CHICAGO (CBS) — A jury on Wednesday awarded $79.85 million to a family who sued the city of Chicago after a crash following a police chase killed their 10-year-old daughter.
On September 2, 2020, Kevin Spicer was in the car with his son and daughter near 80th and Halsted streets in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood. They were on their way to pick up a laptop so his 10-year-old daughter, Da’Karia, could start a new school year from home with e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Officers in an unmarked police car followed a black Mercedes-Benz for a traffic violation. Police said they tried to pull over the Mercedes. But the Mercedes failed to stop, first colliding with a gray car driven by a 57-year-old woman as she fled westbound on 80th Street, then crashing into the Spicer family in their brown car after crossing busy Halsted Street had been entered.
Da’Karia was killed in the wreck. Her brother Dhaamir, then only five, was seriously injured.
Kevin Spicer, now 47, and the woman in the other car both suffered minor injuries in the crash.
The Spicer family sued, seeking $100 million for suffering, emotional distress, loss of community and other damages.
The jury returned the verdict after the trial before Cook County Circuit Court Judge Preston Jones.
Lance Northcutt, an attorney for the Spicer family, blasted the city’s insurance companies for not handling the case before it went to trial – after the city admitted guilt in the case.
“Ten years old, in the middle of her life, a straight A honors student, murdered right in front of her father in broad daylight,” Northcutt said. “When the city of Chicago finally admitted liability in this case, and the question became what full and fair compensation for this family would be, and the burden was placed on the insurance companies, those insurance companies decided to put profit over humanity; profit over protecting taxpayers.”
Northcutt said the family plans to file a separate lawsuit against the insurance companies.
