{"id":18251,"date":"2021-03-04T07:58:28","date_gmt":"2021-03-04T12:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=18251"},"modified":"2021-03-04T07:58:28","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T12:58:28","slug":"harry-dunn-teens-family-can-claim-against-suspect-and-her-husband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2021\/03\/04\/harry-dunn-teens-family-can-claim-against-suspect-and-her-husband\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Dunn: Teen’s family can claim against suspect and her husband"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A judge has given Harry Dunn’s family the go-ahead to proceed with a claim for damages against the teen’s alleged killer and her husband in the US.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Dunn, 19, died in a crash near RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire in 2019.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Suspect Anne Sacoolas later returned to the US, claiming diplomatic immunity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A Virginia court heard Mr Dunn’s family brought a claim against her husband due to a law in the US state which suggests he is liable for allowing his wife to use the car which killed the teenager.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Judge Thomas Ellis said the issue of Jonathan Sacoolas’s “vicarious liability” could be revisited in the future, but he denied a motion to dismiss that part of the claim at a hearing on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Should there be no settlement, the next legal step would be a “deposition”, in which Mrs Sacoolas and her husband would be forced to provide their account of events outside of court.<\/p>\n

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Dunn family’s spokesman Radd Seiger said they were “very pleased” with the judge’s ruling “and that their claims have been allowed to proceed in full”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He added: “They are also pleased that Mr Sacoolas will also have to be deposed so that they can learn the full account of what happened on the night Harry died.”<\/p>\n

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The Crown Prosecution Service has charged Mrs Sacoolas with causing the teenager’s death by dangerous driving but an extradition request was rejected by the US government in January last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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