CONCORD — The family of a Newport woman killed by an allegedly drunken driver leaving the Loyal Order of the Moose lodge four years ago will not accept a $200,000 offer from the lodge to settle their $2.25 million wrongful death lawsuit, according to the family’s attorney.
“We don’t believe it’s sufficient for what the damages have been in this case, which was the loss of a 20-year-old,” the family’s attorney, Matthew Lahey, said in an interview Wednesday.
Lahey represents the family of Michelle Fenimore, who was killed along with her fiance’s brother, Nicholas Carpenter, 17, on Route 10 in Croydon while they drove home from work in 2017.
Police have said their vehicle was hit head-on by Kristin Lake, then 22, who had been drinking at the Newport chapter of the Moose Lodge on Golf Club Road prior to the crash.
Lake was initially charged with negligent homicide and aggravated driving while intoxicated, but was acquitted of all charges in a jury trial the following year.
Families for Fenimore and Carpenter filed the lawsuits individually, but they were later joined into one complaint against the Newport chapter of the lodge as well as the international organization, Moose International, alleging both were responsible for the deaths of Fenimore and Carpenter.
In documents filed in U.S. District Court in Concord last week, an attorney for the lodge wrote that the local chapter would pay $150,000 and the national organization would pay $50,000 to each family to settle the lawsuit, but that both families had to accept the deal by Aug. 20.
The offer is a fraction of what each family called for in their separate lawsuits; in initial filings, Fenimore’s mother, Jennifer Rhodes, demanded $2.25 million in damages, while Carpenter’s mother Melissa Currier demanded $4.5 million.
Rebecca Witmon, an attorney for Carpenter’s family, declined to say whether she would accept the offer but said that she would wait for a jury’s decision on how much the lodge should pay. The case is scheduled to go to trial in January.
“For us it’s entirely up to the jury,” Witmon said. “You know where our demands started and where (the defendants) are. … Whatever we end up getting will be totally based on what the jury awards.”
An attorney representing Moose Lodge International and its local chapter did not return a call for comment on the offer Wednesday.
This is the first monetary offer in the lawsuit, which has been ongoing for nearly two years, since Rhodes filed the first complaint in late 2019.
In the initial complaint, Rhodes and her attorney, Lahey, claimed Lake had been drinking at the lodge and became “noticeably intoxicated” but that servers at the bar continued to sell her alcoholic drinks. Rhodes argued that Lake was so intoxicated that bartenders should have known she was not able to drive.
When Lake left the bar, she drove on Route 10 and ran straight into a car driven by Fenimore with Carpenter as a passenger, the lawsuit said. Fenimore was engaged to Carpenter’s brother, Nicholas Morse, and the three had just moved to Newport from the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont, family members have said.
Fenimore and her soon-to-be brother-in-law were returning from working shifts at the J.C. Penney in West Lebanon the night of the crash, according to family.
Much of the argument at Lake’s 2018 trial centered on whether she or Fenimore traveled over the center line, causing the head-on collision. An expert witness who analyzed the scene testified at the trial that Fenimore traveled over the line, but Rhodes disputed that in her lawsuit, saying Lake was the driver who crossed into oncoming traffic.
Lake’s blood alcohol content when she was taken to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center was .14, which is over the legal limit of .08, according to the lawsuit. Lake’s attorney James Valente argued during the 2018 trial that Lake’s blood alcohol content had risen after the crash.
Calls and messages to Rhodes and Currier were not returned Wednesday.
Anna Merriman can be reached at amerriman@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.