FARMINGTON – In Franklin County Superior Court today, a Massachusetts man was found guilty of leaving the scene of a fatal accident caused by lumber falling off of his vehicle.
Domingos Medeiros, 49, of Assonet, Mass., was found guilty of an aggravated charge of leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident, a Class C felony, that carries a maximum possible jail sentence of five years. Sentencing proceedings will be carried out sometime in the next couple of months.
Medeiros was delivering a large load of roof trusses which his company, Hard Pine Inc. of Fall River, Mass., manufactures for Timothy Harvey, of N.H., in Kingfield. Harvey worked as a production manager for a construction company, and was overseeing a development at 319 Main Street. The lumber arrived without incident and was unloaded.
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Then, however, Harvey asked Medeiros to haul seven beams back to Massachusetts on a trailer attached to Medeiros’ Ford truck. These beams had been miscut by Harvey’s workers and were described as being roughly 17 feet long, 12 inches wide and 4 inches thick. Medeiros agreed to transport the lumber as a favor to Harvey, since his trailer was now empty and he was returning to Massachusetts anyway.
Medeiros, who was accompanied by his wife, also agreed to follow Harvey to a local restaurant for dinner. Harvey, Medeiros and some of Harvey’s employees had planned to travel to the Log Cabin, a now-closed eatery on Route 4 in Fairbanks.
Harvey and Medeiros reported nothing unusual on the trip south on Route 27, out of Kingfield and through New Vineyard. However, upon arriving at the restaurant, Harvey noticed that the load was gone. He informed Medeiros, who immediately left the restaurant’s parking lot and drove back up Route 27. Harvey followed in his own vehicle.
The beams had come off the trailer roughly three-tenths of a mile south of the Basin Road in New Vineyard. The 2,220 pounds of lumber beams fell onto the road, breaking apart on impact and was scattered more than 132 feet down Route 27.
The beams struck a vehicle being operated by Stephen McKenney, 55, of New Portland, who was killed instantly. Two other drivers also hit the beams, resulting in minor injuries and extensive damage to the vehicles.
After emergency first responders arrived, Medeiros and Harvey stopped on Route 27 at the back of a line of traffic, as the road was at this point closed by New Vineyard Fire Department personnel. Harvey said he noticed flashing lights up ahead. Both men stopped their vehicles and began walking along the side of Route 27, toward the lights. There, Medeiros talked to a woman who told him the incident had been a “three-car accident with a casualty.”
Medeiros testified in court that his reaction was one of relief, as she hadn’t mentioned any lumber. He then left the scene, driving directly back to Massachusetts. He told the court that he assumed the load had fallen off to the side of the road, as he didn’t hear a crash.
“It’s just beyond comprehension [that the beams fell on the road but Medeiros didn’t hear them],” Medeiros said. “It must have gone off into the snow, that was my logic.”
Justice Michaela Murphy, however, noted in her ruling that Medeiros’ “relief” contradicted statements made by Harvey and Medeiros’ wife at the scene, as well as the care he had shown in securing the load and going back to check on the lumber after Harvey noticed it was missing. Murphy also questioned why Medeiros had opted to go directly back to Massachusetts, rather than eat dinner with Harvey as originally planned, if he had indeed been certain that there wasn’t any problem.
Murphy rejected the argument that “three-car accident with a casualty” would make a reasonable person assume that their load had not been involved, because the statement did not involve the word “lumber.”
“These are not conclusions that could be drawn by any reasonable person,” Murphy said in her ruling.
“After consideration of the direct and circumstantial evidence,” Murphy said, “the court is persuaded that Mr. Medeiros knew he was a person involved in an accident.”
Murphy sided with Andrews’ interpretation of the “accidents involving death or personal injury” law, indicating that the state did not need to prove that Medeiros had “actual or positive knowledge, beyond all reasonable doubt” that he had been involved with an accident. Instead, Murphy ruled, the state merely had to prove that the driver had “some” knowledge he may have been involved. Otherwise, Murphy noted, someone extremely intoxicated or merely in complete denial could claim they didn’t have “direct proof” they had been in an accident.
Murphy also ruled that the defendant and state would present the court with sentencing memoranda by June 1, urging them to search for comparable cases to use as examples. The sentencing hearing would likely be held in June.
