Elgin crash suit claims driver was texting

A truck driver who injured four in a downtown Elgin crash in March 2010 may have been texting on his cell phone, a lawsuit filed in Kane County alleges.

Erica Bernal, 26, of Carpentersville, is suing a Rock Island-based truck company and its driver for injuries she and three of her passengers suffered in a March 12 crash on State Street just north of Chicago Street.

The suit claims the truck driver, Richard Snodgrass, 40, of Tampico, Ill., was negligent because he was going too fast, following too close and “negligently, carelessly or improperly” driving a semitrailer while “texting and/or operating his cell phone,” court documents show.

James Lawlor, an attorney representing Bernal, said he believes Snodgrass was distracted because the truck knocked Bernal's 1994 Buick Park Avenue out of the way “like the chariot race in Ben-Hur.”

“He suddenly swerved over in the lane of traffic as if he was distracted,” Lawlor said. “We think he may have been texting or on the phone.”

Snodgrass was ticketed for improper lane use, pleaded guilty in April 2010, paid a $125 fine and was given a year of supervision, court records show.

An Elgin police traffic report shows that Snodgrass' truck moved from the center to outside lane on State Street, pushing Bernal's vehicle into a frontage road for shops along State at about 3:15 p.m.

Bernal, along with Starr Morrison, 27, of Elgin, and two Elgin toddlers, now 3 and 4½, were taken to Sherman Hospital in Elgin, the crash reports said.

Lawlor is seeking damages in excess of $50,000.

Phone messages left with the Dohrn Transfer Co. of Rock Island were not returned Monday or Tuesday. Reached by phone, Snodgrass declined to comment.

The case is due in court on May 19.