March 28--A Northampton County judge has ruled that the city of Bethlehem and a veteran firefighter could be held liable in civil court for fatal injuries suffered by a 60-year-old Hanover Township man in a 2008 crash involving a city fire truck.
Judge Emil Giordano, in an opinion issued Friday, ruled a jury could potentially find that the city and fire truck driver Frank Dashner IV were negligent in the crash that led to William Samer's death when his vehicle collided with a fire truck on Eighth Avenue.
While noting that governments are generally immune from such liability, Giordano indicated that there are exceptions when a vehicle is being operated at the time the injury occurred. Giordano wrote that the city may be held liable "even when the operation of a vehicle itself was not negligent."
"Damages could be recoverable ... and the jury could find the injuries were caused by the negligent acts" of the city, Giordano wrote. He added that there was conflicting testimony during depositions relative to whether Dashner acted negligently during the collision.
"This is a question of fact for the jury to decide and not this court," the judge wrote in a response to court filings in a 2010 wrongful death lawsuit filed by Samer's wife, Judith.
The suit seeks monetary damages that would be determined by a jury.
The Harrisburg attorney representing the city in the case was not available for comment Friday. Judith Samer's attorney could not be reached for comment.
Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin in 2009 ruled that Dashner would not face criminal charges in the crash because he said Dashner was responding to what he believed to be an emergency with the lights and sirens on the fire truck activated.
Although the emergency, an alarm at Service Electric Cable, turned out to be a false one, Dashner did not know that and was responding appropriately, Martin ruled.
Samer died about a week after Oct. 24, 2009, crash. Lehigh County Coroner Scott Grim said he died of multiple traumatic injuries.
To bypass traffic, police said Dashner drove around a road divider to head north in the southbound lane and was either at a complete stop or going slower than 5 mph when the collision happened.
Police said Samer's car passed several vehicles that had yielded to the ladder truck before striking the passenger side of the engine.
Emergency vehicles may drive legally against traffic under certain circumstances.
Giordano also determined that others named in the suit could not be held liable. He was unwilling to assign liability to ABE Alarm Service and its employee Mark D. Withers, along with Service Electric Cable Inc.
Court records indicate that Withers was in a workshop testing a smoke detector on a clone of a fire panel from the Service Electric building when a false alarm was sent to a company that monitors Service Electric's alarm system.
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