A Maine family is suing online retail giant Amazon after a delivery driver fatally struck a man standing alongside I-295 in Topsham two years ago.
The lawsuit accuses Amazon of negligence in its hiring of the Massachusetts contractor that employed the driver. The driver, Nasser Tibaijuka, and his employer are also defendants.
Joe Fisher, a 41-year-old fisherman from Woolwich, was driving his family to a camping vacation when the crash happened on July 3, 2020. He had pulled over to check his boat trailer when the box truck struck him, throwing him onto the highway. He died 10 days later.
He’s survived by a widow and three children who all saw the crash. They're plaintiffs in the civil lawsuit.
The family says that Tibaijuka was tired and distracted by his cell phone at the time of the crash.
The Times Record reports that he’s serving a 10-month sentence after pleading guilty last fall to a felony charge of driving to endanger.
Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
An Amazon spokesperson said that the company's "deepest sympathies are with Mr. Fisher’s family," but otherwise declined to comment on the litigation because it had just been initiated.
