Law&Crime Sidebar - Teen Volleyball Player Loses Her Legs in Near-Deadly Crash at Hands of Reckless Driver

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

Daniel Riley, 22, was convicted of assault and armed criminal action for causing a car crash that left a teenager visiting from out of town critically injured. Janae Edmondson, 17, was in St. Louis for a volleyball tournament when two cars slammed into her on the sidewalk. Both of her legs had to be amputated. The Edmondson family has now filed a lawsuit against Riley and the city, after discovering that Riley violated a previous bond dozens of times. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber discusses the merits of the lawsuit with Dan Morgan, managing partner for law firm Morgan and Morgan.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’ve ever been injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: www.forthepeople.com/YouTubeTakeoverHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. A man out on Bond accused of causing a crash that led to devastating injuries for a teenager learns his fate in a courtroom and a lawsuit has been filed against all of the alleged players involved, including the city of St. Louis. We're breaking down the case of Daniel Riley with Dan Morgan, managing partner for powerhouse law firm Morgan and Morgan. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Janay Edmondson was just 17 years old, an active high school volleyball player, getting ready for big events.

like prom, graduation, the rest of her life, when disaster struck. The Tennessee teen was at a volleyball tournament with her parents in St. Louis, Missouri, in February, 2023. Family was walking back to their hotel when two cars crashed colliding into Jinnay. And as a result, both of her legs had to be amputated. Jenae testified during the trial of Daniel Riley, the man accused of driving the car that caused that crash. We were about to proceed, and then after that,

I was, I grabbed my dad and I said, oh, watch out. And we turned and ran. And then after that, I felt something hit me and it was warm. And then after that, I ended up on my stomach, face down. And I was screaming because I couldn't feel my body. And I was just, and I was screaming because I, I need something, but I didn't know what. 22-year-old Daniel Riley was charged with one count each of second-degree assault and armed criminal action, which are both felonies. He was also charged with multiple misdemeanors, including driving without a license.

Police say Riley blew past a yield sign, causing another car to hit his and sending both vehicles flying. Reports say he had accelerated from 17 miles per hour to 45 miles per hour within 3.5 seconds and then floored the car before crashing. A toxicologist had testified that Riley's blood tested positive for T. HC, fentanyl, and codeine. At the time of the crash, Riley was out on bond after he was suspected of being part of an armed robbery, and it turns out that Riley had violated his bond close to 90 times since he was originally charged in 2020.

According to court documents, the armed robbery case had yet to go to trial because, quote, the state wasn't ready. And despite these multiple violations, Riley was allowed to stay on house arrest. He wasn't locked up. So far, Jenae has had to have almost 30 surgeries to deal not only with the amputations,

but also injuries to her internal organs and pelvis. It's absolutely horrible. It took a jury just about three hours to find Riley guilty of four of the five charges. The jury actually recommended that he spent almost 19 years in prison, but an actual sentencing won't take place until April when a judge will decide if Riley's sentences will run consecutively or concurrent. Now, Jeunay has also filed a massive lawsuit against multiple defendants, including against the city of St. Louis.

We're going to talk about it. So to discuss this, let me bring in personal injury attorney, Dan Morgan, the managing partner of Morgan and Morgan, our proud sponsor here on Sidebar, a powerhouse law firm. Dan, so good to see you. Thanks for coming up. Good to see you, too. Thanks for having me. So, Dan, this is a horrific, horrific case.

And it breaks my heart every time I see Janay in a wheelchair because she was an athlete. She really had so much to look forward to. and this devastated her life in really an unthinkable way. But before we even get into the lawsuit, do you think the judge will agree with the jury a 19 years in prison? In other words, running the sentences consecutively, one after the other, and not together, meaning concurrently, because my understanding is the judge, under Missouri law,

the judge can reduce the punishment of the jury if he finds it excessive. And to be clear with what the jury recommended, the jury recommended that Riley served six years and three months for second-degree assault, 11 years and eight months for armed criminal action, 10 months for fourth degree assault, plus a 10-month fourth-degree assault charge that actually has to be served in the city justice center. So the rest of the sentence will be served in prison. But do you think the judge is going to agree that 19 years is the appropriate punishment here? In my first opinion, I do. I think the judge is going to lay down what the jury recommended.

I don't see him going more heavy-handed, could he potentially? But I really don't see him saying, hey, we'll just do them, run it consecutively, given this guy's background, his criminal history, you know, look, looking at the lawsuit that was filed that he violated his bail, you know, 40 times. He made a mistake and he slipped up, you know, one time this is a repeated offender. And judges always look, take that into account when making a sentencing. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if he follows the jury's recommendations, but we'll see, has some discretion there. Let's talk about the lawsuit. This is your bread and butter now. Because, so Janais filed a lawsuit, and I'm going to go through the different defendants and what you think of the claims.

One of the defendants listed in this lawsuit, as I mentioned, is the city of St. Louis. The suit is blaming the city, saying there should have been a stop sign, not a yield sign at that intersection, because the buildings prevent drivers from being able to see each other or see the other cars. The suit states, quote, St. Louis owed a duty to the general public and specifically to pedestrians, like Jene Edmondson, to remove or warn of dangerous conditions and to maintain the intersection, including the area surrounding the intersection in a reasonably safe condition. In violation of this duty, St. Louis negligently permitted and maintained a dangerous condition to exist at the intersection, creating an unreasonable risk of injury to pedestrians. What do you make of that argument?

It is a premises liability argument. I mean, I see where they're going with it, and it does make sense. I mean, you'd have to take the history of that intersection, though. I mean, if this was the one and only time this accident happening, I don't think they have a very strong argument. But if you took a historical data collection, which is obviously the public record, and you saw, hey, at this exact yield intersection, there's five accidents a month, or there's been over 20 in the past five years. And you show a history or repeated action by the city to not take action to make changes when they see that damage and injuries are happening at the specific place. That, yeah, that could be a viable claim. So it really comes into the discovery phase of it and really seeing was this a one-off event that happened right here at this yield?

I don't understand. They're saying, well, the buildings are blocking. You can get code enforcement and agencies out there that do that. My guess is that they went through all that proper screening when they first got approval. But if there was a repeated history of these accidents, then there could be a need for the public to have a change in course of what's going on there. Generally speaking, though, have you ever seen a lawsuit based on the city not having the right signage or having the wrong kind of stoplight or having something to do with traffic? that was the city's fault. Have you ever seen a lawsuit like that? We have actually, yeah. I mean, there's times too when they don't do the proper, you know,

it could be one-off events we have here in Orlando sometimes. I know personally when they rerouted the traffic wrong, kind of had it set up to cause an accident. It was foreseeable and an accident did occur and injury did result from that accident. So, yeah, it definitely has happened. It's not like this is a new theory to go after the city's 40. And again, like I said, If there is a repeated history, same with the sidewalk. This sidewalk, there's a step off, and it's not properly contrasted, and there's been 20 falls at that same spot on the city sidewalk, and they just leave it like that and not paint this side yellow and this side white.

Well, then you can bring a claim saying, hey, you guys knew this was going to happen. You didn't change the course. Accidents keep happening. People keep falling and busting their teeth open, and nothing's been done. Nothing's changed. Then you can go out for the city for not right to find the situation. What about this fact? I saw this in local reporting that the yield sign was replaced with a stop sign after this happened.

So if that's the case, does that show that the city knew they were in the wrong? This is like a classic law school question dictionary. It's a remedial measure. So most time, almost all the time, you can't take a change that someone did to make a condition safer to then say, hey, it wasn't done right in the first place then. So it does show that the city has now said, hey, this change needs to have to. and we are going to make it safer. But you can't take that evidence and then show, hey, could or should it would have type type of deal.

So, yeah, that's kind of a... Okay. So in other words, you can correct the problem doesn't mean that you were legally responsible. Okay. Okay. That makes sense. Exactly. Because they don't want people to then not fix problems if they're in a lawsuit where,

hey, you could, you know, because if I do fix it, then I'm saying I'm guilty, but I don't think I'm guilty. But there's a chance that I could solve a future injury for this to happen again because it is foreseeable, too. So if you now, you didn't think it could happen, But now you know what happened, well, then you should go ahead and change it. See why we have you as our personal injury expert right now. All right.

So let's talk about the fact that Jeney has not only sued the city. She sued Mr. Riley for negligence, but also sued his mom, Kimberly Riley, for negligent entrustment. The argument was you shouldn't have let him drive this rented car, this rented Audi. When you knew he was on house arrest, when you knew he didn't have a driver's license, The suit actually says he was incompetent. What do you make of that argument? I think these are her lawyers and her families in her case's strongest claims are going against the at-fault driver and the negligent in entrustment,

potentially the rental car if they have an insurance agreement to if they knew he was in a drive and they then allowed him. You know, there's different scopes that I want to forecast. But those are kind of in the cleanest. One, in Missouri and in St. Louis, they have sovereign immunity. So bringing cases against cities and states and government entities is already a hurdle in itself. So these routes will definitely be a lot cleaner route to justice. And it's actually going out for the person that caused the harm.

Her issue is going to be, you know, what does this individual have to really go after? You know, if you sue them and obviously she's, in my opinion, no money is really enough money for her for what she's gone through and what she has to deal with for the rest of her life. But that person most likely doesn't have that type of money to pay what those damages are. So, you know, you're kind of in a really tough situation there. But, no, there is definitely a claim of negligent entrustment if that much, mother gave her son a car that she knew he didn't have a license and she said here you know run run to the store and go give me something he's just as guilty as he is for giving him those keys well you

mentioned the car rental company the car rental company is also being sued for as well negligent entrustment i don't know exactly at this point if they knew you know when when his mom was renting the car that they knew he would drive it as well or is it the idea if we are entrusting this car to you, we are also assuming responsibility for anybody that you give it to. I don't know how that works because if in terms, again, I don't know what the rental paperwork was, but if someone rents a car and then that person gives the car to their son, their friend to drive, is it the, is it the car rental company that's on the hook or is the, like the mom of that person on the hook?

Yeah, so usually the rural car companies have pretty ironclad contracts that, hey, if you, you know, if another person is going to be driving, who is that person, what's their I, you know, there's been times when I've been with my parents, you know, and I didn't have my driver's license on me. So the driver's company, the rental car company said, you know, you're not allowed to drive the car then. If I was there to say, hey, we know you're still going to drive it. Don't worry about giving us this information. I'll document it. Then, yeah, there could be a right of realm to tie that thing back in of the negligent entrustment. Most likely in this case, it's going to be a little more tough to connect those dots for them.

Again, I think this is a tip you want to overplay, you want to name everybody that could have some liability and some implications here. And there's probably also most most rental car companies too do have an underlying insurance package. You know, it's out there. Most likely this rural car company has probably pitched those limits, whatever that is. You know, but definitely I would say the cleaner route is definitely against the mom. If she did throw those keys to him on that day and say, you know, take the car knowing what she knew. Obviously, the rental company would be in trouble, I would imagine if they knew about that he was going to drive or he signed paperwork. He was going to drive. The other driver was also part of this lawsuit. She's also being sued. Elizabeth Smith. So she's

one of the named defendants. Riley's car was struck by Smith's car when he sped into the intersection. Now, Jenae says that Smith was negligent and careless in operating the car, wasn't paying attention. I think that that's a good argument against Smith. Smith? Again, if she had an opportunity, if Smith had an opportunity to avoid the collision, you know, there could be comparative liability. So even though Riley's 90% of fault for this accident, a jury could say, hey, there's 10% on Smith for this accident. So whatever that verdict is, say, I'm just going to use round numbers to make it easy for the listeners, but say it's, you know, a million dollars, then, you know, Smith would be responsible for that $100,000 chunk. And the Riley's would be responsible for that $900,000 chunk. So I think in this situation, if a jury does come in and say, hey, this, and again, I don't know the facts about what Smith was doing, but if she was texting or,

speeding or switching lanes and had an opportunity to avoid the accident and didn't, well, then a jury could come and put comparative liability on her as well. So I think it's another case where you want to make sure you over plead that way. You don't come down and get a verdict, and a jury does put something on Smith, but you didn't name her in the complaint. So now you're not getting anything from him. So it's definitely, I think, the smart moved by the attorney here to make sure that everybody that could have some comparative liability on this verdicts is attached.

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for the people.com slash YouTube takeover or by dialing pound law. That's pound 529 on your phone. So all said and done, I mentioned the claims. I've mentioned the defendants, assuming that the city is on the hook, assuming the rental car company is on the hook, the different defense are on the hook, what kind of damages could Jeanne be looking at here? Well, I mean, it's really, I mean, you've got all the medical damages that she's gone through. I think, I mean, I was reading earlier, I believe north of 20 surgeries and more in the future and, you know, all that that she's already gone through and all that's going to be needed into the future. So those are just the economical damage is.

That's just saying, hey, these are real numbers that she's incurred that she's had to pay for medical surgery. So that's one bucket. So whatever that number is, I think a jury's going to have no problem right now. I mean, that's just basic. Here's here, here's the numbers. Here's what the doctors present. I think it would be tough for any defense attorney to say anything that resulted from that was not due to what transpired that day.

So I think the economical damage will speak further themselves. And, you know, Lord willing, she has all the insurance and everything she needs, the medical coverages now that have been taking care of all that. So hopefully those are outstanding for it. But the civil system is there to make sure that she has made whole on that. Then you get into the non-economicals. And that's where it's really left up to a jury. What is all that pain and suffering worth, the inconvenience for the rest of her life? The pain and suffering that she's gone through and the pain and suffering that she has to

endure in the future. You know, you're talking about a girl that was a volleyball player that had, you know, college and everything, her whole life ahead of her and all that's now. She'll be bound to a wheelchair, W amputate it. You know, it's just, it's unfathomable. So, you know, when you really think about what is that worth, what is, you know, it's really, in my mind, you know, we would be asking for a number well into the nine figures, you know not not not the eight figures this would be a hundred million dollar type asked to a jury plus just because of thinking about all this girls have to gone through all all she will go through what her family then has to you know it's just is rich really unfaithable so yeah this would be um but again the problem with no matter what that number is say it's a hundred million dollars where's that money going to come from if the state has the sovereign immunity so they have limits on it can get collective if the rallies don't have obviously the you know i haven't seen their names in the four blitz or anything like that so they're most likely not going to have the

funds to pay that down. So it's really going to be a situation of who has to be collected. But yeah, definitely a verdict if he went to a jury would be astronomical. Or it's a potential settlement if these defendants are still on the hook and it's making its way through trial and it's getting messy. Listen, this, we know this lawsuit has actually been delayed to March 2025. So we'll wait and see what happens between now and then. Just a really, really sad case. And I will say from all of us, you know, we're just sending our best wishes to Janae and her family because it's really a heartbreaking situation. Dan Morgan, thank you so much for coming on, sir.

Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. All right, everybody, that's all we have for you here on this episode of Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. episodes of this long crime series, ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.