$18.75 Million for the Family of a Stamford Woman Killed by a ShopRite Truck That Ran a Red Light
After trial: The case settled during jury deliberations, about a day after the case was handed to the jury at the end of a two-week trial, so no verdict was ever returned and there was nothing to appeal. The reported figure was more than double the pre-trial offer.
Won by Silver Golub & Teitell LLP.
Cristina Vomoca, 38, died eight days after a ShopRite tractor-trailer ran a red light in Greenwich and struck her car in 2016. Food Haulers Inc. and its parent Wakefern Food Corp. settled with her estate for $18.75 million in August 2019, roughly a day after a Stamford jury had already been handed the case.
What happened
In 2016 a semi tractor-trailer hauling for ShopRite came through an intersection off Exit 3 in Greenwich, Connecticut. The plaintiffs' case was that the driver, Jeffrey Bodnar, ran a red light. The truck struck the car driven by Cristina Vomoca, a 38-year-old Stamford resident. She survived the impact and died eight days later.
Her estate sued Bodnar, his employer Food Haulers Inc., and its parent company, Wakefern Food Corp., the New Jersey cooperative behind the ShopRite chain. The case was brought in Stamford Superior Court by Angelo Ziotas of Silver Golub and Teitell. The people the claim was really for were Vomoca's domestic partner, Paul Wilson, and her young son, who was six.
The defense contested negligence rather than conceding it, so the case went to trial. Over roughly two weeks, including five days of testimony, the jury heard the dispute over what the driver did at the intersection and what it cost the family. In closing, the plaintiffs asked for as much as $47 million.
Then the case ended without a verdict. About twenty-four hours after the jury received it and began deliberating, the defendants settled for $18.75 million.
That timing is the most telling detail in the case. A defendant who settles during deliberations has already spent the money and the weeks it takes to try a case, and has decided that whatever is coming back from the jury room is worse than the number on the table. It is the opposite of a nuisance settlement. The reported figure was more than double what had been offered before trial.
Because the case settled rather than reaching verdict, there is no judgment to appeal and no reduction to track. The $18.75 million is what was agreed, and it was among the largest wrongful death settlements recorded in Connecticut at the time.
Cristina Vomoca's son is not named here. He was a child when his mother was killed.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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