Attorney is seeking damages, claims city liable for death City faces claim by relatives of woman killed crossing street
WOONSOCKET –A Massachusetts lawyer is trying to collect liability damages from the city in the death of an elderly woman who was struck and killed by a car after she tripped in a sidewalk hole on Clinton Street, opposite Kennedy Manor, on Nov. 5.
Lawyer R. Andrew Pelletier of Weymouth filed the claim on behalf of Marian Morrow’s relatives. Papers filed at the office of City Clerk Christina Duarte say he is seeking the statutory limit for municipal damages in a personal injury case, which is $100,000 in this state.
Using a walker, Morrow, 64, was returning to her apartment in Kennedy Manor when a leg of the ambulatory support device got stuck in the hole, causing her to fall, according to the claim.
“At the area of the fall there was a hole in the cement walkway and/or where there was a metal grate” and “the leg of her walker went into this sidewalk hole and/ or metal grating causing her to fall forward into Clinton Street where she was struck by a car with such force that she was thrown back on the sidewalk,” the claim says.
Morrow suffered “multiple internal and external injuries” in the accident. She died four days later at Rhode Island Hospital.
Pelletier couldn’t be reached, but the claim indicates he also intends to seek damages from the operator of the motor vehicle involved in the accident. Pelletier’s claim says he has requested copies of the accident report and
footage from security cameras in place at Kennedy Man-
or, a public senior high rise. To date, however, Pelletier said he received no response from either the Woonsocket Police Department of the Woonsocket Housing Authority, presumably because “this accident was fatal and the city is conducting its own investigation and will not reply to requests made until their investigation is com-
pleted.”
The driver, Carlos J. Lopez Jr., 21, of 727 Front St., was taken into custody by the WPD after the accident and cited for operating on a suspended license; improper used of a registration; and operating without proof of insurance. He has since pleaded innocent to those charges pending a trial before the
Rhode Island Traffic Tribunal on Jan. 9, according to the judiciary’s web site.
On Dec. 12, police brought an additional citation against Lopez for failure to exercise due care while driving. A hearing on that matter is scheduled to take place before the RITT on Jan. 24.
None of the offenses Lopez is accused of is a criminal
infraction.
City Solicitor John DeSimone has advised the City Council to take no action on the claim. In a memo, he told officials that he would refer the matter to the Rhode Island Inter-Local Trust, a risk pool which provides the city with insurance to cover damages arising from personal injury claims.
A claim of the sort filed by Pelletier is not a lawsuit, but it could be a precursor to a civil action. State law requires potential litigants to file such claims locally before they may pursue a lawsuit in Superior Court.