$198.17 Million for the Family of Two Brothers Killed in a Westlake Village Crosswalk

On the evening of September 29, 2020, a family was walking through their Westlake Village neighborhood. Two of the children, brothers ages 11 and 8, were in a marked crosswalk on Triunfo Canyon Road when Rebecca Grossman struck them with her SUV. Both boys died. Evidence at trial showed Grossman was driving far above the posted 45 mph limit, by some accounts close to 80 mph, after she and Scott Erickson, a former Major League Baseball pitcher, had spent part of the evening drinking margaritas together.

The crash took both brothers at once. Their parents brought a civil wrongful-death action against Grossman and against Erickson, who was driving a separate vehicle with her when the boys were hit.

Grossman had already faced a criminal trial. She was convicted in 2024 and is serving a sentence of 15 years to life. The civil case went before a separate jury at the Los Angeles County Superior Court in Van Nuys. Brian Panish and Diana Panish of Panish | Shea | Ravipudi LLP represented the Iskander family.

The firm argued that Grossman and Erickson had been drinking together and then drove recklessly down a residential road, racing each other in the minutes before the boys stepped into the crosswalk, and that both shared responsibility for the deaths. Defense lawyers countered that the two were not impaired and were not racing.

The jury rejected that defense. In the first phase of the trial, it found both Grossman and Erickson negligent and returned $176 million in non-economic damages for the family's loss. The following week, in a phase focused on punishment, the panel added $21 million in punitive damages against Grossman and $1.17 million against Erickson, $22.17 million in all. The wide gap between the two figures tracked their roles, with Grossman behind the wheel of the SUV that hit the boys and Erickson in the vehicle beside her.

"They punished them," Brian Panish said after the verdict. "They sent a message to other drunk drivers."

The compensatory and punitive awards together total $198.17 million. The jury reached the punitive figure on June 10, 2026. The defendants retain the right to appeal.