Charlie Davies, the former US national team striker who suffered severe injuries in a 2009 car crash, has filed a $20 million lawsuit over the incident, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
Davies has scored 11 goals for D.C. United of Major League Soccer this year while on loan from the French club Sochaux, the team for which he was playing when the accident occurred.
The lawsuit filed in Washington Superior Court last week, seeks damages from the owner of a nightclub and the company that hosted a party at which alcohol was served to the woman who was driving the vehicle that crashed two years ago.
Das Enterprises, operators of the Shadow Room, and Red Bull North America, host of the party just blocks from the White House, were named in the lawsuit, the newspaper reported.
An initial meeting on the lawsuit was scheduled for January 13.
Davies claims that Maria Alejandra Espinoza was served alcohol while "visibly intoxicated".
Espinoza was sentenced last March to two years in prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and maiming while driving intoxicated in the crash that killed Ashley Roberta and left Davies with major injuries.
Davies suffered bleeding in the brain, a ruptured bladder and broken ribs, a broken elbow, a broken leg and facial fractures.
The suit says Davies will have permanent disfigurement because of scars from the crash and suffered "great pain in mind and body".
Injuries from the crash ended Davies' hopes to play in the 2010 World Cup for the US squad, which clinched a berth in South Africa days before the crash with help from Davies, who has not played on the national team since.
Davies potentially lost chances to advance his skills and seek richer contracts from higher-level European clubs. He makes about $250,000 this season for D.C. United.
Source: AFP
