By BILL HETHERMAN
Grossman Burn Foundation co-founder Rebecca Grossman — sentenced in June to 15 years to life in prison for running down two young boys crossing a Westlake Village street with their family — is challenging efforts by the boys’ family to obtain information about her financial assets before trial of their negligence/wrongful death lawsuit.
In the criminal case, jurors found Grossman guilty of two counts each of second-degree murder and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and one count of hit-and-run driving in the Sept. 29, 2020, deaths of Mark and Jacob Iskander, aged 11 and 8.
The Van Nuys Superior Court civil suit plaintiffs are the boys’ parents, Karim and Nancy Iskander, and the boys’ brother Zachary.
Trial of the civil suit is scheduled Dec. 1, but the Iskander attorneys state in their court papers that they are entitled to know Grossman’s financial worth now because the nature of her conduct indicates a high probability she acted with malice and that the family will be entitled to punitive damages.
Grossman, 61, is named a defendant in the complaint filed in January 2021 along with her then-boyfriend — former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Scott Erickson. Grossman and Erickson had cocktails and later the two then raced each other in their vehicles along Triunfo Canyon Road until they reached a crosswalk and the children were struck.
To obtain punitive damages, the Iskander family lawyers must convince a jury that Grossman’s actions were despicable and amounted to malice. In court papers filed Tuesday with Judge Huey P. Cotton, Grossman’s attorneys maintain the evidence offered by the plaintiff does not meet that level.
The Grossman lawyers further maintain that they have already provided Grossman’s financial information to Iskander’s attorneys in exchange for their promise to cancel their Feb. 26 motion hearing, but that Iskander’s lawyers instead left the hearing on calendar.
“Moreover, the motion is an overreaching request for carte blanche access to the overly broad category of financial discovery in violation of (Grossman’s) constitutional right to privacy,” the Grossman attorneys contend in their pleadings.
Judges typically do not order defendants to produce information on their assets until a jury has found they have acted with malice, but Iskander’s lawyers argue there is a “substantial probability” they will prevail on such a claim, noting that in addition to hitting the boys, Grossman failed to give aid and sped away.
“Grossman tried to flee the scene and she likely would have been successful had her vehicle not automatically shut down due to it sensing the massive impact that had just occurred,” the Iskander attorneys state in their court papers.
Grossman then lied to law enforcement about her speed and how much she had to drink, and then contended she did not know why her airbag suddenly deployed despite her vehicle sustaining massive front end damage, the Iskander attorneys further state in their pleadings.
“The evidence to date demonstrates that Rebecca Grossman’s conduct was ‘despicable,”‘ the Iskander family’s attorneys contend in their court papers. “She was purposefully racing her Mercedes SUV at 81 mph in a 45 mph zone approaching a marked crosswalk with children in it.”