A man this week sued the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Moon Township and others for the death of his wife caused by a car crash last year, alleging they knew the intersection where she was hit was hazardous — and that her death was preventable.
Frank Fantone filed his wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.
Fantone’s wife, Joanne, was turning left onto Campus Drive from University Boulevard when a man speeding while test-driving a car for his job smashed into her vehicle, according to the lawsuit.
She died from her injuries at an area hospital less than a month later. Frank Fantone was named the executor of his wife’s estate.
Attorney Justin Joseph, who represents Fantone, raised issues with “limited sight distance” at the intersection in his four-count suit, which alleges negligence.
“The sight distance for a car turning left from the northbound lane is less than the southbound lane due to the curve in the road and two trees, which block a motorist’s line of sight,” Joseph wrote in the 38-page complaint.
Joseph did not return phone calls Thursday morning seeking comment. PennDOT declined to discuss the incident or the lawsuit.
Fantone was stopped around 11:50 a.m. on Aug. 22, 2025, in a dedicated left-hand turn lane on University Boulevard, the lawsuit said.
Gavin Cernetic, a Moon resident and Firestone Complete Auto Care employee, was test-driving a customer’s Dodge Dart as he drove southbound on University Boulevard.
Cernetic approached the intersection while driving 46 mph, the lawsuit said. The speed limit there is 40 mph.
Based on sight lines and data retrieved from the vehicles, “Fantone could not have seen” Cernetic driving southbound “when she began turning left,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit said Cernetic struck Fantone at 31 mph.
Lawsuit filed in fatal crash in Moon
Joanne Fantone was making a left-hand turn off University Boulevard in Moon Township around 11:50 a.m. on Aug. 22, 2025, when a motorist test-driving a car hit her.
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Cernetic didn’t hit his brakes until 0.5 to 1 second before impact, the lawsuit said. He “took no evasive action to avoid the collision until 0.3 seconds prior to the collision, when he turned his wheel to the left.”
After striking Fantone’s car, Cernetic collided with another vehicle.
“If Gavin Cernetic was travelling at the speed limit and/or maintained his lane of travel this collision would not have occurred,” the lawsuit said.
Bridgestone Corp., a Nashville-based company specializing in tires and rubber, owns Firestone Complete Auto Care, where Cernetic was working at the time of the crash. They did not respond Thursday to emails seeking comment.
The intersection, which is “a known hazardous intersection,” allows drivers to make what the lawsuit described as two kinds of left turns: “protected,” or during a green arrow, when other traffic was stopped; and “permissive,” during a green light after yielding to oncoming traffic.
PennDOT redesigned the intersection in 2017 to create a dedicated left-turn lane which still allowed both types of turns, the lawsuit said. Fantone was struck when she was making a permissive turn, according to the lawsuit.
From 2006 to 2016, the decade before the redesign, 50 crashes were reported at the intersection — an average of one crash every 2.4 months, the lawsuit said. The crashes resulted in one death and six injuries.
From 2017 to the time of Fantone’s collision, 37 crashes were reported there — an average of one crash every 2.49 months, according to the lawsuit. Three people were killed in these crashes, two suffered serious injuries and 23 had minor injuries.
“The intersection redesign reduced the frequency of crashes by (0).09 months on average but resulted in more injuries,” Joseph wrote.
The lawsuit also alleges Moon Township officials and its board of supervisors “were aware that the redesign failed to eliminate the hazardous condition of the intersection.”
A resident had complained to elected leaders that trees on University Boulevard block motorists’ views, the lawsuit said.
Moon supervisors discussed the resident’s complaint in an Oct. 24, 2017, meeting, according to the lawsuit. They again discussed the traffic signal at the intersection in a Feb. 28, 2018, executive-session meeting. The township’s engineer told officials he was set to meet the next day with PennDOT.
“Upon information and belief the outcome of the March 1, 2018, meeting was never discussed,” the lawsuit said.
Moon Township officials did not respond Thursday to calls or emails seeking comment.
The Fantones are seeking a jury trial, as well as actual and punitive damages.
Original article published Thu, Aug 27, 2026 via TribLive [View original article]