LONDON — The family of Harry Dunn, the 19-year-old motorcyclist killed by a car driven on the wrong side of an English roadway by the wife of a U.S. official, filed a U.S. federal lawsuit against the driver, Anne Sacoolas, on Wednesday.
The lawsuit, which claims wrongful death and seeks financial damages, represents a significant escalation in the year-long campaign by Dunn’s parents to hold Sacoolas accountable.
The case has been a source of friction between British and American officials. Sacoolas left Britain shortly after the Aug. 27, 2019, accident, with the U.S. government asserting that she had diplomatic immunity.
In the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Virginia, the attorneys for Dunn’s parents assert that Sacoolas did not call an ambulance or police after the head-on collision, although she had a cellphone with her. A passerby called the emergency service.
She said Sacoolas’s attorneys could argue for dismissal because the evidence and witnesses are in Britain — meaning that a U.S. court is not the “appropriate forum.”
“A lot of it depends on how much evidence is really needed to prove a wrongful-death case and how difficult or easy it is to take that evidence in the U.S. rather than pursue the case in the U.K.,” she said.
“There could be a whole bunch of moves” on both sides, Ross said.
