WILLMAR - The wrongful death lawsuit against the driver in the 2015 crash that killed a New London cyclist has been settled.
The settlement, which was sealed, was made official Dec. 20. The seal was requested by plaintiff Mary Kehrer-Schneider, citing the "confidentiality of the settlement."
As a result, no information is publicly available about the amount or distribution of the settlement of the suit that Kehrer-Schneider filed against driver Michael James Schammel, of Spicer, in the crash that killed her husband.
Calls to attorneys for both parties were not returned.
Kehrer-Schneider's husband, Bruce "Leo" Kehrer-Schneider, 62, was killed July 21, 2015, while biking westbound on Kandiyohi County Road 29 in rural New London north of Lake Florida. He was hit on the fog line by a vehicle driven by Schammel, then 35.
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Mary Kehrer-Schneider filed a wrongful death suit in November 2015 against Schammel, who had also been criminally charged with failure to allow a safe distance when passing a bicycle and careless driving.
Schammel pleaded guilty in September in the criminal case to the failure to allow a safe distance charge, and the careless driving charge was dismissed as part of the plea agreement. He was sentenced Oct. 27 to serve one executed day in jail, one year of probation and 125 hours of community service.
But developments in the civil lawsuit had continued up until the Dec. 20 settlement. Just one week before the settlement was filed, Mary Kehrer-Schneider filed another motion for punitive damages in the case.
A previous motion for punitive damages had been denied by a judge in October.
The second motion came after deposition interviews that addressed some of the controversy in the case.
Kehrer-Schneider's attorney had previously argued that Schammel was distracted by his cell phone during the crash. A forensic examination of his cell phone showed no records from the time period, but an investigator suggested Schammel had deleted phone records manually. Schammel addressed the issue in his deposition.
"The reason I deleted this is because I knew there was a report coming," Schammel stated in a deposition interview.
He went on to say that the information he deleted was "personal information that had nothing to do with the one minute, two minutes leading up to the crash."
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The motion was not ruled upon by a judge because the case was settled.
Court filings indicate the case was dismissed with prejudice, meaning neither party can bring the issue to court again.
