Civil Suit Added to Criminal Charges for State Trooper's Death

 Posted on February 03, 2014 in Personal Injury

In March, an Illinois State Trooper was killed as the result of a truck driver from Wisconsin falling asleep at the wheel as he was driving a semi. According to an article recently published by NBC Chicago, the state trooper's widow has decided to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the driver, as well as the companies he was working for at the time of the accident.

Court records show the suit was filed at the end of 2013. The driver, who is 26 years old, is already facing criminal charges in Cook County for allegedly violating safety laws put in place by the Federal government aimed at keeping tired drivers off the road. Cook County Prosecutors are saying that the driver had already put in a 12-hour shift before the accident, which occurred when he began to fall asleep while driving around 11:00 PM on March 28th, 2013. Records from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration state that the driver and his employer had been fined for violating a federal rule which prohibits drivers from operating a vehicle for more than 14 hours without getting 10 hours of rest.

The widow's lawsuit alleges that the state trooper was parked on the left hand shoulder of I-294 in the southbound direction. The driver was operating a truck which was pulling a trailer weighing in at over 26,000 pounds. He was driving on I-294 South in the far left lane. Further, the widow's lawsuit says the driver has worked on the day of the accident from about 6:30 AM to 6:30 PM while he helped to load the trailer in Wisconsin. He began operating the vehicle at about 7:14 PM until about 7:34 PM, and then began driving again at 8:49 PM. He continued driving until the time of the accident, which happened at about 11:03 PM. At that time, as is alleged in the lawsuit, the driver fell asleep and the truck coasted off the road into the left shoulder where the trooper was parked. The trooper's vehicle caught fire and the resulting injuries caused his death, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.