Construction Accidents: Father Files Lawsuit on Son's Behalf

Geoffrey David Cherry, 17, and Kayle Ingram, 16, were killed in 2005 when they crashed into a construction zone. Cole Ingram, Kayle's father, has filed a lawsuit against the city of Bozeman, Montana, saying that the construction zone where the accident occurred was unsafe.

Father Files Lawsuit in Son's Death on North 19th

Cherry had been speeding in the right lane, passing traffic in the left lane, before the two zones merged into one. Cherry merged into the left lane as the right lane ended, hit the median, and the car flipped into southbound traffic. The car landed on the driver's side and a man driving southbound hit Cherry's car, killing the boys. Cole Ingram's suit says that construction companies were negligent in building a raised median more than eight inches in height; state design standards require medians be less than six inches in height. The suit also alleges that the city and the state were negligent when crews used construction barrels to merge traffic instead of flaggers and that those involved in the construction project were generally negligent in alerting drivers to the construction project. The lawsuit states that Cherry "was suddenly required to merge into the left northbound lane by virtue of ill-placed construction barrels without proper warning, without flaggers, and without reasonable opportunity to safely merge."