Her testimony helped send Claud “Tex” McIver to prison for life for the fatal shooting of his wife, but now Dani Jo Carter finds herself in the legal crosshairs of Diane McIver’s estate.
She’s been named, along with McIver, in a wrongful death lawsuit filed earlier this week.
Confused? Carter sure was. “I think seeing her name as a defendant next to Tex’s name in this really hit her hard,” Carter’s attorney, Lee Davis, told Channel 2 Action News.
But Carter, who was driving the McIver’s Ford Expedition when Tex shot her best friend in the back, may be the only vessel through which the estate can obtain a payout from the vehicle’s insurer, Chubb Insurance Companies. The potential payout is unknown.
Previously: Dani Jo Carter sued by Diane McIver’s estate
Much more McIver coverage on MyAJC.com/mciver/
The lawsuit seeks to prove McIver’s shooting of his wife was an accident, as McIver has insisted from the beginning.
“No insurance will cover an intentional death,” said Atlanta attorney Esther Panitch, who has experience in this sort of thing. In 2012 she filed a suit on behalf of Rusty Sneiderman’s estate against his wife Andrea, who at the time was a suspected accomplice in her husband’s murder.
But murder charges were eventually dropped against Andrea Sneiderman. Tex McIver was convicted of felony murder last month, a fact lawyers for Chubb Insurance Companies is certain to seize upon.
“This is a civil case, and we just have to prove what is most likely, that an accident causing death took place in that car,” said Robin Frazer Clark, the attorney for estate administrator Mary Margaret Oliver, who brought the lawsuit. “If we get a jury to accept that, we’ll win the case.”
Carter, because she was driving the McIver’s SUV with their consent, was covered by their insurance, Clark said.
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