Board approves accident payout

CARSON CITY -- Without any discussion, the state Board of Examiners approved a $1.3 million settlement Tuesday for family members of the four Mexicans who were killed in a 2006 accident involving a speeding Nevada Highway Patrol trooper.

Board members Gov. Jim Gibbons and Secretary of State Ross Miller agreed to the settlement proposed by the attorney general's office in exchange for the families dropping a federal court lawsuit.

Lawyers said the state's $75,000 limit on damages might not apply in federal court, and the 14 family members and estates of three of the victims involved in the litigation could win $4 million to $5 million in a jury trial.

The families sued the state over the Feb. 19, 2006, accident, in which trooper Joshua Corcran rear-ended a 1988 Cadillac carrying five passengers on Interstate 15 near Sloan. He was driving his patrol car at 113 mph and had told police dispatchers that he had to hurry home to eat dinner and take an online test.

Corcran, 30, was not driving with his emergency lights flashing or with a siren on.

Killed in the accident were 21-year-old Victor De La Cruz-De Leon, 21-year-old Reymund Lopez-Vazquez, 42-year-old Jose Sanchez Lopez and 19-year-old Jose Robert Mejia Lang.

Cecilia Lopez Cruz, the pregnant 16-year-old wife of De La Cruz-De Leon, was the sole survivor.

All the victims were illegal immigrants from Mexico.

Stan Miller, the claims manager for the attorney general's office, said he does not know whether Cruz returned to Mexico after the accident.

Corcran apologized to the families and pleaded guilty in August 2006 to five counts of reckless driving causing death or bodily injury. He received a one- to six-year prison sentence for each of the counts. The sentence is being served in an undisclosed prison in another state.

State Budget Director Andrew Clinger said the settlement is not the largest but one of the largest in state history.

Miller said the largest settlement came in 2001 when the Board of Examiners awarded $2.4 million to people injured and relatives of two people killed in a May 25, 2000, accident in Arizona after a police chase that began in Nevada.

The Highway Patrol, Mesquite police and the Mohave County Sheriff's Department chased Utah resident Clark Ford after he went the wrong way on I-15 in Arizona.

Ford and another man, Justin Harbottle, who was traveling to serve as the best man at a friend's wedding, were killed, and four others were injured, in crashes that occurred in the Virgin River Gorge. Mesquite also made a $2.4 million settlement.

Nevada officials later learned the most they would have been obligated to pay under Arizona law was $352,000.

Mohave County refused to settle and was ordered by a jury to pay $880,000. But the survivors believed its deputies were more responsible for the accidents than Nevada police.

After the Tuesday hearing, Gibbons said the board can make settlements beyond the $75,000 limit.

Gibbons said he and Ross Miller tried to balance the state's obligation to the families with the possible exposure the state faced if the case went to trial.

"Our exposure could have been much greater," the governor said.

In a November hearing, the Board of Examiners also awarded $50,000 payments to the parents of three of the people who died in the accident.

Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, a member of the board, did not attend the Tuesday meeting.

Contact reporter Ed Vogel at evogel@reviewjournal.com or (775) 687-3901.