Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 18, 1994 TAG: 9401180205
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WARWICK, R.I. LENGTH: Medium
James Brindamour is asking a Superior Court judge for half the $350,000 an insurance company paid after his daughter, Colleen, was killed when a pickup in which she was a passenger skidded off a road and crashed into a tree.
The money was paid to settle a lawsuit brought by Brindamour's estranged wife, Rose Brindamour, against the driver of the truck and its owner.
"I don't want him to have a dime of her money," Rose Brindamour, a nurse's aide, said in an interview at her home. "He's trying to get half and then use part of the proceeds to pay me off. It's immoral."
Rose Brindamour says her husband owes her $69,000 in child support payments. James Brindamour's lawyer calculates that his client owes between $15,000 and $20,000.
On Friday, about 20 of Colleen's high school classmates picketed the Kent County Courthouse as lawyers for the Brindamours met with Judge Francis Darigan, who set a hearing for Jan. 28.
Under Rhode Island law, if a child's death results from a wrongful action, the parents can file claims based on the extent to which the child's death affects them.
Despite his lack of contact with his daughter and his admitted failure to pay child support, James Brindamour says that as her biological father, he is entitled to share in her estate.
"I wanted to see my daughter over the years, but Rose prevented me from doing so," he said.
But Rose Brindamour says that her estranged husband declined to have anything to do with Colleen, and the judge should deny his claim.
Howard Lipsey, a Rhode Island judge who is chairman of the Family Court Committee of the Family Law Section of the American Bar Association, said James Brindamour "has a prima facie right to get the money," but that Rose Brindamour is raising new legal questions.
He added that whatever the outcome of the case, James Brindamour would be required to pay all the child support he owed.
The battle over the estate began a month after Colleen's death, when Rose Brindamour sued the driver of the pickup and his mother, who owned the truck.
A few weeks later, on the advice of her lawyer, she filed for divorce. She had not filed for divorce earlier, she said, because "I just forgot about it."
Several months before Colleen's death, a judge told James Brindamour he would be put in prison if he did not pay $8,000 of what he owed. James Brindamour, who was unemployed at the time, fled the state.
In late November, he returned to Rhode Island, surrendered and spent a week in jail. He was released after paying $1,000 to his wife.
Since Dec. 20, James Brindamour has been paying the $75-a-week support he was ordered to begin paying in 1983.
Dennis Baluch, James Brindamour's lawyer, said his client had a history of alcohol problems.
Baluch said his client asserted that until three years ago he had paid his child support in cash and that he claimed to owe no more than $20,000.
Rose Brindamour said she had received about $650 in 10 years.
In 1989, James Brindamour pleaded no contest to sexually molesting an 11-year-old relative in Rhode Island and was given an eight-year suspended sentence.
by CNB