SARASOTA COUNTY – The family of Gabby Petito has been awarded $3 million in a wrongful death lawsuit against the Brian Laundrie estate.
“No amount of money is ever going to compensate her family to the loss of her life,” said Suncoast Lawyer, Founder & Principal of Tympanick Law PA, Matthew Tympanick.
Sarasota County judge, Hunter W. Carroll ruled in favor of the plaintiff, Gabby Petito’s mother, Nicole Schmidt, as the administrator of her daughter’s estate. The lawyer for Schmidt, Pat Reilly said in a statement that Brian Laundrie did not have 3 million, it’s an arbitrary number. But any money the Petito family does receive will go to the Gabby Petito Foundation which supports organizations trying to locate missing people as well as provide aid to organizations that help victims of domestic violence.
“The judge essentially chose a number based on what her life expectancy was going to be, how much money she would make what she would have provided to her family over the remainder of her life and gave a number unfortunately,” said Tympanick.
As Brian Laundries estate is the one being sued, his estate will be held responsible to pay the award from the judge.
“All the money that he has or could’ve had, what he had the right to in the future, via inheritance that is all fair game to get money against the estate, whatever he has right now is going to go to Gabby Petito’s estate except in the situation where the estate of Brian Laundrie appeals this case to try to get a circuit court of appeals to vacate that judgement, meaning set aside that $3 mil dollars which is also possible,” said Tympanick.
In a statement, the attorney for Petito’s Parents Patrick Reilly says “The Petito family lost their daughter, and they were also denied the opportunity to confront her killer. No amount of money is sufficient to compensate the Petito’s family for the loss of their daughter, Gabby, at the hands of Brian Laundrie.”
“Whatever number that the judge decided, it was never going to be able to be enough it could never compensate the family for the loss of her life and what she would provide to them for the remainder of their lives, her parents and friends but what it is a judge determined that Brian Laundrie is responsible for the death of Gabby Petito and that is and that is taking some kind of solace considering he did commit suicide and he was never tried by a jury after the disappearance of Gabby Petito,” said Tympanick.
A trial originally scheduled for December 2022 will not happen.
The wrongful death lawsuit is separate from the negligence lawsuit Petito’s parents, Joseph Petito and Nicole Schmidt filed against Laundrie’s parents.
That case is expected to go to trial next August.
