The estate of a pregnant Oregon woman who was killed by a falling tree while driving in her SUV in Multnomah County in 2016 is suing for $9.5 million.
Kristi Leigh Oliver’s family is demanding the cash from both the owners of the land in rural east Multnomah County land where the tree grew and the county itself.
She was 30 and four months pregnant at the time of her death.
A fire chief said that Kristi Leigh Oliver probably never had a clue about what was in store for her as she drove to work
Witness Mike Weber said the falling tree which hit Oliver’s SUV broke off out of nowhere – ‘it looked like it had exploded
The lawsuit alleges that the two parties had a public ‘duty’ to inspect the tree and remove it if it presented any risk to the public.
It says that while the landowners tried to get permission from the county to cut down the tree – because they could see it was rotting – the county wouldn’t give its consent.
Oiver died on 1 March 2016. A 100-foot-tall cedar crashed onto the driver’s side of her vehicle early in the morning as she was driving to work just east of Gresham.
‘She probably never had a clue it was coming,’ Mike Traeger, a Gresham fire battalion chief, said at the time.
A witness to the accident, Mike Weber, said he was right right behind Oliver when the accident happened.
‘This tree, it just broke off out of nowhere. It looked like it had exploded. But it hit her truck, spinning her around and around, he told Koin.com.
Weber said the tree had clearly been dead for a number of years and there were a number of others in a similar condition along the stretch of road where Oliver was killed.
The lawsuit lists the owners of the land where the tree grew as Mark and Jill Harrington.
After Oliver died, Mark Harrington said the county denied him permission to cut down the tree and others near it that were also in poor condition, it said.
This tree, it just broke off out of nowhere. It looked like it had exploded
The tree was on the Harringtons’ property, about five feet away from the county’s right-of-way for the road, the suit says.
The suit is at least the fourth filed in the past two years over Oregon deaths from falling trees, Oregonlive.com reported.
Neither the County nor the Harringtons have publicly commented on the latest case.
It is not known when, or if, a court date is scheduled.