Yesterday we wrote about Venus Williams and her recent involvement in a fatal car accident, for which she was ruled to be at fault.
From that post:
Witnesses say Williams ran a red light, crashing into a car containing an elderly couple. Jerome Barson was in the passenger seat and sustained head trauma injuries that sent him to the ICU. He died two weeks later.
According to Linda Barson, who was driving, the light turned green as she approached the intersection and she couldn’t stop in time to prevent crashing into Williams’ car.
Williams told cops she entered the intersection when she still had a green light, but traffic ahead of her forced to her to slow down in the intersection as the light changed.
While criminal charges weren’t brought, yesterday’s ruling did seem to open Williams up to the possibility of a civil action, and that’s indeed what has happened already.
Via The New York Times:
The daughter of a man killed in a car crash involving the tennis star Venus Williams has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against her.
…
The accident happened as Williams’s car was crossing the intersection at about 5 miles per hour and Barson’s car ran into it, the report said. It said Williams was at fault for “violating the right of way” of the other vehicle, though she was not cited. A police spokesman said on Thursday that the accident remained under investigation.
There was a bit more detail about the police report as well, including this information:
Witnesses told investigators that Williams ran a red light just as Barson’s car entered the intersection on a green light.
“The driver of V2 (Barson) advised she proceeded thru the intersection when V1 (Williams) cut across in front of V2, and V2 was unable to avoid crashing into V1,” the police report said.
Williams hasn’t commented on it, and now with active litigation pending, it seems unlikely that she will comment on it at any point in the immediate future. Without actually knowing what happened, it seems like this might be a case that ends up settled out of court, and it’s certainly a tragic loss of life. But sometimes an accident is just an accident, as unfortunate as the result might be.
[NYT]
