Federal Judge Enters $5 Million Judgment Against United States for Driver Hit by Decayed Rock Creek Park Tree
After trial: The judgment was entered on May 7, 2024, and the docket entries we reviewed show a bill of costs and a November 2024 costs order but no notice of appeal. We could not confirm whether the judgment has been paid, and we did not retrieve the memorandum opinion itself.
A large tree fell onto a moving car on Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park and trapped the driver, Marcelino Cruz Leiva. He sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act, alleging the National Park Service should have found and removed the decayed tree. After a four-day bench trial in December 2023, Judge Amit Mehta entered judgment for Cruz Leiva on his negligence claim in the sum of $5 million on May 7, 2024.
What happened
Marcelino Cruz Leiva was driving on Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park, in Washington, D.C., when a large tree came down on his car and trapped him inside. Several officers and roughly twenty bystanders had to lift the tree off the vehicle. Cruz Leiva was taken for emergency care. According to his lawyers' account of the case, he suffered a pontine stroke and damage to his spinal cord, underwent multiple surgeries, and spent an extended stretch in inpatient rehabilitation at MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital. His lawyers say the injuries left him permanently unable to work.
Beach Drive and the land around it belong to the National Park Service, so a claim for the injuries had to go through the Federal Tort Claims Act rather than an ordinary jury trial. Cruz Leiva and Maria Reyes sued the United States in June 2019 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:19-cv-01941). Arren Waldrep and John Yannone of Price Benowitz represented them, and the docket shows both filing the plaintiffs' papers over the course of the case.
The theory was that the Park Service should have recognized the tree as hazardous and dealt with it before it fell. The plaintiffs' liability expert testified that the tree showed visible decay that Park Service employees should have detected during inspections before the incident, and that the tree should have been removed. The government defended with its own expert and moved more than once for a directed verdict under Rule 52(c). Judge Amit Mehta deferred each of those motions.
The case was tried to Judge Mehta without a jury from December 12 to December 15, 2023, with closing arguments set for December 21. Cruz Leiva and Reyes testified, along with a rehabilitation specialist, a physician and the plaintiffs' tree expert. The government called two witnesses, including its own expert, and the judge heard a rebuttal witness for the plaintiffs on the last day of testimony.
On May 7, 2024, Judge Mehta issued a memorandum opinion setting out his findings of fact and conclusions of law on the negligence count, and entered judgment for Cruz Leiva against the United States in the sum of $5 million. The firm reports that the award covered his economic damages in full and $4 million for non-economic harm. Cruz Leiva then filed a bill of costs, and in November 2024 the court entered an order on it. The docket entries we reviewed show no notice of appeal.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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