Posted on 04/25/2014 2:01:28 PM PDT by rickmichaels
ALCONA - Still in the throes of agony from losing their son in a vehicle crash, the parents of young Brandon Majewski are now reeling after they learned the woman who struck and killed him is suing their dead child.
“I feel like someone kicked me in the stomach – I’m over the edge,” the dead boy’s father Derek Majewski said.
As he sits in his immaculate Alcona home sifting through piles of photographs of his son, the heartache shows on his face and he can hardly contain his tears as he speaks.
Just down the road, on the side of a quiet country stretch of Innisfil Beach Rd., is a memorial complete with a bicycle, flowers and photographs of his son Brandon.
The spunky, handsome, 17-year-old bike enthusiast was out with his two buddies on Oct. 28, 2012 when they hopped on their bicycles to go for hotdogs on a drizzly, dark night around 1:30 a.m.
Brandon was struck dead-on by an SUV and killed while his friend Richard McLean, 16, was seriously injured with broken bones and pelvis. His other pal Jake Roberts, 16, was hit but sustained only scratches.
Now the driver of the SUV, Sharlene Simon, a mother of three, is suing the dead boy for the emotional trauma it has caused her. She’s also suing the two other boys, as well as the dead boy’s parents, and even his brother, who has since died. She’s also suing the County of Simcoe for failing to maintain the road.
Even the family’s lawyer is in shock.
“In all of my years as a lawyer, I have never seen anyone ever sue a child that they killed,” Barrie lawyer Brian Cameron said. “It’s beyond the pale.”
In fact, he couldn’t even call the family to tell them the news this week.
“I just couldn’t bring myself to tell them on the phone.”
After a face-to-face meeting Tuesday, the parents and stepparents left his office almost staggering in disbelief.
“I’m devastated, I’m in shock,” said Brandon's mother, Venetta Mlynczyk, a dental assistant who is drowning in sorrow. “She killed my child and now she wants to profit from it? She says she’s in pain? Tell her to look inside my head and she will see pain, she will see panic, she will see nightmares.”
“It blows my mind,” Brandon’s stepmom, Lisa Tessier, said. “We are all devastated. This is so cruel.”
In a statement of claim filed with the courts, Simon is claiming $1.35-million in damages due to her psychological suffering, including depression, anxiety, irritability and post traumatic stress. She blames the boys for negligence.
“They did not apply their brakes properly,” the claim states. “They were incompetent bicyclists."
Simon's lawyer yet to return a call from the Toronto Sun.
Brandon’s father shakes his head.
“They’re kids!” he gasps. “And they have a right to make mistakes ... it was a wet, dark road – what about slowing down?”
He insists the reflectors on the bikes would have been visible.
A South Simcoe Police report shows Simon was driving at an estimated 90 km/h in an 80-km zone.
The report also states: “no breathalyzer was performed” – a point the lawyer intends to delve deeper into, he says.
Her husband, Jules Simon, a York Regional Police officer, was driving behind his wife that night, but little is mentioned about him as a witness in the police report. He pulled over when Brandon was struck, and shortly after both were allowed to go home. It was another witness who pulled over to tend to Brandon and called 911.
Two hours later, after Brandon lay dead in hospital from multiple traumatic injuries, police knocked on the door of his home.
The dogs began to bark. It was late.
“I knew,” says his father, and his voice breaks again. “I had a gut feeling.”
Therapy, medication, even booze, doesn’t dull the pain.
And then, six months after the funeral, he awoke to find his second son Devon, 23, who had just graduated as a paralegal, laying in his bed, blue and dead, after popping too many pills and drinking too many shots. Not an intended suicide, they are certain – he was just trying to stifle his grief.
“This has ripped our family apart,” says Majewski. “And now this woman has the gall to try to profit from our dead child she killed? Profit from another boy who was almost crippled?”
He flips again through the family photographs. Happy times of fishing, dirt biking, swimming, eating birthday cake, laughing. He chuckles for a moment when he remembers all the bikes his son rebuilt – sometimes he would sneak the parts right into his bedroom, and shine them till they gleamed. All another world away.
“This thing haunts us,” he says. “It will never stop haunting us.”
Cameron has launched a routine lawsuit against the driver, mainly for medical and funeral costs on behalf of the boys and their families. He alleges Simon was speeding and may have been intoxicated and talking on her cell phone.
“Sharlene Simon failed to take reasonable care to avoid a collision which she saw or should have seen was likely to occur,” his claim states. “She operated the motor vehicle while she was intoxicated.”
None of the allegations have been tested in court.
Brandon Majewski
They should countersue for wrongful death.
Even money says she and her cop hubby were both drunk. Else the sober one could have driven them both home.
Us vs Them mentality on the responding officers who didn’t breathalyze either one.
Suing the deceased’s estate does seem distasteful — but the court has to make a determination as to who was at fault before either case is dismissed.
If the kid was the one at fault — then throwing out the woman’s suit would be improper.
See post 17
“Hopefully, the right judge will throw this out of court before costing the kid’ family much more money. The second choice is the killing driver will be so hounded and ridiculed online, affecting the jobs of both her and the husband, that the suit will be quickly withdrawn. Sort of like the Spoiled Nasty Suburban Princess who wanted to sue her parents for tuition.”
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I think they’re simply going for a liability lottery lawsuit SETTLEMENT expecting the various insurance companies to “pay them off”. They won’t withdraw their lawsuit in my opinion since they appear to not have the slightest ability to feel shame—plus cops (and their spouses) are part of the new entitlement classes entitled to easy lifestyles and retirements.
Lawyers.
Lawyers and greed.
What snake of a lawyer took the case?
While it’s not right to run someone over, the dad is wrong and kids do not have the “right” to make mistakes. There is no “right” to make mistakes. Mistakes happen. And will happen. There’s not RIGHT to make them because of your age or anything else. We may deal with the mistakes differently based on age but nobody has a RIGHT to make them. We all make them but we can’t claim a right to do so. We just know it’s gonna happen sooner or later.
Aren’t Canadians supposed to carry liability insurance? What does it take to get them to pay up?
Don’t know about the Canadian legal system, but that’s one advantage in the U.S. system— countersuits don’t have to pay the filing fee. They become part of the case which has already been filed.
Her husband’s a cop,
So The Law does not apply.
Shut up and take it.
The driver was also at fault: speeding on a wet road, drinking and possibly distracted by a cell phone.
The kid got his comeuppance, if that’s what your worried about.
Some people have the chutzpah to sue the dead. This is beneath obscene.
To do that to a child whose life you took - I have no words for this guy’s audacity.
So then the driver really filed a counter-suit.
I think the father was saying that allowances should be made when kids screw up.
I think death, maiming and and a family’s devastation is a little extreme for the infraction of sharing the road with the drunk, reckless wife of a cop.
I don’t know who was at fault.
That has yet to be determined.
In this country it is a typically jury question — and is likely to result in an apportionment of fault on a comparative basis.
“speeding on a wet road, drinking and possibly distracted by a cell phone.”
Speeding 6 mph too fast would be considered blocking traffic where I live. Drinking has not been shown, and neither has the cell phone.
When I was a kid, I didn’t ride my bike at 1:30 AM...but when I rode at night, I assumed all responsibility for avoiding cars was mine. Why? Because the headlights of a car & the noise they make means it is easier for the bicyclist to see the car than the car the bicyclists, and because of the disparity in consequences if things go wrong.
In a different article, the father said the kid’s bike had a reflector under the seat and on the pedals. There was no mention of any lights.
I’m a lawyer and I’m astounded at this suit. It makes me ashamed that I’m in the same profession as this so-called attorney.
Blame the shrink that the lawyer behind this. It’s likely she hit the kid because she was loaded on psych drugs.
It appears to me that there is a lawyer that needs to be taught a lesson about idiocy and the cost of representing a client with absolute no morals at all.
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