Family sues over girl’s death during tornado
For two years, Jaymi Wendt's wrongful death has been blamed on a tornado that ripped through Rogers, carving a 6-mile path of destruction. Now, attorneys for Jaymi's family say it was the poor construction of the house she was in, and not the tornado, that killed the 10-year-old girl.
"The tornado didn't kill the child; faulty construction caused her wrongful death," said attorney Patrick Sauter who represents Jaymi's mother, Jodi A. Wendt, and her brother, Jake Wendt, in a wrongful-death suit scheduled to begin today in Hennepin County District Court. "The tornado didn't harm anybody else," Sauter said last week.
Six people were treated for injuries and 340 houses were damaged in the Sept. 16, 2006, storm that moved so swiftly that weather officials did not have time to sound sirens. But Jaymi's death, which occurred at a neighbor's house built by Monarch Homes Inc. in 1998, might have been prevented had the house's foundation been more sound, Sauter said.
At issue are anchor bolts embedded in concrete blocks -- bolts that might not have been spaced closely enough together or deep enough to firmly secure the base of the house's walls, said Sauter, of the Minnesota Wrongful Death law firm Bassford Remele.