Vanessa Bryant says Kobe Bryant's death cost their family 'hundreds of millions' of dollars, seeks damages
Late basketball legend Kobe Bryant's wife Vanessa Bryant said that his death cost their family "hundreds of millions of dollars." Vanessa had earlier submitted a wrongful death lawsuit against Island Express Helicopters in February, a little less than a month after Kobe and her daughter Gianna died in a fatal helicopter crash. Vanessa's attorney had filed a 72-page long wrongful death lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court.
The lawsuit also stated that Island Express, agents and employees, including pilot Ara George Zobayan had a "duty to use that degree of care that an ordinarily careful and prudent pilot would use under the same or similar circumstances," E! News reports. "Although the total specific amount of personal injury damages that Plaintiff seeks is TBD, Kobe Bryant's future lost earnings equals hundreds of millions of dollars," the court documents read. Court documents also show that Vanessa "seeks economic damages, non-economic damages, prejudgment interest, punitive damages, and other relief as the Court deems just and proper."
Kobe, his daughter Gianna and seven others were traveling to a basketball tournament together on January 26 when the chopper they were flying in crashed into a mountainside in Calabasas, California, on January 26. Among the victims were Kobe, Gianna, college baseball coach John Altobelli, his wife Keri and their daughter Alyssa (a friend of Gianna's), Sarah and Payton Chester, and one of the coaches at Kobe's youth academy, Christina Mauser, who was married to Tijuana Dogs singer Matt Mauser.
We had previously reported that Kobe's grieving widow, had sued the company that owned and operated the helicopter. A copy of the death lawsuit had been obtained by TMZ which alleged that Island Express Helicopters Inc was only allowed to fly under visual flight rules and that the conditions on the day of the crash were not conducive for such flying. The day of the crash had been very foggy, so much so that the Los Angeles Police Department had grounded its helicopters. They did not fly until the afternoon that day as the weather conditions did not meet their "minimum standards for flying."
In the lawsuit, it was alleged that the pilot Zobayan had been going 180 miles per hour in the heavy fog in a steep decline, failed to properly monitor and assess the weather prior to takeoff, failed to obtain proper weather data prior to the flight, failed to abort the flight when he knew of the cloudy condition, failed to maintain control of the helicopter and failed to avoid "natural obstacles" in the flight path.
However, a representative for Zobayan had accused the passengers of "negligence." In response to the lawsuit, the family of Zobayan said, "Any injuries or damages to plaintiffs and/or their decedent were directly caused in full or in part by the negligence or fault of plaintiffs and/or their decedent, including their knowing and voluntary encounter with the risks involved, and that this negligence was a substantial factor in causing their purported damages, for which this answering defendant bears no responsibility."