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Trials & Litigation

Appeals court: Driver who kicked drunken friend out of his car is liable for 3rd-party hit-and-run

Drunk and belligerent, Piero Larrea was kicked out of a friend’s car on the way home from a New Orleans bar on Oct. 29, 2011. Then he died in a hit-and-run accident after John Cefalu pulled away.

Sued by Larrea’s dad, Cefalu was found liable for 28 percent of a $317,000 wrongful death award. Now a Louisiana appeals court has affirmed the jury verdict, reports Courthouse News.

Although Cefalu argued that he had no special duty to get his friend home safely because Larrea interfered with his driving by grabbing his arm, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal said Cefalu owed a duty of care to both Larrea and other passengers in the car.

However, there was some good news for the defendant: The three-judge appellate panel rejected an argument by Larrea’s father that the jury erred by holding the hit-and-run driver 18 percent responsible. Larrea himself was accountable for the other 54 percent.

“If the jury made the factual finding that Larrea was struck on the shoulder of the road, and because the record contains sufficient evidence for the jury to make that finding, we cannot say that the jury’s allocation of fault to the phantom driver was manifestly erroneous,” the appeals court said in its written opinion.