Jury Awards Boy 297,500 Dollars for Death of Mother

An eight year old boy has been awarded almost 300,000 dollars in wrongful death compensation after his mother was killed in a road traffic accident due to the driver of the car in which she was a passenger being under the influence (DUI).

The unnamed boy from Douglas, Colorado, was just aged seven years when, in August 2009, his mother Grace was returning from an evening out with friends. The car in which she was travelling was being driven at excessive speed by Dominick Wilmer who, the Colorado Superior Court heard, was drunk and high on pot.

Wilmer was arrested after the accident and convicted of vehicular homicide for Grace’s death and that of another passenger in the car. No other vehicle was involved in the accident. Wilmer is now serving a 13-year prison sentence.