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Highway Youth Crew Tragedy Story Index Pall bearers carry the casket of 14-year-old Scott Garner Jr. at Palm Mortuary in Henderson on March 22, 2000. Garner was one of six teen-agers killed on an Interstate 15 median. Clark County has agreed to pay $3.25 million to the families of the teen-agers. Photo by Jim Laurie. Jessica Williams Serving 18 to 48 years in prison of the deaths of six teens on an I-15 median

Thursday, November 29, 2001
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

JESSICA WILLIAMS CASE: Lawsuit resolution near

Agreement calls for county to pay $3.25 million to families of six teens killed

Clark County tentatively has agreed to pay $3.25 million to the families of six teen-agers killed as they picked up trash on a freeway median for a juvenile offender work program, lawyers said Wednesday.

If the County Commission approves the settlement Tuesday, lawyers involved in the case said, it will resolve a lawsuit that could have dragged on for years, cost the county additional millions of dollars and prolonged a tragedy the families wanted behind them.

The county's attorneys said the settlement isn't an admission of guilt, but Randall Mainor, one of the lawyers for the 13 parents of the dead teen-agers, said it was the county that placed the youths in the path of Jessica Williams' minivan in March 2000.

"If the kids had not been on the highway during this we would have had Jessica Williams rolling her van in the middle of the desert. ... Somebody is responsible," Mainor said. "They recognize there was some responsibility."

County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera and Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey on Wednesday declined to comment on the proposed settlement because they had not seen it. Other commissioners couldn't be reached for comment.

"There is a sentiment in this community, including on the County Commission, to bring a resolution to this issue, and anything in that regard is a welcome advancement," Herrera said. "Parents lost children, and anytime that happens you want to provide as much comfort to the parents as possible."

Anthony Smith, 14; Scott Garner Jr., 14; Alberto Puig, 16; Maleyna Stoltzfus, 15; Rebeccah Glicken, 15; and Jennifer Booth, 16, were killed in the accident. They were among 46 youths assigned to collect trash as part of a Probation Service Work Program. The teens were working to pay off fees and restitution in lieu of going to the juvenile detention center for misdemeanors such as shoplifting and violating curfew.

The victims' parents couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday or declined comment on the proposed settlement because they hadn't discussed it with their attorneys. Robert Murdock, an attorney for the families, said the parents wouldn't be available for comment.

The proposed settlement comes on the heels of confidential settlements the families have reached with Republic Services and Specialty Transportation Services.

STS trucks were responsible for hauling much of the trash the teen-agers were picking up at the time of their deaths, and Republic Services operated the trash station that filled STS trucks headed for the county landfill, said Republic Services attorney Thomas Kummer.

Murdock and Mainor said they are pursuing civil damages against Williams even though she is serving 18 to 48 years in prison. Williams says she fell asleep at the wheel, and her defense attorney, John Watkins, maintains the amount of marijuana in her system wasn't enough to impair her driving.

Williams' criminal case is on appeal to the state Supreme Court. Watkins couldn't be reached for comment late Wednesday.

Jan Stewart, a deputy district attorney who oversaw the case for the county, said Williams is to blame for the teens' untimely deaths, not a juvenile work program that functioned at least five years without a problem.

"We feel Jessica Williams was the main cause of that. She drove off the road," Stewart said. "We had the kids out there. We think there is some responsibility there and decided to settle."

Kevin Eppenger Sr., the county employee who supervised the work crew program, said in a May deposition that he was not given any written guidelines prescribing safety measures to be followed when youths were working near the interstate.

Eppenger said the teens were regularly assigned to collect garbage in the median because the trash was there. He said his superiors did not need to tell him the median of the interstate was a dangerous area. "It was pretty obvious," Eppenger said.

State inspectors in June 2000 determined the youth offender program violated workplace safety laws. The Occupational Safety and Health Enforcement Section's probe of the accident found violations of state and federal regulations for failing to provide the youths with training and safety equipment.

Inspectors said similar state and county roadside programs for adult inmates and prisoners routinely employ protective equipment the Family and Youth Services Department wasn't using when the teens were killed. This equipment includes warning signs, orange cones and special trailers designed to absorb rear-end impacts.

County officials said the only safety precautions in place before the accident were the teens' orange safety vests and the blinking hazard lights on the county van that transported them to the interstate median.

The program was discontinued days before the state announced the violations.

Walt Cannon, the county's outside legal counsel who handled settlement talks, said the county isn't acknowledging liability for the deaths in proposing the settlement. Instead, it is recognizing the time and expense involved in fighting the lawsuit as well as the anguish a drawn-out legal dispute would bring the parents.

The county, to avoid any conflicts of interest, would have had to hire three different law firms to represent the county, supervisory employees in the county's Family and Youth Services Department and the rank-and-file employees named in the lawsuit, Cannon said.

And the federal judge assigned to the case could have allowed the plaintiffs to sue on the grounds of civil rights violations, for which the county would have had to pay more than the $50,000 in damages permitted by state law, Cannon said.

Calls to Kirby Burgess, the director of Family and Youth Services, were referred to Stewart. County spokeswoman Gwen Castaldi declined to say whether any county employees were terminated or punished because of the teens' deaths.

The county's liability insurance carrier would pay $2.25 million of the settlement, and the remaining $1 million would come from county revenues, Cannon said.