Brett Drake, 22, died soon after this 2016 crash on a Ledyard highway. Drake’s estate recently won a total award of $1.8 million related to a defective guardrail on the highway that contributed to Drake’s death. Courtesy photo.

Three New London attorneys have secured $1.8 million for the estate of a 22-year-old man who was killed on a Ledyard highway when an improperly installed and defective guardrail pierced a truck and slammed into the passenger side of the vehicle.

Robert Reardon Jr. of The Reardon Law Firm, his daughter and co-counsel Kelly, and attorney Joseph Barnes represented the estate of Brett Drake, who died in February 2016.

Their court pleadings and October 2018 amended lawsuit say Drake was a passenger in a truck his friend Meaghan Walker was driving. The vehicle veered slightly off the roadway due to a steep drop off in the pavement, and collided with the alleged defective guardrail. Reardon said the guardrail pierced the truck, traveling through the engine compartment and the firewall of the vehicle, before entering the right front passenger seat, trapping Drake and impaling his pelvic region. Drake bled profusely and died four days later.

Reardon said the guardrail had a blunt terminal end that could pierce vehicles. He said municipalities began replacing those types of rails several years ago with alternatives that have “diving ends.” These rails have ends buried in the ground, as opposed to their predecessors, which remained unburied.

A major issue during the discovery process was which company had installed the guardrail along Shewville Road in Ledyard.

ADF Industries, a co-defendant with the town of Ledyard, first denied it had done the job, according to Reardon.

“Their principal argument was that they did not install it and another company, Atlas Fence Co., did,” Reardon said. “But we found town records that showed the work was done in 2001, most likely by ADF. I think ADF recognized, through our discovery, that we were going go persuade a jury that they were almost certainly the installer and that they chose the type of terminal end to use at that location.”

Representing ADF was Anthony Saraco of Branford-based Milano and Wanat, and representing the town of Ledyard was James Williams of Williams, Walsh & O’Connor in North Haven. Neither attorney responded to a request for comment, but ADF’s court pleadings reiterated that it didn’t install the guardrail.

Kevin Schrumm, a professor of engineering at the University of Alabama, was among the plaintiff experts who gave depositions. Schrumm, whose expertise is in the design of guardrails, testified that installing the rails found at the crash site was like placing “a knife on the roadside that’s going to cut through a car.”

Reardon said he took more than 10 depositions before the parties reached a resolution outside of court.

The June 14 settlement called for ADF to pay the Drake estate $1.5 million, and for the town to pay $50,000, for a total of $1.55 million. That money was received Thursday. In addition, soon after the accident, the insurer for Walker, the driver of the truck, agreed to pay the $250,000 policy limit, bringing the total amount given to the estate to $1.8 million.

Walker was given an infraction for failure to operate in the proper lane of traffic. That infraction was later nolled, according to Reardon.