Jayde Cummings and Steve Macnee were killed in a crash near Outram in 2019. Video / Gregor Richardson / ODT
A man whose teenage daughter was killed in a crash west of Dunedin is seeking $150,000 from the Dunedin City Council for its "outrageous conduct" leading up to the tragedy.
On September 17, 2019, Jayde Cummings, 15, was the passenger in a ute when it ploughed through a Taieri Plain intersection and into the vehicle of Steven Macnee in the rural suburb of Outram.
Both she and Macnee died.
The teenage ute driver survived and was given an absolute discharge in the Youth Court after admitting careless driving causing death, following an acquittal on more serious driving charges.
Judge Dominic Flatley said the overgrown vegetation and an undersized stop sign beside Church Rd West, approaching the junction with Huntly Rd, meant the driver might not have been aware he had to stop.
This photo, taken by the Otago Daily Times on the day of the crash, was used at trial to show the driver might not have seen the stop sign. Photo / Gregor Richardson, File
Jayde's father, Mark, has long been critical of the Dunedin City Council's maintenance of the road and the stop sign was only replaced with a larger one in October — more than two years after the incident.
This week, his lawyers filed a claim for $150,000 addressed to Dunedin City Council chief executive Sandy Graham, for the "obvious and fatal oversights".
Cummings told the Otago Daily Times it was not about the cash.
"We're not chasing them for the money. We're chasing them for the principle," he said.
He said the situation could have been avoided had the council fronted up immediately after the incident.
"We are confident that a court would find that the DCC's inaction was outrageous conduct to satisfy the requirements of an exemplary damages claim and would award accordingly," lawyer Tiffany Sauni wrote.
Sauni pointed to two incidents that she said put the council "on notice" as to the substandard state of the road.
Steve Macnee, who was in his 50s and lived in Waihola, was one of two people killed in the crash. Photo / Supplied, File
A complaint was made in April 2018, she said, about foliage covering a stop sign but nothing was done.
In June the next year, the same thing happened.
The day after the fatal crash, a report provided to the council highlighted the issues of overgrown vegetation which resulted in it being cut back and the relocation of a stop sign closer to the road.
Sauni said the remedial work was effectively a concession of the council's "clear failure".
"No amount can compensate fully the loss caused by DCC's actions to the families of Jayde and Steve," Sauni said.
"It is the hope of the Cummings family that no other family will have to endure the loss that they have had to endure," she wrote.
"It is troubling that even after this finding there has been no offer of compensation or counselling to the families involved."
Photos taken the day after Jayde Cummings was killed showed foliage had been cut back but who did the trimming has never been revealed. Photo / Supplied
A council spokesman said it had expressed "sincere sympathy to both families for their losses" and legal counsel had now been instructed to respond to Cummings' claim.
In December, Mark Cummings was sentenced to nine months' intensive supervision for using a wooden baton to smash up the council's central Dunedin offices and damage the property of a nearby law firm.
The outburst was sparked by reading in the newspaper about the sentencing of the driver who killed his daughter — information that was supposed to be conveyed to him earlier.
Cummings said he was now "a different person" to a year ago but would be forever changed by his loss.
