ST. LOUIS — A lawsuit against the City of St. Louis was delayed to March 2025 after a teen was struck by a car in downtown St. Louis in February 2023.
Note: The video above was published in 2023.
Janae Edmondson, the teenager who lost her legs after being struck, sued the city, the man who police said was driving the car that hit her, that man's mother and a car rental business.
Edmondson was 17 years old when she was critically injured in a crash involving a man who was supposed to be on house arrest.
Kevin Carnie Jr. of the Simon law firm and Robert Blitz of the law firm Blitz, Bardgett & Deutsch filed the lawsuit on Edmondson's behalf in St. Louis Circuit Court in June 2023. The civil case was continued to March 3, 2025.
Defendants include the City of St. Louis; Daniel Riley, the man suspected of crashing into Edmondson; EAN Holdings, LLC, which does business as Enterprise Rent-A-Car; Riley's mother, Kimberly Riley, who the lawsuit alleges let Riley drive the car while knowing he was on house arrest; and Elizabeth Smith, who the lawsuit alleges was driving with a suspended license when Riley struck her car before crashing into Edmondson.
The lawsuit alleges the city did not properly maintain signage at the intersection of 11th and St. Charles Street downtown where the accident happened. The suit alleges Daniel Riley was speeding when he approached that intersection, which the city put a yield sign to control westbound traffic along St. Charles Street.
The incident increased criticism of the office of former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, ending with Gardner's resignation in May.
Janae Edmondson and her family were walking back to their hotel in downtown St. Louis on Feb. 28 when police said 21-year-old Daniel Riley sped down St. Charles Street, failed to brake, hit several cars and pinned Edmondson. She lost both of her legs in the crash.
Riley was charged in an armed robbery case in 2020.
He was put on house arrest with GPS monitoring and violated it dozens of times. In April 2022, a judge issued an order stating Riley could remain out on that bond after Riley appeared in court, and set a trial date for three months later.
The case never went to trial because the “state was not ready,” according to court documents.
An assistant circuit attorney refiled the charges, which started the clock on another trial date over again.
Riley was allowed to remain on house arrest with GPS monitoring and continued to pile up violations for dead batteries on his ankle bracelet and repeated violations of the perimeter he was to stay within.
Gardner said her prosecutors asked a judge to revoke Riley’s bond in oral motions, but there is no record of any requests to revoke his bond.
Transcripts show Gardner’s prosecutors did not object when a judge asked them if they were opposed to Riley remaining on house arrest despite the multiple violations.
By the time Edmondson was struck in February, court records show Riley had violated the terms of his bond close to 90 times since he was originally charged with the robbery – about 50 of which occurred after the missed trial date in July 2022.
The criminal trial in the case was still scheduled for March 4, 2024.
On January 10, the family shared an update on Edmondson's recovery, saying she is still having surgeries to heal her legs and allow her to wear prosthetics.