A $25.3 million lawsuit has been launched against convicted drunk driver Marco Muzzo and his family’s business in connection with the September 2015 crash that killed three young children and their grandfather.
According to a statement of claim, the lawsuit was filed on behalf of the children’s parents Edward Lake and Jennifer Neville-Lake as well as their uncle and aunt Jonathan and Josephine Neville and their grandmother Neriza Neville.
The lawsuit was filed in Superior Court in Newmarket in April, about a month after Muzzo was sentenced to 10 years in prison following his decision to plead guilty to four counts of impaired driving causing death and two counts of impaired driving causing bodily harm.
“The plaintiff’s state that the defendant, Marco Muzzo, has behaved with high-handedness and with disdain for the rights of the plaintiffs,” the statement of claim says. “The plaintiffs further state that the defendant, Marco Muzzo, was conscious of the probable consequences of his carelessness and was indifferent or worse, to the danger of injury or death to the occupants of the Neville-Lake vehicle.”
Muzzo was on his way home from the airport after his bachelor party in Miami when the Jeep he was travelling in slammed into a minivan at Kirby Road and Kipling Avenue in Kleinburg.
The suit further alleges Muzzo was suffering from an unspecified medical condition at the time of the collision, “which he should have known impaired his ability to operate a motor vehicle.”
It also alleges Muzzo did not have his eyes checked regularly and was not wearing his glasses at the time of the collision, and that the Jeep he was driving was “defective” and contained “devices prohibited by the Highway Traffic Act.”
The claim also alleges Muzzo was eating, drinking or handling a cell phone as he drove in the moments leading up to the collision.
The Jeep Muzzo drove in the crash caught fire briefly while it sat impounded at York Regional Police Headquarters on Sept. 28.
Nine-year-old Daniel Neville-Lake, his five-year-old brother Harrison and their two-year-old sister Milly were killed in the Sept. 27 crash along with their 65-year-old grandfather Gary Neville.
Muzzo was charged after breath samples taken two hours after he was arrested showed that his blood alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit.
In addition to naming Muzzo as a defendant, the lawsuit also targets his family construction business Marel Contractors, which owned the vehicle that the now 29-year-old was driving.
