Ex-athlete awarded $40 million in lawsuit
Diving champion hurt in ’99 crash
Former Hamburg High School diving champion Thomas Smolinski, who was paralyzed in a car crash 10 years ago, was awarded $40 million Friday by a jury.
A jury of three women and three men deliberated two days — following a four-week trial before State Supreme Court Justice Joseph R. Glownia— before issuing a verdict against Ford Motor Credit Co. and Smolinski’s older brother, Matthew, 37, of Buffalo.
The jury held Matthew Smolinski and the Ford Motor subsidiary equally liable for the rollover of a Ford Explorer, owned by Ford Motor Credit and driven by Matthew Smolinski in Leon, Cattaraugus County, on Nov. 20, 1999.
Attorney Anne Beltz Rimmler said her client, Thomas Smolinski, now 33, suffered “devastating” spinal injuries from the accident that left him paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair “and having to rely on others for his daily care.”
“I’m really delighted that Tom will get the care and treatment he’ll need,” Beltz Rimmler said of the award.
Beltz Rimmler said her client married in June 2002 and is the father of twin girls, almost a year old. He briefly coached diving at Niagara University for a time after the accident, but his injuries forced him to resign, she said.
At the time of the accident Smolinski had just graduated from Cleveland State University with a degree in marketing and communication, and had achieved Academic All-American status in springboard diving in Division 1 athletics, Beltz Rimmler said.
The lawsuit has left the relationship between the Smolinski brothers “strained,” the attorney said.
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