Impaired driver sued for $150K
REGINA After settling for $150,000 with a grieving family, SGI is suing a serial drunk driver who killed a man almost four years ago in Regina.
The insurer filed a statement of claim on Thursday, seeking payment from Brian Okemahwasin of Saskatoon.
On the morning of June 8, 2014, Okemahwasin was driving his truck down Albert Street at 94 km/h — almost twice the speed limit — when he rear-ended a car stopped at a red light. He killed the driver, Garry Tatham, after the collision broke the 72-year-old’s neck. Tatham left behind a wife and three children. Okemahwasin’s blood alcohol content was about three and a half times the legal limit, according to a court judgment. He was convicted of impaired driving causing death a year later. Okemahwasin appealed his nineyear sentence, but saw it confirmed.
In the meantime, Okemahwasin had allegedly signed an agreement with Saskatchewan Government Insurance. According Thursday’s statement of claim, he requested that the insurer “defend and/or settle all claims or actions that might be brought against him as a result of the said collision.”
SGI did settle. On Aug. 22, 2017, it agreed to pay $60,000 to Tatham’s wife, and $30,000 to each of his children for the harm they had suffered.
The claim argues Okemahwasin’s negligence “solely and entirely” caused Tatham’s death and notes — as courts have already found — that he was too impaired to drive a motor vehicle.
During his long legal process, Okemahwasin has expressed remorse. “There’s not enough words to express the misery I have inflicted,” he once said. Tatham’s wife, Heather, said she had lost her “very best friend,” while a judge noted that the tragedy had left a “gaping hole” in several lives.
But Okemahwasin also cited his long struggles with alcoholism, something he connected to his experience in residential schools.
Thursday’s statement of claim, filed with the Court of Queen’s Bench in Regina, is a first step in SGI’s civil case against Okemahwasin. He will have the opportunity to oppose it in a statement of defence, which he has a few weeks to file.