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SALT LAKE CITY — America can pay members of the family of a Ugandan human rights activist killed in an accident at Arches Nationwide Park greater than $10 million in damages, a federal choose dominated Monday.
Although the quantity was considerably lower than pursued, attorneys representing the household of Esther Nakajjigo celebrated the judgment, saying it was the most important federal wrongful loss of life verdict in Utah historical past.
“By his verdict, Decide Bruce Jenkins has proven the world how the American justice system works to carry its personal authorities accountable and enormously values all lives, together with that of Esther Nakajjigo, a exceptional younger lady from Uganda,” Randi McGinn, the household’s lawyer mentioned in an announcement.
Nakajjigo and her husband, Ludovic Michaud, have been vacationing in jap Utah, visiting the area’s nationwide parks months after their wedding ceremony. Recreation areas had just lately opened after pandemic-era closures and, on the sting of Arches, a steel gate usually secured with a lock was left untethered.
Because the couple was leaving the park, gusts of wind swung the gate round quickly, sufficient to slice via the passenger facet door of the couple’s automotive, decapitating Nakajjigo as her husband sat toes away within the driver’s seat.
The grotesque nature of Nakajjigo’s loss of life and the truth that she was a famend Ugandan girls’s rights activist drew widespread consideration to the case.
Nakajjigo, who was 25, lived along with her husband in Denver, the place she moved to attend a management course on a full scholarship. She rose from poverty to change into the host of a solutions-oriented actuality tv sequence in Uganda targeted on empowering girls on points equivalent to training and healthcare, and had efficiently raised funds to construct well being care amenities in her hometown.
As a result of neither the U.S. nor Nakajjigo’s household disputed the details of the case, the civil go well with targeted largely on the quantity of damages merited. Attorneys representing Michaud and Nakajjigo’s mother and father requested for $140 million in damages, whereas the federal government mentioned an applicable award could be roughly $3.5 million.
Jenkins awarded Michaud $9.5 million; Nakajjigo’s mom, Christine Namagembe, $700,000; and her father, John Bosco Kateregga, $350,000.
All through the trial, attorneys debated estimates of Nakajjigo’s earnings potential. McGinn, representing Nakajjigo’s household, likened her to a nonprofit CEO for an American charity and mentioned she would have possible made thousands and thousands all through her life. Attorneys representing the U.S. recommended her work, but famous her most up-to-date job was working at a restaurant making $15 per hour.
In his judgement, Jenkins mentioned the federal government had supplied “a extra cheap projection” of Nakajjigo’s earnings potential.
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