The News-Herald

Child's drowning leads to lawsuit award for mother

By Jennifer Aylsworth
News-Herald Staff Writer

A Lake County jury wants to give the mother of a Painesville Township boy who drowned $400,000.

But after deliberating for more 4½ hours Tuesday, they were unsure how to communicate that desire to Common Pleas Judge Paul H. Mitrovich.

After 3½ hours, the jurors announced their verdict in favor of Diane Spiker, 30, of Clearwater, Fla., and her two sons.

Jeremy, age 3½ drowned in a pond at Peppertree Condominium on Jackson Street on June 11, 1988, where the family resided at the time. His estate was awarded $56,000 for his pain and suffering. His brother, Keith, now 10, was awarded $171,250.

The jury found Peppertree Condominium Association 60 percent responsible for Jeremy's death because it failed to build a fence between its condos and the pond.

But Mitrovich found discrepancies in the jury's verdict form and sent the exhausted jurors back to straighten out the problem. After an hour and 15 minutes, the jurors emerged with seemed to be the same verdict.

"We really weren't sure what was wrong," juror Dan Wilson of Madison Township said later. "We knew what we wanted to. We just didn't know how to make the judge understand."

One female juror was convinced that Spiker was 100 percent negligent for leaving the children unsupervised for a few minutes, he said.  In those moments, Jeremy apparently fell into the pond and drowned.

That juror ultimately held out and did not sign the form in favor of Spiker. She did, however, agree with the boy's award.

"She pretty much felt the parents were 100 percent responsible for moving there in the first place," he said.

She also was the only one of the eight jurors who believed Spiker's former mother-in-law, who claimed Keith told her Jeremy fell into the water while the brothers were fighting, Wilson said. The hardest part of the case, Wilson said, was deciding how much money, Jeremy's estate should receive.

"We couldn't decide how much a 3 ½-year-old was worth," he said. "Nobody knew what kind of number you deal with."

Spiker's lawyer said in closing argument they sought $3.5 million - $2 million for Spiker's mental anguish and loss of companionship, $1 million for Keith's anguish and loss of companionship, and $500,000 for Jeremy's pain and suffering.

But Spiker said after the verdict that she did not pursue the case for money.

"I started this for a fence," she said. "I believe there will be a fence put up there now."

John Cronquish, lawyer for Peppertree Condominium Association, declined to comment.

JURY AWARDS $400,000
Spiker v. Peppertree Condominium Association
December 23, 1992