The city of Santa Maria quietly settled a lawsuit with the parents of Leticia Hernandez-Sanchez, a teenager who was struck and killed by a driver in 2013.
Hernandez-Sanchez was crossing the intersection of Newlove and Miller on June 29, 2013, when a car driven by 21-year-old driver, Kelsi Sullivan, hit her. Hernandez-Sanchez died a short time later.
Sullivan faced a manslaughter charge but was acquitted in October 2014.
In August 2013, Pedro Hernandez and Venancia Sanchez, the parents of the victim, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city, Sullivan, and Samuel and Guadalupe Puera—the owners of the car Sullivan was driving. The May settlement came a month after the Santa Maria City Council discussed the case in closed session during a meeting on April 21.
Santa Maria Assistant City Attorney Philip Sinco said the city reached a settlement with the family last week, although he declined to give details about the settlement.
“We were asked by the plaintiffs and the counsel for the plaintiffs to keep the settlement confidential,” Sinco said. “And we didn’t have a problem with that.”
Although the exact amount wasn’t disclosed, court documents show that the parents were suing the city for more than $25,000.
According to one of the attorneys representing the parents, Richard Bennett from Bennett and Johnson Law firm in Oakland, he couldn’t talk about the terms of the settlement either, but added that the co-defendants were included in the agreement. Bennett said the civil trial would have been too painful for the parents.
“It’s a confidential settlement,” Bennett told the Sun, “but it was really in the best interest of the parties. They went through a horrific criminal trial. The family suffered enough and didn’t want to sit through a civil trial and re-live the crash.”
This article appears in Jun 4-11, 2015.
