{"id":220682,"date":"2026-06-16T19:26:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T19:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/220682\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T19:26:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T19:26:20","slug":"family-of-chop-dr-barbara-friedes-files-wrongful-death-suit-against-driver-convicted-of-dui-in-fatal-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/220682\/","title":{"rendered":"Family of CHOP Dr. Barbara Friedes files wrongful death suit against driver convicted of DUI in fatal crash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Philadelphia man <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/philadelphia\/news\/michael-vahey-sentenced-deadly-crash-chop-dr-barbara-friedes\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">serving a prison sentence for the death of CHOP Dr. Barbara Friedes<\/a> is now facing a civil lawsuit from her family.<\/p>\n<p>Attorneys filed a wrongful death suit against 69-year-old Michael Vahey on Monday. The Philadelphia man was previously sentenced to 6-20 years in prison after admitting he was driving under the influence when he struck and killed Friedes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Authorities said Vahey had a blood alcohol level nearly twice the legal limit when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/philadelphia\/news\/da-announcing-major-development-in-barbara-friedes-case-chop-doctor-killed-while-biking-in-rittenhouse-square\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the crash occurred in the bike lane on Philadelphia&#8217;s Spruce Street near 18th Street<\/a> on July 17, 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Vahey later pleaded guilty to charges of vehicular homicide, involuntary manslaughter and other offenses.<\/p>\n<p>The complaint in the civil lawsuit was filed Monday in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. Friedes&#8217; family is represented by attorneys Tom Kline and Patrick Fitzgerald from the firm Kline &amp; Specter.<\/p>\n<p>Amato Sanita, who represented Vahey in his criminal proceedings, sent CBS News Philadelphia a statement about the suit.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My heart goes out to all parties involved on both sides of this tragic event,&#8221; Sanita said.<\/p>\n<p>Friedes joined Children&#8217;s Hospital of Philadelphia in 2021 as a pediatric resident and later became chief resident. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia man serving a prison sentence for the death of CHOP Dr. Barbara Friedes is now facing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[32056,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-220682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-children039s-hospital-of-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}