THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 6, 1996 TAG: 9603070633
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANGELITA PLEMMER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
The families of two victims of a fiery 1991 car crash near the Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway toll plaza settled a lawsuit against General Motors on Tuesday.
The crash killed two people and injured four.
Attorneys representing Jane Renze, whose legs and right arm were burned, and Nancy Jane Hawthorne, who died from burns sustained in the wreck, said the amount of the settlement was confidential.
They would not disclose details of the agreement, reached before the trial was scheduled to begin in Circuit Court on Tuesday. Attorneys for General Motors refused to comment.
The plaintiffs had sought more than $100 million in damages.
Renze and family members representing Hawthorne's estate filed suit against GM because the company manufactured the 1983 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser station wagon they were riding in at the time of the accident.
The collision occurred July 13, 1991, when an empty trailer became unhitched from another car, bounded across three lanes of the expressway and struck the back of the station wagon, driven by Hawthorne and carrying Renze, Hawthorne's niece, and several other family members.
The small wooden trailer punctured the station wagon's gasoline tank, starting a fire.
The lawsuits claimed that GM knew the gasoline tank was dangerous because it was placed outside the car's frame and in the rear, making it susceptible to rupturing after even a small impact.
Suits against the driver of the car pulling the trailer and the trailer's manufacturer were settled earlier. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
WHAT HAPPENED
The collision occurred July 13, 1991, when an empty trailer
became unhitched from another car, bounded across three lanes of the
expressway and struck the back of the station wagon driven by
Hawthorne and carrying several family members.
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT TRAFFIC FATALITY INJURIES
LAWSUIT SETTLEMENT by CNB