Boca Raton Country Club Seeks $338,000 For October Crash. But No Citation Was Issued…
UPDATE MARCH 6, 2023: See response from the defendant’s lawyer, below:
BY: LITIGATION DESK | BocaNewsNow.com
Update: Due to a document error, the article originally referred to the plaintiff as “Woodfield Country Club.” It is actually “Woodfield Hunt Club.” While related in several aspects, the two communities have separate boards of directors.
BOCA RATON, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) (Copyright © 2023 MetroDesk Media, LLC) — Woodfield Hunt Club is suing a mom and her daughter for more than $300,000 after the daughter allegedly crashed into the Woodfield Hunt Club sign and caused damage to fencing. The lawsuit, which — ironically for Woodfield spends considerable time talking about the “Luxury” Volvo the young woman was driving — claims that Dorothea Zarcadoolas caused the damage while driving on October 18th. She was driving her mother’s Volvo XC60. The mom is identified as Nancy Zarcadoolas. She was not in the vehicle at the time of the crash.
The following is the verbatim language written by attorneys in the complaint. BocaNewsNow.com notes that there is no record of a traffic violation for Dorothea Zarcadoolas — at all — in the Palm Beach County court system. From the complaint:
“On October 18, 2022, Dorothea was operating the vehicle owned by her mother, Nancy. The vehicle is a luxury SUV. It is more particularly identified as a 2022 Black Volvo XC60 (hereinafter “the vehicle”) located in Palm Beach County, Florida. Dorothea had two separate passengers in the vehicle with her at that time.
Dorothea was traveling on Yamato Road and was heading west and traveling towards Jog Road. Dorothea intended on making a left hand turn upon reaching the intersection of Yamato Road and Jog Road. The traffic light in the intersection turned yellow at the time that Dorothea drove up to the intersection. Rather than wait on Yamato Road and enter the intersection when the traffic light turned green, Dorothea decided to accelerate her mother’s luxury SUV and attempted to cross through the intersection under the yellow traffic signal at a high rate of speed.
Dorothea was unable to maintain control of the vehicle. The vehicle left the roadway and crossed the curb and the sidewalk of the southwest corner of the intersection as it traveled in the southwestern direction. It proceeded to strike a pedestrian crosswalk sign and then proceeded to strike the plaintiff association’s signage. The impact resulted in damages to not only the signage but also ensuing, resulting damages to the fencing, the veneer covering the paneling and the perimeter wall surrounding the plaintiff association…”
Woodfield Hunt Club is represented by The Law Offices of Geoffrey Ittleman in Fort Lauderdale. The suit claims that the damage to Woodfield’s property exceeds $338,000 and is suing Nancy and Dorothea Zarcadoolas for that amount. There was no response immediately filed by attorneys for the Zarcadoolas family.
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UPDATE: The Zarcadoolas’ attorney shared this statement on March 6, 2023 with BocaNewsNow.com: “
Ms. Zarcadoolas received an estimate for the damage which was for $25,000 vs the $338,000 claimed by the Club.
The company who came up with the $338,000 estimate is not a general contractor or even a construction company. They are advertised as a “disaster relief company” who mentions nothing about building construction on their website. They had terrible reviews on yelp gaining 1 out of 5 stars. Obviously, this should be investigated further.
Allstate and the family had reached out over a half a dozen times to the board of directors and management company of the association in order to try to get bids and offer to pay for fixing the wall. The family visited the security guards and staff on premises and left several phone messages to try and communicate but to no avail. The only response received was this unwarranted, frivolous and potentially fraudulent lawsuit claiming $338,000 in damages.
The Board and management chose to ignore all attempts to work with the family to cure the issues and came up with what we view as a frivolous lawsuit along with the bid from a company that does not specialize in construction or repair of walls. In the family’s view, a proper contractor was not used in order to inflate the price and potentially claim that entire wall surrounding the community needs repairs. The wall is over 30 years old and the wall was already in disrepair and falling apart in many spots prior to the accident. This is one of the oldest developments west of St Andrews School.
The attorney representing and on behalf of the Club is suing a high school senior who had a traffic accident. The case was sensationalized by the attorney and it was further picked up by the media with zero disregard for her physical or mental health due to be being sued in a public way in her community. It appears that naming the mother and daughter in a lawsuit is solely to punish them when in fact her family and insurance company were willing to fix the damage created by the accident.
When you google Dorothea’s name, the accident and article comes up first clearly identifying her as being negligent. This was a car accident and no police reports were issued on the matter. This can be very detrimental to her in many ways.
The family is considering all of its options in relation to responding to the ridiculous claims and money damages expressed in the complaint.”
LOCAL JOURNALISM SUPPORTER.
