LOUISA – A Johnson County woman, formerly from Tomahawk, brought a civil action in the Lawrence Circuit Court earlier this week which seeks compensation to her and to her two small children from what the suit calls the “wrongful death” of her husband, Ronald T. Haney.
The suit also seeks compensation for serious injuries to the widow, injuries from which she alleges caused her to have extensive hospital care and treatment as well as nursing home confinement. Her medical expenses to date, according to the complaint, are $350,000 and, it is alleged, that her future medical care and expenses will amount to more than $1 million.
Winifred “Wendy” Haney, who lives at Nippa in Johnson County with her children, Kristen and Tony, filed the civil action against Alfred Rice Company of Sitka and Ray E. Davis of Hager Hill.
The civil action, filed for Haney by John Kirk, alleges that Ronald Haney was killed on U.S. 23 near Louisa on March 14, 2007 when the vehicle he was operating was struck by a “loaded” tractor-trailer coal truck owned by Rice and operated by Davis.
According to the complaint, the crash killed Ronald T. Haney and seriously and permanently injured Mrs. Haney and that the crash “Caused such severe injuries to Mrs. Haney that she was treated at St. Mary Hospital for weeks and later taken to a nursing home.”
The suit alleges that Rice was “overloaded” and was “speeding” at the time of the crash and that the Rice vehicle “was being operated in a reckless, willful, wanton and dangerous fashion – traveling too fast for the area and circumstances – and his method of operation of the Rice vehicle was the proximate cause of the crash that killed Ronald and injured Wendy.”
“This is a tragic circumstance,” John Kirk said. “A young father gone and two little kids to grow up without their dad. Sadly, in our area we are seeing this more and more often,” he said.