The state Superior Court has revived a claim stemming from a fatal motor vehicle-pedestrian accident, ruling that the trial court improperly weighed the evidence before it and discounted possibly viable plaintiffs experts in dismissing the defendants on a grant of summary judgment.
In an opinion penned by Judge David N. Wecht, the unanimous three-judge panel did not specifically credit or weigh any of the evidence, but rather decided that a jury question as to liability remained in play after speculating about what additional evidence might show and what a jury might conclude. The evidence of record so far in Wright v. Eastman includes the defendant’s own testimony that he didn’t see the woman he hit until she was about two car lengths away, one plaintiffs expert who offered a "conservative" opinion about the distance at which the driver should have seen the woman, Patricia Carlin, and another expert who opined on how much distance the driver should have needed to abruptly stop.
