BROADCAST
TRANSCRIPT
Date: April
02, 2006
Time: 11:00
AM - 11:30 AM
Station: WTXX-TV (UPN) Channel
20
Location: Hartford/New Haven, Conn.
Program: Beyond
the Headlines
SHELLY
SINDLAND, host:
And
for the families who lost so much on
Avon Mountain, the
assets of
American Crushing and Recycling hit the auction
block last
week. The Bloomfield company has been under
investigation
since last summer's deadly crash triggered by
a dump truck
going out of control on the mountain.
Owner
David Wilcox could not bid on the items,
but that
didn't keep
him away. Sales went mostly to out of state
bidders. The
auction grossed more than a million dollars
after expenses;
about $300,000 will go to families.
And
for one New Hartford woman who lost her
husband, she is
forced now
to try and raise five young girls on her own.
While she
believes Wilcox is partly to blame for her
husband's
death, she recently testified before a
legislative
committee that she thinks the state is to
blame, too.
Ms.
ELLEN STOTLER (Husband Killed in Crash): He
would do
anything
for us and he did everything for us. He was our
world.
SINDLAND: But
last summer that world came crashing
down
for Ellen
Stotler and her five daughters.
Ms.
STOTLER: The girls and I miss Chip
terribly and we are
devastated
by our loss and I'm left to pick up the pieces
of our lives
and put them back together.
SINDLAND: This
New Hartford husband and father who used
to
refer to
his family as 'Chip and his chicks' was tragically
killed in
the fiery crash on Avon Mountain after a dump
truck plowed
into cars stopped at a light. While Stotler
believes
the trucking company is to blame, she believes the
state is,
too.
Ms.
STOTLER: I also believe that if
there was a runaway
ramp or
some sort of safety design put in place on Avon
Mountain
prior to July 29th that Chip would still be with
us today.
SINDLAND: However,
under current law there is very little
Stotler
can do to make the state pay. She can't sue unless
it's determined
the state was 100 percent at fault. But a
new bill
would give her and others who lost loved ones on
that terrible
day the right to have their day in court
regardless.
Ms.
STOTLER: I believe that the state
of Connecticut has
known that
this road is unsafe for many years but has
chosen not
to fix it.
SINDLAND: The
families know that asking state lawmakers
to
pass a law
which would give them permission to sue the
state is
a long shot but they say it's a risk they're
willing
to take if it will serve as a wake-up call.
Representative
ANDREW RORABACK (Goshen): If it's
going to
happen it
will be because of the testimony presented today.
SINDLAND: Stotler's
biggest fear, if nothing is done to
fix Avon
Mountain, her loss will become someone else's.
Ms.
STOTLER: I believe that in the
near future there will
be a third,
fourth, fifth, numerous accidents exactly like
the ones
that just occurred.
SINDLAND: And
here now to talk about the issue are
state
senator
Thomas Herlihy, a Republican lawmaker from
Simsbury,
State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and FOX
61 reporter
Eric Zager. Thank you very much, gentlemen,
for being
here this morning.
Let's
start with you, Mr. Blumenthal. We
do have an
update; this
bill that would basically allow victims'
families
to sue the state has died in committee.
Do
you think that the victims should have
the right to sue
the state? How
it is now, well, explain that now in the
state; they
would have to prove 100 percent liability,
correct? Which
is almost impossible.
Mr.
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (Connecticut Attorney
General):
Anyone has
the right, right now, including these victims to
sue the
state, but the threshold level of proof is that the
state has
to be shown to be 100 percent or the sole
proximate
cause, as it's called; in other words, the
sole cause
of the accident.
These victims
deserve to be compensated and that's why I've
been fighting
as hard as I have through the civil process
to go after
Wilcox and American Crushing Recycling and why
we've worked
on the criminal end of it, as well, because
these victims
are a special case and my view is there ought
to be special
compensation for them because they had no
fault here. They
had absolutely nothing to do with this
crash that
should hold them responsible.
SINDLAND: Senator
Herlihy, do you think the victims should
have the
right to sue the state? And were you surprised to
hear what
Ellen was saying? Was she dimpling the state
saying if
there had been a runaway truck ramp, she believes
her husband
would be alive.
That's the first
time we've really heard something like
that.
Senator
THOMAS HERLIHY (Simsbury): No,
no, I fully support
her efforts
and the efforts of the passage of that bill,
the Defective
Highways Bill. In the last seven years
there's
been 190 accidents, 11 deaths and very few changes
were ever
made to Avon Mountain.
It
is a very dangerous road and Ellen Stotler,
Maureen
Edler--Edlund,
excuse me, from Canton and Barbara
Bongiovanni
of Torrington and their families all deserve
our assistance.
Mr.
BLUMENTHAL: And the reason, Shelly,
to hold the state
responsible
in this case at the very least is to send a
message
to the Department of Transportation and state
officials
that there will be consequences when the state
fails to
properly design or maintain a road.
SINDLAND: Because
right now it's as Ellen said, kind of
the state
can look the other way because they can't really
be sued
in a lot of cases, right Senator Herlihy?
Mr.
BLUMENTHAL: I'm talking, by the
way, as a lawyer who
defends
the state.
SINDLAND: I
know you are, which is interesting. And
you're talking
as a state--
Rep.
HERLIHY: As a lawmaker who does
not want the state of
Connecticut
to go bankrupt but I'm sure that we can craft
legislation
that is so narrow in its scope. And we can
play--we
can utilize the fact that the owner of the
trucking
company was so negligent and so irresponsible in
terms of
his behavior.
The
driver of the truck reportedly had lost
his job three
days earlier
because he couldn't handle heavy equipment,
big trucks
and there was no insurance in place. And if you
tie that
into the language that we've already got started,
I think
that this can get done and these families can get
the financial
assistance they deserve.
SINDLAND: Speaking
of the owner of the trucking company,
Eric, you were
there when
they were selling off some of his
assets,
which we know are not a whole lot. What was the
deal? He
was there; he was talking on his phone and he
wasn't the
only one, correct?
ERIC
ZAGER reporting:
Shelly,
he was there with his attorney and his
son
and--when
someone had told me he was there, I really--after
hearing
about this story--had to do a double take because I
thought,
'What is this guy doing here?' I mean again,
nothing
illegal for him to be there, but he was there.
SINDLAND: Did
you go up to him? Did you ask him
what he
was doing
there?
ZAGER: We
did try to talk to him. He told
me that he was
busy, he
was doing a conference, he couldn't talk to me.
He was meeting
with McKenna, his attorney and his son. And
then when
I later asked his attorney, his attorney told me
that he
was the guarantor to the bank and he wanted to be
there
to make sure that the trucks were properly
prepared, and that they brought
in the right price and since he was--
ultimately
was going to be the one who would have to pay
any shortfall
to the families, he wanted to be there and
make sure
it went smooth. I've got to tell you, I just
don't know
how all that played into it.
I
mean he absolutely had no control over
the auction. He
obviously
didn't control, or shouldn't have been
controlling
the price of any of those things.
SINDLAND: And
Mr. Blumenthal, this is something you
may
look into
from what I understand?
Mr.
BLUMENTHAL: We are looking into
it because we're
concerned
about some of the apparent communications that
took place. We're
verifying the names of the bidders, who
bid on what
and whether Mr. Wilcox had any connection to
them.
SINDLAND: Senator
Herlihy, let's end this here with you.
Folks who
drive over Avon Mountain, I grew up driving that
mountain
my whole life. People I know drive that mountain.
What can
be done now.
People
are going to hear Ellen saying that she's
afraid
there's
going to be another tragedy like we saw last
summer. I
understand they're going to put rubber strips on
and the
signs are bigger but what's something big and
tangible
that can--that the state can do and should do to
make Route
44 safer?
Rep.
HERLIHY: Well, most importantly
we need to make these
families
whole. And then after that we need to address the
issues on
that mountain. It is much too steep.
We
need additional lanes, we need medians,
we need--the
speed is
obviously a factor there and there's been a lot of
attention
given to the speed factor in the last few weeks
and months.
But
the bottom line is there needs to be
demonstrative
changes. The
governor has suggested that the plans that
have been
sitting on the table for six to eight years, that
they go
into place immediately. And the Department of
Transportation
as we speak, is working on those plans, even
as we speak.
SINDLAND: Mr.
Blumenthal, I can give you about 15 seconds.
Mr.
BLUMENTHAL: And I'll say it in
five; we need stronger
inspection
of those trucks. Remember the reason why those
victims
are without their loved ones or suffered severe
injuries
is because there were dangerous trucks
with
dangerous
drivers on the road.
We
need better inspection and my proposal
is for a hall of
shame for
the trucks that fail those tests because that
will let
people know who is operating those dangerous
trucks.
SINDLAND: Excellent. A
little longer than five seconds...
Mr.
BLUMENTHAL: I'm sorry. Thank
you.
SINDLAND: ...but
you had a lot of great things to say.
Thank you
Mr. Blumenthal, Eric, thank you very much for
being here. We
appreciate it. Senator Herlihy, thank you
as well.
Rep.
HERLIHY: Thank you. |
