Family of woman killed by manhole cover files suit
The family of a woman killed in February 2016 when a 200-pound manhole cover dislodged and shattered her windshield has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the state Department of Transportation.
Caitlin M. Clavette, 35, a Milton art teacher, died after the vehicle traveling in front of her on Interstate 93 just inside the Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Tunnel dislodged a manhole cover, sending it flying through the driver’s side of the windshield of Clavette’s Honda CRV, where it struck her and then exited the rear of the car.
Her younger brother, Andrew M. Clavette, and father, Leo J. Clavette Jr. of Winchester, filed their lawsuit Monday in Suffolk Superior Court, naming the transportation department as a defendant.
“Ms. Clavette’s death was a tragedy, and the Department’s sympathies remain with her family,” said Transportation Department spokesman Patrick Marvin.
The lawsuit also names AECOM Inc., a global engineering and consulting company from California, and Green International Affiliates Inc., a subcontractor working alongside AECOM for inspections of the I-93 Central Artery, as defendants.
The lawsuit states the manhole cover was put into service “long before” the Big Dig project, and that the cast-iron cover “was not paired to and did not match the frame on which it was seated.”
Both the frame and cover were “severely worn and deteriorated,” the lawsuit says, noting that AECOM reported the manhole covers were in “good” or “like new” condition during inspections in 2011 and 2014, despite “noting minor cracking” both times.
The lawsuit claims the defendants “failed to take proper and necessary precautions to prevent an obviously mis-matched and severely deteriorated 200-pound manhole cover from posing a danger to the traveling public” and that doing so properly could have prevented Clavette’s death.
The six-page filing does not set an amount for financial compensation.