Family Awarded $1.9M For Woman's Death In Trash Truck Crash

PASADENA, MD — The family of an Arnold woman killed when a trash truck driver using prescription medications crashed into her car was awarded $1.9 million in damages in a wrongful death lawsuit. Janet Ellen Stomps, 44, died in June 2016 in a pileup on southbound Route 2 (Ritchie Highway) at Jumpers Hole Road.

Anne Arundel County Police said a 2001 Mack trash truck, owned by Bay Area Disposal of Baltimore, was driven by Robert Peter Neal of Abingdon. The truck hit the back of six vehicles, including a 2014 Honda Accord driven by Stomps.

Stomps' car was stopped with numerous other cars for a red traffic signal. The force of the crash drove the Accord forward as the trash truck plowed into five other cars. Police say there was no evidence that Neal was braking or making any evasive maneuvers at the time of the crash.

The lawsuit filed by the Stomps family sought damages from Neal and his employer, Bay Area Disposal, arguing Neal was incompetent to drive and was impaired by medication on the day of the fatal accident.

Neal was hospitalized two months before the accident for severe depression, and prescribed Abilify, Zoloft and Atarax, which all warn users of drowsiness and not to operate vehicles or heavy equipment, the lawsuit said.

“Not only was he negligent in causing the accident, his employers were grossly negligent in allowing someone who was sending up such warning signals about his mental health and medicinal usage to be driving a 19-ton trash truck on the public road,” Allen Cohen, the family’s attorney, told The Capital.

Neal pleaded guilty to manslaughter in November 2017, the newspaper reports. He said he was unconscious at the time of the crash.