Flawed shopping center entrance led to Royal Palm teen’s death, lawsuit says

ROYAL PALM BEACH — A 16-year-old girl suffered fatal injuries while riding her bicycle home from her first night of classes at Royal Palm Beach High School in 2016 because of a flawed design of a shopping center driveway, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.

The configuration of the driveway at Village Shoppes Plaza in Royal Palm Beach made it impossible for a driver of a BMW to see Yessica Angel-Moreno as she pedaled past him as he was pulling out of the shopping center on Okeechobee Boulevard near Partridge Lane, according to a lawsuit that attorney Jason Cornell filed on behalf of the teen’s mother.

Angel-Moreno suffered catastrophic injuries when she was hit Jan. 25, 2016, as she was headed home from English language class at the high school, Cornell said. She died six days later at St. Mary’s Medical Center.

Cornell is seeking an unspecified amount in damages from the owner of the shopping center and a civil engineering firm that designed the expansion of Okeechobee Boulevard from two to six lanes. He claims their negligence was responsible for the teen’s death.

Center owner Royal Arnav LLC should have known the driveway was only permitted to provide temporary access to the center when it was built in 1983, the lawsuit says. At the time, Okeechobee Boulevard was a two-lane road. Cornell also claims Royal Arnav, based in Jupiter, allowed a sign, trees and shrubs to obstruct motorists’ view of the sidewalk.

Cornell is also suing Tim J. Messler Inc., a Jupiter engineering company hired by Palm Beach County to design the widening of Okeechobee Boulevard. The firm also should have corrected safety problems with the driveway, he claims.

Neither the shopping center nor the engineering firm was immediately available for comment.