PORT ANGELES — Almost four years ago, a mother and her three young children were killed on state Highway 112 when their car skidded on ice, spun into a logging truck and burst into flames.
This week, a Clallam County Superior Court jury is deliberating whether the state was negligent in maintaining the highway and liable for the Jan. 13, 2000, deaths of 26-year-old Sara Smith and her children.
Attorneys representing Smith’s husband, Jeff, and Sara Smith’s estate have argued that the state was negligent in the design, construction and maintenance of the highway at the location of the crash, about two miles west of U.S. Highway 101.
They also say the state was negligent in not sanding the road at that location, when a sanding truck drove through the area about 10 minutes before the crash but did not lay sand on the pavement.
Lawyers from the state Attorney General’s Office have argued that the sander followed proper procedure and waited until traffic was clear before sanding the highway.
The state’s Major Accident Investigation Team concluded that the crash was caused by Smith driving too fast for the road conditions.
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The rest of the story is in the Friday/Saturday Peninsula Daily News Clallam County edition.
