Eight-year-old Haylee Burks, above, was killed in a car accident Saturday afternoon while walking from the Tuscaloosa Regional Air Show.
(Jemison Elementary School)
Danny Ray Smith
(Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office)
Two lawsuits have been filed against a Tuscaloosa man accused of driving drunk and hitting a family after last weekend's Regional Air Show. The lawsuits have been filed by the parents of Haley Burks, the 8-year-old girl who was killed in the accident.
Haley's father and mother, who have been
divorced for several years, have each filed separate wrongful death
lawsuits. It's unclear whether or not the lawsuits will eventually be
combined into one case against Danny Ray Smith. Smith has been charged
with vehicular homicide, assault and leaving the scene of an accident.
The lawyers for Tanya Burks, Haley's mother,
said the victims of Saturday's accident face long-term pain and
suffering. Tanya and her two daughters were walking next to 5th Street
after the air show when a truck driven by Smith hit them, killing Haley.
Court records show the accident left Tanya Burks with four broken
vertebrae in her back and her three-year-old daughter suffered from head
and neck injuries.
The lawsuit filed by Tanya Burks' lawyers
does not ask for a specific amount of money, but her lawyers say it's
not certain when Tanya could return to work as a hair dresser.
"In this case, she's got to look out for
herself and her future as well as the future of her three-year-old
child," Apsilah Owens Millsaps, one of Tanya's attorneys, said Thursday.
"In addition, when you go through a loss like
this, people just don't know quite what to do and that's the first
logical step that people hit, trying to move forward how to make
something happen to make sense of the tragedy," Millsaps said.
Tanya's attorneys say they'd prefer to settle this case out of court. It could be up to three years before that helps.
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