State DOT settles wrongful death case with widower

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By Ariel Hart and Bill Rankin

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Georgia Department of Transportation has apologized and will pay $600,000 to the family of Patricia Heller, who died after her taxi careened off I-85 and crashed into a tree in 2003.

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Special Patricia Heller, a 51-year-old heatlthcare consultant, died in a taxi cab accident after flying into Atlanta on Jan. 29, 2003.

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"The Department wishes to express its sincerest apology to her husband, Dr. Ed Heller, and their children, Kimberly and Ryan, for their still painful loss of their wife and mother," a DOT spokesman, David Spear, said Tuesday. The settlement was finalized during jury selection for a trial this week in Fulton County State Court.

On Jan. 29, 2003, healthcare consultant Patricia Heller, 51, was on her way from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to her new employer, to discuss opening an office in Boston. Her taxi spun out on the rain-slick roadway and slammed into a tree, where she died instantly.

A lawsuit filed by Heller's husband said the taxi had bald tires and had passed an Atlanta city inspection the day before the accident. The lawsuit also accused the DOT of negligence in designing that section of Interstate, and said that DOT should not have allowed the tree to grow so close to the roadway.

However, last month a Fulton County judge ruled that it was up to the city of Hapeville, not DOT, to make sure the tree next to the highway was cleared. But, the court let the design claim move forward.

Heller has spent seven years waiting for the trial, as the state argued unsuccessfully that it was immune to to the lawsuit. That case went to the state Supreme Court.

The city of Atlanta has been dismissed from the case. The trial goes forward against the estate of the taxi driver, who is now deceased, United Express Cab. Co. and the former city inspector, Greg Shepard. Altogether Heller is asking for a judgment of more than $11 million in lost earnings, medical bills and punitive damages.

"We had to make a decision to appeal and delay the trial for years, or to negotiate a substantial settlement that included an apology for her wrongful death," Heller, of Weston, Mass., said in a statement. "I decided that this settlement was in the best interest of my family."

Heller's lawyer, Jim Potts, echoed his client.

"Our system should not be about serial appeals to prolong resolution and justice for families like Patricia Heller's," Potts said in a statement. "This settlement clears the way for us to move into the courtroom before a jury and tell them how and why Pat Heller was killed."

Heller's lawsuit claimed that on that section of I-85 the slope was too steep and the drainage was bad.

DOT cut down the trees by the side of I-85 in 2006 and has a larger tree-clearance program, Spear said. "The principal concern relative to the DOT in this issue was the tree," Spear said. "Relative to drainage and slope design we’ve not made any changes, nor are any warranted."