A.G. Gancarski
For years, Jacksonville residents Joseph & Audrey Stewart have waited for justice. On Tuesday, they got one step closer to that, as Rick Scott signed HB 3519 into law.
The bill directs the City of Jacksonville to pay the settled amount of $3.5M to the Aubrey Javaris Stewart Special Needs Trust as compensation for injuries and damages Aubrey Stewart sustained as a result of the city’s negligence. In June of 2011, a rotting tree fell on Stewart, leaving him paralyzed below the waist.
The tree had been one of several that had been rotting for months. It had been incumbent on the city to take corrective action. Yet it did not.
Because of the city’s negligence, Aubrey Stewart was hospitalized in Shands for months, paralyzed from the waist down afterwards. Diapers, a catheter, a colostomy bag, and a wheelchair are reminders of the city’s failure to remedy this situation that he will deal with for the rest of his life.
Sovereign immunity limited the Stewart family’s redress to $200,000 without action from the state legislature. In March of 2014, the Jacksonville City Council passed an Emergency Resolution, sponsored by the entire Council, to urge that Tallahassee compel Jacksonville to pay the entire $3.5M Stewart was due for pain and suffering.
Stewart will get four annual payments over the next four years.
