After five years of litigation, the City of Asheville and its insurers have agreed to pay $11 million to the wife of a crash victim who was killed on Riverside Drive in a collision blamed on poor drainage that caused an ice slick to form. Two construction companies involved in the case will pay another $1 million, bringing the total settlement to $12 million.
The drainage issue had been ongoing for years, with the city, the NCDOT and contractors on the River Arts District Transportation Improvement Project pointing fingers and no one taking responsibility for a fix.
That fix, according to plaintiff’s attorney Brian Davis, involved installing a drain in the area that would have cost about $10,000…