A story featured on The Register-Guard website Mar. 7 reported that one Nancy Prater is suing her late husband’s life insurance provider for rejecting her claim for $200,000 in accidental death benefits.
Prater filed her suit Mar. 3 in Lane County Circuit Court.
Based on an initial autopsy that suggested Prater’s husband had been drinking before the head-on collision, Globe Life and Accident Insurance Co. denied Prater’s claim, ruling that alcohol intoxication caused her husband’s demise.
Later on, however, a medical examiner ruled otherwise.
According to Prater’s lawsuit, while her husband’s blood alcohol limit went beyond the acknowledged “legal limit” for motorists in Oregon, the more probably cause of his demise was the “blunt force chest trauma” he likely sustained during the crash.
“It is outrageous for the defendant insurance company in this case to unilaterally ignore the unbiased professionals who investigated this incident in order to deny Mr. Prater’s widow the benefits the Praters paid for when they purchased insurance for just this kind of accident,” Prater’s attorney Scott Lucas said Mar. 4.
On Feb. 20, 2015, Glen Prater perished when his Toyota pickup swerved into the oncoming lane and collided head-on with a Chevrolet Silverado. The passengers of the Silverado were treated for minor injuries.
At that time, investigators worked to determine the involvement of a tractor-trailer rig that purportedly lost at least one wheel at around the same time as the accident.
Prater’s lawsuit argued that the missing wheel rolled in the way of her husband’s pickup, causing him to swerve and lose control of the vehicle. The suit additionally claimed that the police concluded that the operators of the trailer were at fault for the accident.
A statement from the police to confirm the suit’s claim has yet to be received by The Register-Guard, as of this writing.
