Hyundai settles with family of Ryan Dallas Cook

This was a long time coming. It was back in April 2006 that I first wrote about Youn Bum Lee, the Hyundai America executive who drove drunk and stopped his car in the fast lane of the Costa Mesa Freeway (CA-55), causing motorcyclist Ryan Dallas Cook to smash into it and be killed.

The incident had happened in October 2005, but because of malfeasance by at least one other Hyundai employee, there'd been difficulty in finding the guilty party. It wasn't until January 2009 that Lee was finally extradited (thanks in part, it should be noted, to cooperation by Hyundai) and put on trial for vehicular manslaughter. He was eventually found guilty in December 2009 and is serving a nine-year sentence.

And today we have news that Hyundai has settled with the Cook family over this wrongful death.

From the Orange County Register:

Cook's family sued Lee and Hyundai in May 2007. Their attorney, Wylie Aitken, claimed the company had a corporate culture of promoting drinking at company functions and that Hyundai executives helped Lee flee the country shortly after the incident.

Aitken also alleged Hyundai hid a key witness to the pre-crash drinking activities and the company's practices.

Cook's father, Carlton, said in a statement that he was pleased with the settlement.

"We are pleased the legal system has prevailed and that Youn Bum Lee was brought back from Korea and is now serving his sentence for the death of our son,'' he said in a statement.

Damn straight about the corporate drinking culture. As I wrote in the comments of the "found guilty" link above:

This kind of thing could only have happened because of Korea's corporate drinking culture, which has been carried over to some Korean companies in Orange County and throughout California and the US. Not all Korean companies, of course, but the ones who do this should be put on notice that this kind of thing cannot be tolerated. Not in Korea, not in America.

I wonder if my comments had anything to do with the plaintiff team's strategy. The comment above and the latter half of the April 2006 post were intended to highlight the culpability of that corporate drinking culture.

Hyundai executive who became fugitive gets nine years in California prison for DUI, vehicular manslaughter, and then fleeing the scene

In a follow-up to this story from last month and this story from four years ago, former Hyundai Motors executive Lee Youn Bum has been sentenced to nine years in prison. Last month, after being extradited to California from South Korea, he pled guilty to a felony count of vehicular manslaughter, gross negligence while intoxicated, and fleeing the scene of a crime.

The story is in the Los Angeles Times, with a longer account in the Orange County Register. Hyundai America headquarters, where Lee worked, is in Orange County, not far from Korean-style drinking establishments in the OC's Koreatown in Garden Grove.

After Lee left his crashed car stalled, with headlights off, in the carpool lane of an Orange County freeway when he was driving home severely intoxicated, a motorcyclist named Ryan Dallas Cook smashed into the vehicle and was thrown onto the freeway where he was struck by other cars and killed. Apparently with the help of some Hyundai employees, he fled to South Korea, where he was a fugitive for several years.

From the OCR:

Youn Bum Lee, 42, pleaded guilty in November to vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated with a sentencing enhancement for fleeing the scene of a crime for the early morning crash on Oct. 19, 2005, on the 55 freeway in Santa Ana that killed motorcyclist Ryan Dallas Cook, 23.

Youn Bum Lee, 42, formerly of Irvine, pleaded guilty to one felony count of vehicular manslaughter by unlawful act with gross negligence while intoxicated, with a sentencing enhancement for fleeing the scene of a crime.

Lee sat with his head down in a courtroom holding cell as several of Cook's relatives and friends told Superior Court Judge Richard M. King how his death had impacted their lives.
Janet Cook, Ryan's mother, held a photo of her son and told Lee, "You can't imagine the pain that you put my family through."

Carlton Cook, Ryan's father, wept as he told Lee that he could never forgive him for fleeing the scene of the collision.

One wonders if the family will go after Hyundai Motors USA, some of whose employees were heavily involved in helping Lee flee. Hyundai later was cooperative in helping return Lee and getting former employees to testify against him. Nevertheless, if the family does sue, Hyundai should just settle with them for what they (reasonably) want. Their Korean-style corporate drinking culture has earned them some very bad karma and they have no right to gripe. Just pay.

former Hyundai executive extradited to California

In a follow-up to this story on the death of Orange County musician Ryan Cook, the Los Angeles Times reports that 41-year-old Lee Youn-bum is being extradited to California from Seoul for causing the death of Cook and then fleeing the country to escape charges. He is to be escorted today by US Marshals to face felony charges in Orange County. (hat tip to Wangkon936)


UPDATE:
Lee has been convicted and sentenced to nine years in prison (December 2009), and Hyundai has settled a lawsuit with the Cook family (September 2010).

Extradition now

UPDATE (September 18, 2010):
Hyundai settled with the Cook family.


UPDATE (January 30, 2009)
The Los Angeles Times reports that 41-year-old Lee Youn-bum is being extradited to California from Seoul for causing the death of Cook and then fleeing the country to escape charges. He is to be escorted today by US Marshals to face felony charges in Orange County. (hat tip to Wangkon936)

UPDATE (May 23, 2007)

It was reported today that authorities in California have issued an arrest warrant for Hyundai executive Lee Youn Bum, who is apparently now in South Korea with his family. Last month, Orange County prosecutors charged Lee in absentia with three felonies in the Ryan Dallas Cook's death: gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated; driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs with injuray; and hit-and-run with injury or death.

Furthermore, Cook's relatives, perhaps taking my advice, plan to file a wrongful-death lawsuit today against Hyundai America and several employees (including Lee) for what they consider to have been a cover-up and attempts to thwart the investigation.

More power to them.

UPDATE/CORRECTION TO ORIGINAL POST (April 2006):
After following KNBC's link to the original story, I realized that the accident did not occur in Los Angeles, as the recent KNBC link suggests and as The Marmot wrote. Rather, it occurred some fifty miles away in Orange County, not far from my alma mater UCI on a stretch of highway I have driven over hundreds of times.

The accident occurred along the Costa Mesa Freeway (California Highway 55), southbound north of MacArthur Boulevard, close to Orange County Airport and South Coast Plaza. This is, even without any traffic, a good hour from LAX.

This makes a difference to me because, when I thought the accident had occurred in Los Angeles, I could see (though certainly not excuse) someone flying out in a panic, but that long drive from Orange County out to LAX adds lends more time for the perpetrator and his aider(s) and abettor(s) of crime to think about this. In other words, this makes it even more atrocious.

In hindsight, it makes more sense that this would have occurred in Orange County, since Hyundai America's headquarters are there, not Los Angeles, and there are plenty of drinking establishments in Garden Grove, where OC's well-established but unofficial Koreatown is located.

ORIGINAL POST (April 2006):
The Marmot has written up a post about a Hyundai employee who, last October, drank himself into a stupor while in Los Angeles, drove his car onto the freeway, apparently started heading toward the center divider at a 45-degree angle, and slowed or stopped there—late at night with no lights on—long enough for a motorcyclist who didn't see the black-colored vehicle to crash into it. According to local news, the motorcylist fell onto the roadway and was run over by three other vehicles, and the driver of the dark-color Hyundai SUV continued south. The motorcyclist, or course, was killed in the process. An Orange County Register report says that the Hyundai SUV involved in the accident "fled the scene" and was found later.

At left is a picture of the victim, a musician named Ryan Dallas Cook who was part of a ska revivalist band called "Surburban Legend." He was twenty-three years old when he died.

The Hyundai employee then, apparently with the help of some other employee(s) of Hyundai America, fled to South Korea. It is in the news right now because the victim's family only recently discovered the person's identiy.

The identity is clear from the local NBC affiliate station's piece The Marmot linked to, but The Marmot did the Korean journalist thing and only included the alleged perpetrator's family name, Lee.

Well, since I'm a Californian, I read about this in a California news site, the crime was committed in California, and since I'm thoroughly disgusted that someone would drink eight shots of soju and then drive, and THEN his colleague(s) would help him evade responsibility for the death of a person, I will include his name.

He is Lee Youn Bum (이연범). I don't know if this is the same person, but there is an 이연범 who apparently is/was the 과장 for the 총괄인사팀. This is a matter of public record easily obtainable from a simple Google search. Maybe someone can email him at bumlee@hyundai-motor.com and see if he knows anything about this (there very well could be several 이연범-named people at Hyundai, so it wouldn't be prudent to jump the gun about this).

I'm going to contact some of my barrister relations in California to see if they could help the family of this victim find justice. The appropriate Mr. Lee of Hyundai should be extradited (vehicular manslaughter, felony hit-and-run, and driving under the influence, all pending charges against him, are jailable offenses on both sides of the Pacific) and brought to justice.

As someone mentioned at Marmot's Hole, maybe threatening to sue Hyundai America might get the ball rolling. Besides using a lawsuit as leverage, Hyundai America deserves to be sued if its drinking culture led to this incident. Come on, EIGHT shots of soju and then getting in a car? Whiskey, tango, fuck!

While we're at it, let's sue Seoul-Oak Restaurant, which let the guy get into a car after serving him the soju. Surely they bear some legal responsibility.

It is abominable that the drinking culture in Korea—already a hazard to lives in the ROK—is being brought over to the streets of North America (or other places). I have no sympathy for drunk drivers, none at all. I have been hit twice by drunk drivers in Seoul, while driving of course. In at least one case, had the guy not hit my car, it's very likely he would have hit a pedestrian, quite possibly a child.

A KoKo friend of mine worked as a CPA for a major American firm in Los Angeles that happened to hire a lot of Korean CPAs (those on H-1 visas supposedly worked harder and cheaper than people with green cards or citizenship). Every now and then they would go out drinking, and they would engage in the drink-until-you can't-see-straight behavior common in Korean colleges and corporations.

Well, one other woman began to pass out while they were all at a noraebang in L.A. Koreatown. My friend noticed what seemed like shallow breathing, but she wasn't sure. She asked some of her sŏnbae ('senior') if the passed-out hubae ('junior') seemed all right. She actually got barked at that she was ruining the punwigi (mood/atmosphere) of the party. After a couple minutes, still nagged by concern for the passed-out friend, she decided to call 911.

According to my accountant friend, the call saved the woman's life. She was rushed to a nearby hospital and her stomach was pumped. The E/R doctor told them that if they had waited another twenty minutes, the friend might have died of alcohol poisoning. Her blood alcohol level was stratospheric, having downed all these "one-shot" drinks, egged on (without any real choice without being ostracized) by her supposed friends.

It's tragic that so many people in Korea really can't feel like they're having a good time unless they're shit-faced. Okay, fine, some people have to go and drink, but when it adversely affects others, it goes beyond being a personal choice. And when people who wish to abstain or just have that one beer or only one shot are brow-beaten and coerced into drinking more and more and more, then it borders on being criminal.

Find Mr. Lee. Extradite him now. Teach corporate Korea a lesson that deadly drunken behavior will be dealt with harshly. In Korea, inebriation may be a get-out-of-jail card, but in California it sure as hell is not.