Multi-Million Dollar Settlement Awarded for South Florida Car Crash Victims

By Orlando Personal Injury Attorney on July 29, 2021

A Florida jury has determined that the surviving family members of four female tourists from Spain are entitled to receive a multi-million dollar payout from a local Marathon construction and landscaping business whose driver was found to be negligent and responsible for the deaths of each individual after his company truck slammed into the back of their rental SUV.

According to court documents from the U.S. District Court in Key West, a jury has awarded $11.8 million to the relatives of 30-year-old Ana Gaitán Díaz, 30-year-old Teresa Sánchez Quetglas, 31-year-old Margarita Cortés-Pardo, and 31-year-old María López-Bermejo Rossellóand, after all four women were tragically killed in an auto accident on the Tea Table Bridge in Islamorada back in March of 2018.

Three-year-old collision reports from the responding officers with the Florida Highway Patrol indicate that it was close to 2 p.m. when the Spanish tourists were travelling northbound on U.S. 1 in a rented 2018 Nissan Rogue. As their SUV approached an intersection near mile marker 80, the driver illuminated the left-hand turn signal and waited for oncoming traffic to clear before proceeding. It was while the Nissan Rogue was sitting at the stoplight that 30-year-old Carlos Manso Blanco with Discount Rock & Sand was driving an Isuzu truck carrying a full bed of port-a-potties, failed to stop in enough time to avoid an accident with the SUV, and subsequently crashed into the rear-end of the Rogue.

The impact from the collision was so forceful that it pushed the SUV through the busy intersection and into the direct path of an oversized 2016 Allegro motorhome, which struck the sport utility vehicle on the passenger’s side. The Nissan finally came to a complete stop after it collided with a roadside tree, however, the damage had already been done and all four occupants were pronounced dead at the scene by local authorities.

Although Carlos Manso Blanco lost his driver’s license and was forced to undergo mandatory traffic school for six months, Monroe County officials decided that his driving at the time of the accident was “careless, not reckless” and he will not face any further legal charges. The jury also determined that the driver of the RV, 62-year-old Alaska resident Daniel Pinkerton, was not at fault for the fatal collision.

James O. Cunningham

Since 1977, personal injury lawyer James Cunningham has provided effective legal advocacy to people who are injured through the negligent actions of another person or entity throughout the Central Florida area. He fights to obtain recoveries for his clients’ physical and emotional pain and suffering and pursues his clients’ personal injury cases with a commitment to excellence and impeccable preparation.