By Debra Cassens Moss

The estate of Jessica Savitch has reached an $8.125 million case settlement with the New York Post and three other defendants for the TV newswoman’s wrongful death in a car accident.

Savitch, 35, was killed Oct. 23, 1983, when riding in a car driven by New York Post Vice President Martin Fischbein after dining with him at a New Hope, Pa., restaurant.

In the rain and fog, Fischbein pulled out of the wrong end of the parking lot and onto a tow path along a canal, where mules once pulled barges. The car slid into the canal and flipped onto its roof.

“Since there was no role model of a female Walter Cronkite, we were ready to establish through testimony that Jessica Savitch was on the cutting edge, and there was no reason she would not have the same longevity and earn the same levels as a male anchor,” said Arthur Raynes, lawyer for the Savitch estate.

The Post paid more than $7 million of the non-structured settlement. Other defendants who contributed were the Chez Odette Restaurant, Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Resources, and Fischbein’s estate.

The suit alleged that the Department of Environmental Resources failed to provide barriers and adequate signs at the tow path entrance even though a similar accident happened there four years ago; that the restaurant failed to provide adequate warnings to its patrons of the danger; that Fischbein was negligent for driving into the canal and failing to see two signs prohibiting motor vehicles from entering the tow path; and that Fischbein was conducting business for the Post.

Philadelphia County Common Pleas Judge Bernard Goodheart denied a motion for summary judgment filed by the Post, which claimed that it was not liable because Savitch and Fischbein were dating and not engaged in business at the time of the accident.

Raynes was able to show by income tax returns that Fischbein’s car, leased by the New York Post, was deducted by the newspaper as a business expense. In addition, Savitch had signed a contract to write a syndicated column for the McNaught Agency, to which the Post subscribed.

In any event, the $100 million insurance policy on the car covered both Fischbein for his personal driving and the Post for Fischbein’s business driving, said Angelo Scaricamazza, attorney for the Post and its parent company, News America.

Strategically, the plaintiffs preferred to keep the Post in the lawsuit because a jury might have been more likely to award money against a corporate defendant.

Savitch’s mother, other beneficiaries, Raynes and his firm plan to establish a $500,000 trust fund from the recovery and legal fees to give scholarships to students who show excellence in journalism and broadcast news at Ithaca College, the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University, says Raynes.