PROVIDENCE - The question before a little-known General Assembly committee yesterday was whether the three-point buck that collided with Donna Palardy's car last year could be rightly termed a " state deer."

It was the opinion of the committee's clerk and chief investigator, Anthony Gomes, that the deer that reduced Palardy's car to a scrap heap on Route 4 in North Kingstown in October most certainly was not.

"I determined," Gomes told the committee members, speaking in a tone worthy of major legislation, "that the deer did not emerge from state-owned property."

And with that pronouncement, Donna Palardy's chances of having taxpayers foot the $3,000 bill for her damaged Mustang dimmed perceptibly.

Yesterday marked the start of an annual ritual in which the distraught, the injured, and the bereft take their case to the legislature's Joint Committee on Accounts and Claims. These people come believing that the state is responsible for their loss. And they hope that lawmakers will see it in their hearts to pay up, with taxpayer money.

To be considered, they first make their case to their state representative or senator, who then introduces a resolution on their behalf that goes before the committee for consideration.

Among the more than 100 people seeking aid this year are Linda Daglieri, of Cranston, who says she is owed $135 for the damage done to her car by a pothole on Oaklawn Avenue, and Sally A. Palmer, of Hope Valley, who wants $9,561 for medical bills after slipping and falling at the Oliver Stedman Government Center in Wakefield.

Howard Meegan, of Warwick, a hearing officer at the state Division of Workers' Compensation, is looking for a little compensation of his own. After being dismissed from his job, he appealed to the state personnel board and won his job back, Gomes said.

Now Meegan wants the state to pay his attorneys' fees, $5,637.

And then there is Elizabeth A. Gagnon, of Lincoln, who wants the state to pay for what happened when a state truck allegedly slid into her antique mailbox on a snowy day in November 1997.

THE COMMITTEE, however, awards just a fraction of the claims it gets. Last year, it considered 173 claims for a total of almost $200,000, according to a committee memo to General Assembly leaders. Just 66 were approved, for a total of about $25,000.

Sen. John Celona, a North Providence Democrat and the committee's vice chairman, still smiles when he thinks of the cow farmer a few years back who blamed the State of Rhode Island for the skunk that gave his cattle rabies.

"The question we had to decide was if the skunk was actually a state skunk," Celona said at the State House yesterday, after a brief hearing in which committee members acquainted themselves with the pile of claims they will consider in the coming months. "We could not determine that the skunk was ours, nor could they prove it was."

Clean-government types have raised questions about the committee, saying it's vulnerable to abuse. "The potential," says H. Philip West, the director of Common Cause of Rhode Island, "is for a special deal to be crafted involving a couple of lawmakers and lawyers and plaintiffs."

But committee members counter that each claim is thoroughly investigated before a decision is made. People must submit a police report and professional estimates of the damage, and then the committee must determine whether the state was actually at fault. Any awards recommended by the committee must be approved by the House and Senate and then the governor.

Elizabeth Gagnon's claim of $185 for the antique mailbox was one that raised a red flag for Gomes, the committee clerk. So he logged on to eBay, the Internet auction house, and found similar mailboxes Ñ the kind that resemble a milk can Ñ for $30 to $40 less. If he does end up recommending that the committee approve Gagnon's request, he says it will be for less than she requested.

Rep. Edward S. Inman III, a Coventry Democrat who introduced a House resolution for Palardy's damages, said he was not concerned with the merits of the case. "That's not my determination," he said yesterday in an interview. "My determination is I represent her and I feel I have an obligation to put it in on her behalf."

Palardy, 42, a nurse who lives in Coventry, says she was driving to work at South County Hospital at 2:30 a.m. on October 20 when a large deer darted out of the woods and onto her hood. The deer died.

Palardy was okay, but her car's hood was crumpled like an accordion. The car has been out of commission ever since, and Palardy says she can't afford repairs without the $3,000 she hopes lawmakers will give her.

Asked why the state would be responsible for the damage, she opined that deer are state property. "You can't really blame the deer," she said. "He doesn't know any better."

Past writing tips | About The Providence Journal's Writing Program | E-mail us | Order How I Wrote the Story | Writing-related Web links
Back to main

Copyright © 1999 The Providence Journal Company
Produced by www.projo.com