Woman Injured In Airplane Propeller Accident Files Suit
NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) - A Plano woman who suffered disfiguring injuries after walking into a spinning airplane propeller is suing the pilot of the plane she was exiting and his insurance company.
It's been almost four months since Lauren Scruggs walked into a spinning propeller blade at the Aero Country Airport in McKinney. The woman had just taken a flight on a small plane to see Christmas lights.
Initially Scruggs' family refused to assign blame for the accident, but now CBS 11 News has learned they've hired an attorney and are filing suit.
The 23-year-old Plano woman lost her left hand, left eye and had head injuries as a result of the accident last December.
Scruggs has since returned to her career as a fashion editor but still hasn't spoken publicly -- instead issuing one written statement.
♦♦♦Read The Entire Scruggs Petition♦♦♦
The lawsuit names pilot Curt Richmond and Aggressive Insurance as defendants and also states that Aggressive offered Scruggs a $200,000, is the maximum a passenger on the plane could receive.
But Scruggs' family argues that she was not a passenger because she had already exited the aircraft and was turning back to thank the pilot when the accident happened.
The insurance company has a $2 million limit on injuries to non-passengers.
CBS 11 News spoke to aviation attorney, Kent Krause, who is not related to the case. He says the lawsuit is unusual and could be a tough case for the family to win.
"Really what the court is going to have to decide is how far is that getting off she had just gotten out of the aircraft how away from the airplane do you sort of disassociate yourself as a passenger," he said.
A decision in the case could happen faster than usual since the lawsuit asks that a judge make the decision.
CBS 11 has not been able to get a comment or statement from the pilot, his insurance company or the Scruggs family attorney.
