Gretna grocer hit with $1.4 million judgment for parking lot death

A judge has signed off on a $1.4 million award in a lawsuit blaming the former Casey Jones Supermarket in Gretna for accidentally killing a shopper in its parking lot. A store employee was helping move the shopper's car when she fell beneath it and was fatally injured.

Judge Adrian Adams of the 24th Judicial District Court in Gretna signed the award Tuesday (Oct. 18), three months after the trial jury rendered judgment against the store, employee William Sarradett and the store's insurers. The suit was filed by Nunzio Marchiafava, whose mother, Carrie, 85, was the victim of the accident.

She entered the store Nov. 17, 2012, to buy Thanksgiving dinner items and emerged to find another vehicle parked too close to hers for her to exit the parking space safely. The suit says Sarradet came to help and entered her vehicle to move it but left the driver's side door open before reversing the vehicle.

The door knocked Marchiafava to the pavement. She was dragged and crushed beneath it, suffering multiple broken bones and losing some of her skin, according to the suit. She died in the hospital a month later, on Dec. 15.

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