A mother whose 20-year-old daughter drowned in her car during Hurricane Irene can't sue government officials over the flooding of a highway, a federal appeals court panel found.
That ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit should end Kathryn M. Van Orden's legal battle over the August 2011 death of her daughter Celena Sylvestri on Route 40 in Salem County, N.J.
Van Orden appealed to the circuit court after another federal judge dismissed her "state-created danger" lawsuit against Woodstown Borough and numerous New Jersey state agencies.
According to the appeals court opinion by Judge Cheryl Ann Krause, Sylvestri was on the road that night, driving to her boyfriend's house, eve though she knew the state's governor had closed all highways because of the weather emergency.
Van Orden claimed in her suit that government officials were negligent for opening the flood gates of the nearby Veterans Memorial Lake Dam, yet not posting signs to physically close that section of Route 40.
At 1 a.m. on Aug. 28, 2011, Sylvestri called 911 to report that her car had been swept off the road by flood waters. Emergency responders weren't able to save her, Krause noted.
The opening of the flood gates and failure to post signs closing the road were just part of a chain of events that led to Sylvestri's death, Krause found in refusing to revive Wan Orden's lawsuit. Another major factor was that "Ms. Sylvestri chose to drive despite her knowledge of the existing travel ban," the judge wrote. "Ms. Sylvestri was a member of the general public who wandered randomly into the path of danger."