Marissa Politte's family awarded $745 million over death involving driver ... trends now
A St. Louis family will receive a settlement of $745 million after their daughter was tragically killed when she was hit by a 20-year-old driver who was huffing nitrous oxide as she left work in October 2020.
The trial hinged on whether or not lawyers could prove that the manufacturers of Whip-It! worked in cahoots with a smoke shop to sell the nitrous oxide, which is inhaled through a balloon, also known as laughing gas, in the knowledge that purchasers would abuse the substance.
Marissa Politte, 25, was hit by an SUV being driven by 20-year-old Trenton Geiger shortly after he had been inhaling Whip It! This caused him to fall asleep at the wheel, documents in the case state. Geiger's parents were the owners of the car.
She was leaving her job at the Ballwin Total Access Urgent Care on outskirts of St. Louis at the time.
Prior to the crash, authorities said that Geiger disposed of the nitrous oxide chargers, known as 'whippets,' in a wooded area. He bought the laughing gas at a smoke shop named the Coughing Cardinal in Des Peres, Missouri.
Marissa Politte's family sued the makers of Whip It!, which is supposed to be used to prepare whipped cream, saying they knowingly sold it to a smoke shop
Trenton Geiger pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, among other charges, he received just two years in prison
Whip It! is supposed to be used to make whipped cream but is knowingly sold to smoke shops
The chargers are supposed to be used as a food propellent in order to make whipped cream.
In the trial, the Politte family lawyers, Johnny M. Simon and his father, John G. Simon, were able to prove to a jury that the company includes selling Whip It! to smoke shops as part of its business plan.
'They're selling poison disguised as something else,' Johnny M. Simon said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
'Each one of those makes 16 ounces of whip cream, so even if they had plausible reasons for selling it, which they don’t, that’s a ... a lot of whip cream for a place that doesn’t sell any food,' the attorney said in a separate statement to KSDK.
The terms of the settlement will see 70 percent or $520 million of the $745 million being paid by United Brands
