Tort claim filed in accident

SANDPOINT — A California woman is seeking damages from Bonner County in connection with a chain-reaction crash involving a county jail van earlier this month.

Michele Goodwin-Hooks’ tort claim does not specify the amount of damages she’s seeking. The claim was filed in 1st District Court on Aug. 10, a week after the crash on Fifth Avenue near Oak Street.

The county can either settle the claim or reject it. The latter option would clear the way for Goodwin-Hooks, a 43-year-old from Santa Cruz, to sue the county to recover the damages.

A Sandpoint Police report said the Aug. 3 crash occurred when a Bonner County woman rear-ended a line of stopped traffic headed southbound.

Cassandra Kaylyn Nord-land told police she was looking at traffic behind her in a rearview mirror and did not see that vehicles ahead were stopped. Nordland’s Ford Explorer crashed into the county’s Chevrolet Astro van. The impact had enough force to push the jail van into the rear of Goodwin-Hooks’ Toyota Sienna, the report said.

Goodwin-Hooks’ minivan then crashed into the rear of a BMW sport utility vehicle carrying a family from Edmonton, Alberta.

The jail van’s driver, 44-year-old Darrin L. Johnson of Priest River, was taken to Bonner General Hospital for possible neck injuries, the report said.

The police report indicated the claimant’s minivan and the jail van each sustained $5,000 in damages. Damages to Nordland’s SUV and the BMW SUV were estimated at $3,500 and $1,500, respectively.

Nordland, 26, was cited for inattentive driving. None of the other drivers were cited.