Condo Association Blamed For Boy’s Death
By Jane Musgrave, Palm Beach Post, February 19, 2013
Jupiter, Fla.
One second Andre Kovacs and his son, Andrew Curtis, were riding their bikes back to their Jupiter home to watch a Jim Carrey movie and enjoy a steak dinner. The next second Kovacs was clutching the 9-year-old’s limp body, willing him to live.
The January 2011 crash in front of the Villas on the Green condominium on U.S. 1 south of Indiantown Road, that claimed the young boy’s life, was totally preventable, attorneys representing Kovacs and the child’s mother, Tracy Curtis, told a jury this morning.
Had condominium managers cut the hedges and put a stop sign in the right place, 81-year-old Helen Bygel would have seen the boy and his father. Instead of hitting the accelerator on her van, she would have stopped, attorney Matthew Schwencke told jurors on the opening day of what is expected to be a two-week-long trial with millions at stake.
“By the time Mr. Kovacs realized what was happening, by the time he screamed to Andrew to watch out, it was over,” Schwencke said as the parents wiped tears from their eyes. “This collision was avoidable.”
Bygel, now 83, did nothing wrong, he said. “Mrs. Bygel followed the rules,” Schwencke said. “She stopped her car where the Villas on the Green told her to stop.”
Unfortunately, he said, because the hedges were roughly 56 inches high – twice the 30-inch height required by Jupiter codes – she couldn’t see the father and son. Her view was further obstructed by a stop sign that stood 37 inches off the ground instead of the 84 inches required by the Florida Department of Transportation, he said.
Attorney Patrick Flanagan, who is representing Bygel, emphasized that the stop sign itself blocked his client’s view. He urged jurors not to allow attorneys representing the condo association and those representing its management company, MMI of the Palm Beaches, to demonize Kovacs or Bygel.
Neither, he said, did anything wrong. Like Schwencke, Flanagan blamed MMI and the condo association for not following rules designed to protect drivers and motorists.
“We have no intention of putting on any evidence that Mr. Kovacs did anything wrong to cause the death of the child he loved so much,” Flanagan said.
Attorneys representing the condo association and the management company are expected to blame Kovacs when they give their opening statements to the jury this afternoon.
Bookmark the permalink.
Print Version
Leave a Reply