Family files $5M suit in fatal Baltimore bike accident
Update: The Sun also has coverage with this great quote:"The lawyer also argued that Yates was not negligent because statutes governing bicyclists require them to stay with the flow of traffic, as far to the right as possible.
"That's exactly what Mr. Yates did," he said. "
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By Brendan Kearney
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer
The family of a Baltimore man who was killed last summer when his bicycle collided with a large truck filed a $5 million suit Wednesday against the alleged hit-and-run driver and contractor Potts & Callahan Inc.
John R. Yates, a 67-year-old retired youth counselor, was cycling south on Maryland Avenue just north of I-83 when Michael D. Chandler turned his Potts & Callahan fuel tanker right onto Lafayette Avenue, according to the suit filed by his wife and two children in Baltimore City Circuit Court.
Yates’ bike became entangled in the back wheels of the green and silver truck, according to the suit, and Yates was run over and pronounced dead at the scene, just blocks south of his row house.
Chandler, a 61-year-old Severn resident, did not stop, and police only determined days later, from watching video of the accident captured by a nearby security camera, that the truck belonged to Potts & Callahan, which has an office and yard nearby, according to police reports.
Although police concluded Yates illegally passed the truck and therefore did not press charges against Chandler, the Yates family lawyer said he is “very comfortable” with the facts of the case.
“The driver of the truck is negligent, there’s no question about that,” said Steven D. Silverman, adding that the only remaining question is whether Mr. Yates was contributorily negligent, which would negate his family’s claim. “And based on several attorneys’ reading of the statute, [Yates] wasn’t.”
Silverman, who became involved in the case within 48 hours of the Aug. 4 morning incident and has spoken to the two witnesses, said “it’s crystal clear on the video” that the offending truck did not signal before turning.
“It’s a huge deal,” Silverman, a partner at Silverman Thompson Slutkin & White, said of the footage captured by the Project PLASE camera. “Without it, it would be very difficult to prove our case.”
Marc Klitenic, a lawyer for Potts & Callahan, said it was not a Potts & Callahan truck that hit Yates. Potts & Callahan does excavation, demolition and equipment rental and has worked on such projects as Oriole Park at Camden Yards, according to its Web site.
“We believe there is ample evidence that it was neither Michael Dale Chandler nor Potts & Callahan that caused this accident,” said Klitenic, a partner at Kandel, Klitenic, Kotz & Betten LLP in Towson. (Klitenic will not litigate the case; Craig Roswell of Niles, Barton & Wilmer will defend the suit on behalf of Potts & Callahan’s insurer, Klitenic said.)
Klitenic said police tests of the blood and hair stuck to the bottom of the Potts & Callahan truck came back “inconclusive,” that Chandler said in the course of the company’s internal investigation that he did not strike anyone or anything, and that contemporaneous descriptions of the truck as a white box truck do not match the contractor’s fleet.
A police spokesman countered that investigation had concluded a Potts & Callahan truck hit Yates, but also found the driver was not at fault, and did not realize he had struck anyone.
“It was determined that the victim was driving in a parked vehicle lane and attempted to make an illegal pass on the right of the truck, and as the truck turned the corner, the victim ran into the truck,” spokesman Donny Moses said Wednesday. “Sad. Very sad. But it is what it is.”
Silverman doesn’t believe an alert truck driver could have neither felt nor heard the impact with Yates.
“The witnesses heard it across the street. I don’t know how you can not hear it. He wasn’t going very fast,” Silverman said. “I don’t know how the property damage or the blood would go unnoticed.”
Legislation that would require that vehicles like trucks pass bikes, scooters and other similar devices from more than three feet away has passed the Maryland Senate and is working its way through the House of Delegates.
<a href="http://mddailyrecord.com/2010/03/03/family-files-5m-suit-in-fatal-baltimore-bike-accident/">http://mddailyrecord.com/2010/03/03/family-files-5m-suit-in-fatal-baltimore-bike-accident/</a>;
Baltimore Sun: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-bicyclist0304,0,6044607.story">http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-bicyclist0304,0,6044607.story</a>;
Google Street View has the chalk marks from the crash scene: <a href="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Baltimore,+Maryland&ll=39.309805,-76.617837&spn=0,359.990355&z=17&layer=c&cbll=39.309898,-76.617837&panoid=8e8KGqmwd-TZgXopQ_Pf5g&cbp=12,216.07,,2,18.36">http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Baltimore,+Maryland&ll=39.309805,-76.617837&spn=0,359.990355&z=17&layer=c&cbll=39.309898,-76.617837&panoid=8e8KGqmwd-TZgXopQ_Pf5g&cbp=12,216.07,,2,18.36</a>;
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