct. 8, 2022, crash on the Turnpike southwest of Topeka.
Jurors at her trial in August concluded Peery was responsible for the crash.
The pending lawsuit is the second to be filed seeking damages linked to the crash. Peery was among defendants in an earlier suit but is not among defendants in the more recent one.
Wreck on Kansas Turnpike killed three Girl Scouts
Peery was part of a caravan of three drivers who were en route to a Girl Scouts event in Tonganoxie when they took the wrong ramp to enter the Kansas Turnpike and realized they were going the wrong direction.
A semi-trailer then struck the left rear of Peery’s Dodge Caravan as she tried to make an illegal U-turn through a small opening in the concrete barrier wall, as fellow caravan drivers Amelia Bailey and Margaret Jones had done earlier.
Killed were passengers Laila El Azri Ennassari and Kylie Lunn, both 9, and Brooklyn Peery 8, who was Amber Peery’s daughter. Injured were Amber Peery; her daughter, Carrington Peery, then 5; and passenger Gabriella Casas, then 9.
Here’s what happened with the first lawsuit
Bailey, Jones, Amber Peery and Girl Scouts of Northeast Kansas and Northwest Missouri subsequently became defendants in a lawsuit filed on behalf of:
• Tiffany Lunn, mother of Kylie.
• Rida El Azri Ennassari, father of Laila.
• Annika Casas and Ralph Casas, parents of Gabriella.
• Andrew Peery, father of Brooklyn and Carrington. Amber Peery and Andrew Peery were married at the time of the crash but have since been divorced.
A confidential lawsuit settlement reached by the parties involved was considered at a hearing last June by Pottawatomie County District Court Judge Jeff Elder, who sealed the file entirely for that case.
What does the latest lawsuit say?
Attorneys representing Andrew Peery, Tiffany Lunn and Rida El Azri Ennassari filed suit Oct. 1 against defendants Robert Russell; KDOT; the KTA; Western Flyer Express, LLC; R.W. Timms Leasing, LLC; Lear Corporation; FCA US LLC; Adient US LLC; Magna International Inc.; Magna International of America, Inc.; and Faurecia Automotive Seating, LLC.
Attorneys for Peery, Lunn and Ennassari then filed a 70-page amended petition in the case Oct. 4 asking for damages in excess of $75,000 on each of eight counts.
Those included allegations of the following:
• Negligence resulting in wrongful death by FCA, Adient, Lear, Faurecia, Magna International and Magna International of America, which the petition says were all involved with producing Dodge Caravan vehicles. Amber Peery’s Caravan was “in a defective and/or unreasonably dangerous condition” at the time of the crash, the lawsuit petition contends.
• Trucking violations and/or negligence resulting in wrongful death by Russell, the driver of the semi that hit Peery’s Caravan; Western Flyer, which employed Russell; and R.W. Timms, which owned and leased that semi.
• Negligence resulting in wrongful death by KDOT and the KTA, which the petition says knew that motorists often used the crossovers to reverse direction on the turnpike but failed to take steps to remedy that, creating “defective and unreasonably dangerous conditions” that breached their “duty of care.”
KDOT has “no authority, ownership, control or possession” over the stretch of the turnpike southwest of Topeka where the crash occurred, it said in a motion filed last month seeking summary judgment in its favor in the suit.
The KTA’s response to the suit submitted Nov. 11 contended it is “immune from liability” due to Kansas statute and that Amber Peery “was solely at fault” for the triple fatality crash.
Contact Tim Hrenchir at threnchir@gannett.com or 785-213-5934.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Second lawsuit stems from crash that killed 3 Topeka Girl Scouts
