Colony Settles Wrongful Death Claim After Unlicensed Teen Driver Kills 15-Year-Old Girl

On the night of February 9, 2014, Vannah Decker, 15, got into a colony-owned vehicle driven by Janos Stahl, a 17-year-old member of the Deerfield Hutterian Brethren Colony near Ipswich, South Dakota. Stahl had been drinking alcohol before the drive. He accelerated to nearly 100 mph on a public road, lost control, and rolled into a ditch. Vannah was ejected from the vehicle and died from her injuries. Stahl fled the scene without summoning help. He was later arrested, charged with second-degree manslaughter, and served one year in jail.

Vannah's father retained Scott Abdallah of Johnson, Janklow and Abdallah to pursue a wrongful death claim against the Colony itself. The theory was straightforward: the Colony had known for years that unlicensed teenage members drove colony-owned vehicles on public roads, and colony leadership had done nothing to secure the vehicle keys or enforce driving restrictions. The Colony also allowed members access to alcohol, compounding the risk. The Deckers argued those failures amounted to negligence and recklessness.

The Colony moved for summary judgment, arguing it owed no legal duty to persons outside the Colony's property. U.S. District Judge Charles Kornmann denied that motion, ruling that the Colony had a legal duty to supervise and control its vehicles and that the question of liability was for a jury to decide. With trial set for August 14, 2017, the Colony agreed to settle.

The settlement was announced three days before the scheduled trial date. Financial terms were not disclosed. Stahl's criminal conviction had already established the basic facts of the crash; the civil case forced a separate accounting of the Colony's institutional role in allowing the conditions that killed Vannah Decker.