SALEM — The father of Julia Gauthier, the young Salem woman killed last month in a crash in Lynn, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the driver and his mother.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Salem Superior Court, names Julia Gauthier's boyfriend, Christopher Maxson, and his mother, Margaret Maxson, who owned the Toyota 4Runner SUV that flipped over on the night of March 21.
Gauthier, a 19-year-old freshman at Salem State College, was a talented athlete at Salem High School, where she graduated 10th in her class in 2009.
Prosecutors say Christopher Maxson, 19, of Marblehead, was drunk and speeding as he went through a stop sign on a dead-end street in Lynn, crashed into three parked cars and flipped over, while taking a shortcut home from a party.
Gauthier was ejected through the sunroof of the Toyota and struck the pavement. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Maxson has pleaded not guilty to motor vehicle homicide while driving drunk and recklessly, drunken driving, driving to endanger, and failing to stop.
The civil lawsuit, filed by Gauthier's father, Marc, as administrator of her estate, alleges negligence and gross negligence by both Maxson and his mother — Maxson for his allegedly reckless driving, his mother for entrusting the SUV to him.
Lawyer Eric Finamore of the Boston firm Weston Patrick said yesterday that the lawsuit was filed quickly, less than two weeks after the crash and just hours after her funeral, to enable the Gauthiers to obtain court orders preserving evidence in the case, in particular, the Toyota SUV.
"Sooner is always better when you have physical evidence," said Finamore, who on Wednesday obtained a temporary restraining order barring anything from being done to the Toyota, such as sending it to a body shop or some other location, until he can have the vehicle inspected by his own expert in the case.
Finamore said he has no information about any mechanical cause for the crash but said until the vehicle is fully examined, he doesn't want to rule that out.
He said he wants to ensure that no evidence is inadvertently lost through moving the SUV.
A further hearing on the request is scheduled for April 8, when the Maxsons' attorney will have a chance to oppose the request, though Finamore does not anticipate that.
Typically, a driver's insurance company provides a lawyer to represent owners and drivers in civil lawsuits.
It was not known whether the Maxsons had been served with a copy of the lawsuit yesterday.
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