Lawsuits: Truck driver who killed two SCDOT workers on U.S. 501 ‘not medically qualified’ to drive
HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WMBF) – The families of two South Carolina Department of Transportation employees killed in a crash last summer on U.S. 501 have filed a lawsuit against the truck driver who allegedly caused the crash and the company he was working for.
Both suits, which were filed last week in the Horry County Court of Common Pleas, named Virigina-based Ferguson Enterprises and driver James Tyrone Williams as defendants.
Last July, 35-year-old Cecil Morgan and 29-year-old David Sibbick died after a 2014 Freightliner truck hit them while they were working in the road on U.S. 501 near Aynor, troopers with the S.C. Highway Patrol previously said.
RELATED STORY: Coroner: SCDOT workers killed in crash on Highway 501 near Aynor
The truck also hit two vehicles that were stopped in traffic, according to troopers.
Both Sibbick’s and Morgan’s families brought the nearly identical lawsuits. They allege Williams was driving over 50 mph “as he proceeded past the warning signs for reduced speed due to road construction and plowed into the two stopped vehicles,” court documents state.
The lawsuits claim Williams was “not medically qualified or fit to drive due to severe obesity, hypertension and/or obstructive sleep apnea.”
“At the time of the collision Defendant Williams operated a Commercial Motor Vehicle while Defendant Williams’ ability or alertness was so impaired, or likely to become impaired through fatigue, illness or any other cause such as severe obesity, obstructive sleep apnea and/or hypertension as to make it unsafe for Defendant Williams to begin or continue to operate the Commercial Motor Vehicle,” court documents state.
The families also allege the company failed to do a pre-trip inspection on the truck that revealed “non-functioning brakes.”
They are asking for unspecified damages in the case.
WMBF News has reached out to representatives with Ferguson Enterprises for comment.
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