Editorial: A paltry amount

Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2007 | 7:11 a.m.

The state Board of Examiners today will consider a settlement in which the state would pay $150,000 total to families of people who were killed last year when a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper traveling at 113 mph on Interstate 15 rammed their car.

Joshua Corcran was driving his patrol car without flashing lights or sirens because he was heading home for dinner rather than speeding to an emergency call. He struck a car traveling about 50 mph near Sloan, killing four of its five occupants.

Cecilia Lopez Cruz, 16, who was four months pregnant at the time, was the survivor. Those who died were her husband, Victor De La Cruz-De Leon, 21; her sister, Reymunda Lopez-Vazquez, 21; Lopez-Vazquez's stepuncle Jose Sanchez Lopez, 42; and Jose Roberto Mejia Lang, a 19-year-old family friend.

Corcran, 30, was sentenced to two to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to a felony reckless driving charge.

The Las Vegas Sun's Cy Ryan reported Sunday that the state is poised to pay $50,000 each to the parents of Lopez Cruz's husband, the parents of her sister and the parents of the family friend. It was the maximum amount allowed under law before the state Legislature changed the law this year.

The Legislature in June approved raising the cap to $100,000, but Gov. Jim Gibbons vetoed the measure. State lawmakers then passed - and Gibbons signed - legislation that raised the cap to $75,000 starting Oct. 1 and to $100,000 in 2011.

But because the new cap did not go into effect until October - long after the February 2006 crash involving Corcran - the state is offering the families affected by that tragedy only the outdated amount of $50,000 each.

The state Board of Examiners is to consider the settlement today, the Sun reports. The state should consider increasing the compensation in this case to the full amount allowed under current law.

Although no settlement can compensate for the loss of a loved one, cash compensations do help relieve stresses by paying for hospital bills, funerals and related costs. The least the state could do is pay the maximum amount allowed under current law, even though that, too, remains a bare minimum. That amount will not bankrupt government entities and the state would be paying the fairest amount possible under the law.