Kent-based Scarsella Brothers, Inc., faces a personal injuries and damages lawsuit in connection with a 44-year-old motorcyclist seriously injured on April 17 at an Interstate 5 construction project in Centralia.
The Bernard Law Group, of Seattle, filed the suit on Wednesday in Lewis County Superior Court on behalf of Cheryl Aton, the guardian for Scott Bliss, of Rochester, who suffered head injuries and remains unconscious. He is at a Pierce County hospital after being treated initially at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
The suit claims that even though safety roads adjacent to the I-5 and the Exit 82 on-ramp were constructed and in place for use by all construction vehicles, the Scarsella Bros. dump truck driver chose instead to take a shortcut through inadequately placed barriers onto the I-5 on-ramp where he did a U-turn blocking the entire I-5 on-ramp. Without any warning of the truck ahead blocking the road, Bliss hit the truck as he was lawfully merging onto the freeway at about 5:20 a.m.
Attorneys also filed a separate legal action against the state Department of Transportation (DOT) for a $20-million notice of claim.
The state DOT and Scarsella Bros. had a duty to “ensure that all safety procedures on the worksite were followed,” said attorney Viivi Vanderslice in a media release. “It appears the driver had completed his last dump for the day and was in a hurry to leave.”
Scarsella Brothers started in 1945 and also has offices in Spokane and Alaska but its corporate office is in Kent. The company performs work on roads, levees, bridges, reservoirs and other projects in six states. Scarsella is part of a $158 million project to widen I-5 from Centralia to Grand Mound.
Legal counsel for Scarsella Brothers did not a call for comment about the lawsuit.
Vanderslice and attorney Kirk Bernard say the lawsuit is necessary because “WDOT and Scarsella Bros., and their insurance companies, have virtually ignored the victim. We find that reprehensible. So now we plan to let a jury decide how Mr. Bliss will be cared for, for the rest of his life.”
Bernard said there have been many preventable safety-related injuries and deaths due to road construction recently. “Perhaps like the others, this tragedy was 100 percent preventable if Scarsella Bros. and their employees would have just adhered to their own safety plan.”
Aton, the partner of Bliss for eight years and now his guardian, has been a constant at his bedside. “She just waits and prays for him to wake up,” Vanderslice said.
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