Two Years Later, Still Seeking Closure After Father's Death

More than two years after Douglas F. Schneiderman, a Virginia man vacationing with his family, died in a head-on collision on Route 114 in East Hampton, the case against the driver of the second vehicle has had its day in court and Mr. Schneiderman’s family may finally have found some closure.

No charges had been brought against Brian K. Midgett Jr., then a 20-year-old East Hampton man, after prosecutors found there wasn’t enough evidence to prove he was driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol on the afternoon of the accident, July 29, 2012. 

Two months ago, however, an administrative law judge with the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles found that Mr. Midgett had caused the accident by “engaging in reckless driving in that he unreasonably endangered himself and others by operating a motor vehicle in an impaired condition under the influence of marijuana and hydrocodone.” The Schneidermans had said all along that he had driven recklessly.

Such hearings are mandated when someone is involved in a fatal accident. The hearing took place in April, and in August the judge, Todd A. Schall, revoked Mr. Midgett’s license. His license was also suspended for four months for driving without a seat belt, driving on the wrong side of the road, and crossing a solid line. The revocation and suspensions are running concurrently.

The decision comes at a time when Mr. Schneiderman’s widow, Elisabeth Schneiderman, has tied up loose ends, settling with insurance companies and deciding to forgo any civil action against Mr. Midgett. Ms. Schneiderman and one of the couple’s teenage daughters suffered severe injuries in the accident, as did Mr. Midgett.

In her first interview since the accident, Ms. Schneiderman, who is known as Lisa, said she doesn’t want her husband’s death to be just another statistic, another tragic death on a treacherous stretch of road. “I think there’s quite a few lessons to be learned,” she said.

Mr. Schneiderman, 51, a New York City native, visited the East Hampton area for about 25 years after his mother’s second husband bought a house in Amagansett. He and his family came from McLean, Va., every summer for at least two weeks. In the summer of 2012, they were looking forward to staying here longer.

It had been an emotional year. Ms. Schneiderman had been diagnosed with breast cancer about nine months earlier. Married for 18 1/2 years, “That had created a reset button for us,” she said.

The family’s plan had been to drive to Amagansett on Sunday. “I came home from work Friday night — Ms. Schneiderman is the director of community relations at a nearby school — and the bags were all ready to go, and he was like, ‘Come on. I made sandwiches, let’s go through it and deal with it and get there.’ So we did.”

They arrived here on Saturday, a rainy day. Mr. Schneiderman’s mother, Sandy Schneiderman, was so pleased that they had come early, that she changed her plans and came to Amagansett that night too.

“The good side about all this was that my husband had a perfect 24 hours of his life. He had been with his family; he cooked dinner Saturday night, he was where he loved to be. He got up early Sunday morning; it was a beautiful day, the rain was gone. He did one of his long-distance bike rides — his first one — and he was looking forward to a long stretch,” she said.

Describing her husband as a foodie, the family decided to check out a new restaurant in Sag Harbor for lunch on Sunday. His mother took a separate car to go to the dump and to pick up a friend who was going to join them. The couple’s 15-year-old daughter went with her. Mr. Schneiderman was behind the wheel of their Volvo on Route 114, near Edwards Hole Road, when the car was struck.

“Out of nowhere, the next thing you know, we were, I was spinning around screaming,” Ms. Schneiderman said. Her 16-year-old daughter, Rachael, who was in the back seat, also started screaming. Passers-by pulled Ms. Schneiderman and her daughter out of the mangled car, with Rachael having to be reached through the trunk because the car’s doors wouldn’t open.

“They laid her down next to me, because I was screaming for her. And then I knew she was there with me,” she said. She had a view of the Volvo with its many airbags deployed. “I kept looking at my husband and saying, ‘Doug, wake up. Wake up, Doug. Doug, wake up,’ and there was no response.”

An emergency room doctor at Southampton Hospital broke the news to her. “I recall screaming, wailing,” she said. A night nurse, whom she knows only as Maggie, held her hand as she cried.

“I kick myself for letting him talk me into leaving a day earlier than we planned,” she said, fighting tears, “because we wouldn’t have been there. We should have been on the road that day. We should have been somewhere around John F. Kennedy Airport about that time, but I can’t dwell on those kind of things.”

Ms. Schneiderman and Rachael were in rough physical shape. A gash on Ms. Schneiderman’s head had to be closed. Her daughter was admitted to the intensive care unit with a severed spleen, several broken ribs, and a bruised sternum. Ms. Schneiderman’s brother-in-law chartered a private plane to fly them to Washington, D.C.

In keeping with Jewish law, the family buried Mr. Schneidereman as quickly as possible. Ms. Schneiderman was unable to be involved in funeral arrangements because of her injuries, but took comfort in knowing his family decided to bury him in casual beach clothes and loafers. “He would have hated to have been put in a suit,” she said. She was allowed to leave the hospital for the funeral but had to go right back in.

It was three-and-a-half weeks before a necessary operation on her foot could proceed because it was so swollen. She couldn’t put weight on it for four months, and she wasn’t able to return to work until the following January.

In August of 2013, Ms. Schneiderman was  notified that an administrative hearing would take place and that she could speak at it. She was advised not to attend, and hired a private investigator to take her place. It would be a year before the judge could issue a ruling.

On the first scheduled date, no one appeared on behalf of the East Hampton Town Police Department. The second scheduled date, the following winter, fell on the day of a blizzard. Finally, in April, the case was back on the court calendar.

In his decision, Judge Schall said there was “relatively limited information available” to go on because the criminal matter had been sealed after charges were dropped. The accident report indicated contributing factors “attributable” to Mr. Midgett were “failure to keep right” and illegal drugs.

Mr. Midgett testified briefly. Judge Schall wrote that Mr. Midgett “denied having consumed any drugs or alcoholic beverages at any time proximate and prior to the occurrence of the accident.” In addition, “He testified that he did not recall driving nor any of the events leading up to, or the occurrence of the collision, but only remembers waking up in the hospital sometime thereafter.”

Before Judge Schall, Mr. Midgett admitted there was an open bottle of prescription hydrocodone found by police in his truck. He denied having consumed any of it around the time of the accident.

Although the accident report said Mr. Midgett had received violations from the responding officer for driving while ability impaired by drugs, a misdemeanor, a violation regarding no passing zones, and operating a vehicle without a safety belt, also a violation, he presented documents that substantiated that all criminal charges had been dropped. 

Det. Richard J. Balnis testified that drivers of other vehicles told him that Mr. Midgett crossed over the double-yellow line. Blood testing following the accident revealed the presence of marijuana and possibly hydrocodone in his system, the detective said, but were insufficient to bring charges. An empty beer can was also found in Mr. Midgett’s truck, but the blood test found no alcohol in his system.

Nevertheless, Judge Schall ruled that Mr. Midgett drove “after illegally consuming substances impacting his ability” to drive. The judge said he failed “to exercise due care to avoid this accident,” and noted that Mr. Midgett had said he didn’t even remember the accident.

Mr. Midgett’s license was revoked on a count of misdemeanor reckless driving. The judge did not make it clear when Mr. Midgett could get it back. When he does apply for his license to be reinstated, the Department of Motor Vehicles will review the request.

“It should be noted that the standards of proof as to any criminal matters associated with this occurrence are separate and apart from the standard of proof of this inquiry,” the judge wrote.

“The bottom line is, he did, basically, the most a traffic judge could do,” Ms. Schneiderman said.

Susan Menu, Mr. Midgett’s attorney, reiterated that her client was never formally charged with a driving while intoxicated or related charge, or even a violation of vehicle and traffic law. “All anticipated charges against Mr. Midgett were dismissed and he was never arraigned before a criminal court on the matter.”

“If Detective Balnis, on behalf of the East Hampton Police Department, testified at the administrative hearing that Mr. Midgett was impaired, his testimony was at worst false, and at best in error,” according to Ms. Menu. “There is no evidence that Mr. Midgett was impaired and if there was, the district attorney would have rushed to indict him on vehicular homicide,” she said. Ms. Menu said she may take legal action “to clear up any mistakes.”

“This accident was so terrible and the results so tragic that for the family to be told Mr. Midgett was impaired by either alcohol or drugs seems to be a grave injustice not only to Mr. Midgett but to the family who lost a husband and father,” Ms. Menu said.

Mr. Midgett remained at Stony Brook University Medical Center for a number of weeks after being flown there after the accident. Ms. Menu said the district attorney’s office “determined that it was what it appeared to be, a tragic accident, nothing more.”

In the years since her husband’s death, Ms. Schneiderman has kept track of Mr. Midgett. She said that he was recently arrested on a misdemeanor assault charge. She said that he can still be a Nascar driver because licenses are not required on the tracks.

The Schneidermans have also looked at his Twitter account, hoping it would reveal something about the accident. He had Tweeted a photo of his smashed-up truck and said, “I should not be alive.” Ms. Scheiderman said she hoped police would pay more attention in the future to social media pages in accident investigations. She also cited examples where he allegedly refers to drugs or getting high in the months and years after the crash.

 Ms. Schneiderman said her husband had always worried about providing for his family, and carefully chose their insurance so that they were covered in case they were hit by someone with less than ample coverage. This summer the family received a $1 million check as well as $100,000 from Allstate, the insurance held by Mr. Midgett’s stepmother, who owned his truck, and $350,000 for Ms. Schneiderman’s injuries.

“That’s what we got for losing my husband and their father, who made $250,000 a year, just in income, let alone  his earning potential as our main breadwinner,” she said.

“My husband did everything in life you could do to prolong his life,” Ms. Schneiderman said. He was a health fanatic. He drove the safest, biggest car, even though they would have preferred a more gas-friendly one. She said they were known to stay in on New Year’s Eve and Super Bowl Sunday because drunken drivers could be on the roads. “We avoided risk as much as possible, and there’s some irony in that,” she said.

The entire family loved East Hampton, but they haven’t been back, and her daughters don’t want to. “I do plan to come back up and let the people who helped us see how far we’ve come.”