Partial settlement reached in lawsuit of Pittsburgh Steelers’ Dwayne Haskins’ death

A partial settlement has been reached in a lawsuit filed in Broward County by the wife of former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Dwayne Haskins Jr., who died on April 9, 2022, after he was hit by a dump truck driver on Interstate 595 after he ran out of gas and tried to get help.

The combined settlement is with three of the 14 defendants named in the lawsuit: the man who was driving the truck that early morning, the owner of the truck and the truck broker, Kalabrya Haskins’ attorney Rick Ellsley said in a statement Friday afternoon to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Additional details about the settlement were not released. The litigation remains pending against the other defendants, Ellsley said.

The lawsuit, filed this March, said Haskins was at a hotel in Boca Raton, a restaurant, bar and golf driving venue in West Palm Beach, a pub in Delray Beach and a 24-hour nightclub in Miami before his death. They are all named as defendants in the pending lawsuit, which alleges Haskins was drugged and robbed by a man and three women but does not make clear where.

Haskins was in South Florida training with his teammates and had dinner with them before going out to a club in Miami with a cousin, according to a Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office report. At some point, they split up.

Witnesses began calling 911 shortly after 6:30 a.m., reporting a pedestrian walking in the westbound lanes on I-595 near the exit to north Interstate 95, the medical examiner’s report said. One witness said she saw a man dressed in all black waving cars down from the right shoulder of the road.

By the time she pulled over and got out to help him, he had been hit. The dump truck driver first hit Haskins, knocking him from the center lane into the left lane, where he was struck again by the driver of an SUV, according to the report.

His death was ruled an accident and no one has been charged, nor were charges expected at the time of the medical examiner’s report. An autopsy found Haskins’ blood-alcohol concentration at 0.20, over two times the legal limit of .08.

The hotel, the West Palm Beach golfing venue, the Delray Beach pub and the Miami nightclub are all named as defendants in the lawsuit, in addition to an unnamed company that contracts with Florida Department of Transportation, the rental car company that owned the car Haskins was driving and the people who allegedly drugged Haskins “to blackmail and rob him,” the complaint said.

The lawsuit alleges the rental company gave Haskins a “mechanically damaged” car that ran out of gas, leading to him park it on the side of the road and cross traffic on the highway.

The unnamed FDOT contractor was responsible for road signs placed in the stretch of I-595 where Haskins was hit, which was under maintenance and construction. The suit alleges a construction sign obstructed the view for drivers in the area.

Ellsley said settlements were reached with other parties before the formal filing of the lawsuit, but he did not provide details.