Taxi passenger settles crash case for $500K

A 58-year-old passenger in a Charlotte taxi cab who was severely injured after her driver swerved to avoid another taxi has settled a lawsuit against the second cab driver and his company for $500,000, her attorney reports.

Hunter Gillespie of Auger and Auger in Charlotte reports that his client, Margaret Linville of New Mexico, was in Charlotte on business in September 2015 when the taxi she and her family were riding in hit a telephone pole. The driver told police that he had swerved to avoid another taxi, which had left the scene.

Linville suffered comminuted fractures (meaning the bone was splintered into many pieces) of both thigh bones just above the knee joints, fractured ribs, and a traumatic brain injury to the temporal lobe accompanied by hemorrhaging. After surgery and a lengthy hospital stay in Charlotte, she was taken by air ambulance back to New Mexico.

Footage from the city’s camera had shown that a second taxi cab was at the scene of the accident, but the time lapse footage failed to document the near-collision of the two vehicles. A supplemental police report, however, identified the driver of the second vehicle as Rachid Oufquir, and a witness at the scene said that a second cab had pulled out into the path of the first cab.

The driver of the second taxi adamantly denied any involvement in the accident, Gillespie said, but through discovery, he obtained dashcam video which showed that the driver failed to yield the right-of-way to Linville’s driver. Gillespie called the video “highly implicating and shocking” evidence that resulted in the settlement.

“Besides documenting the truth behind how the accident happened, the powerful video evidence also showed that the negligent driver not only caused and witnessed the accident, but also made the troubling decision to leave the accident scene immediately, as opposed to stopping to wait for law enforcement or render aid to the other vehicle’s injured passengers,” Gillespie said.

Defense counsel for Oufquir and his company, Taxi USA, did not return a phone call seeking comment.

The driver of Linville’s cab and his cab company were initially listed as defendants in the case but were removed from the suit after it became apparent that he was not liable for the collision, Gillespie said.

Follow Bill Cresenzo on Twitter @bcresenzonclw

SETTLEMENT REPORT — AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT

Amount: $500,000

Injuries alleged: Comminuted fractures of left distal femur and right distal femur requiring surgery, fractured ribs, and lateral temporal lobe hemorrhagic contusion

Case name: Margaret Linville v. Rachid Oufquir, Taxi USA LLC, Habtom Tesfaye, and City Cab, LLC

Court: Mecklenburg County Superior Court

Case Number: 17-CVS-8253

Date of settlement: Jan. 17

Attorneys for plaintiffs: Hunter Gillespie and Herbert Auger of Auger and Auger in Charlotte