Suit seeks more than $5M in death of autistic man

A jury will decide whether to award more than $5 million in damages to the family of the 20-year-old autistic man who died at the special-needs facility where he lived after being left locked in a van on one of last summer's hottest days.

That's the amount in damages that Bryan Nevins' father, William, is seeking in a civil suit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.

Woods Services, the facility in Langhorne where Brian Nevins resided, and former caregiver Stacey Strauss, who was sentenced in March to two to five years in prison for involuntary manslaughter for his death, are named as defendants.

According to the suit, Strauss was assigned to supervise Bryan Nevins and another resident during a trip to Sesame Place on July 24. Upon returning to Woods Services shortly after noon, Strauss apparently forgot to take Nevins out of the van.

More than five hours later, a supervisor found Nevins dead. Records cited in the suit show that Strauss had been disciplined at work before the incident for lack of attention to clients and personal cellphone use at work.

She made several personal phone calls and sent or received nearly 40 text messages during the time Nevins was locked in the van - including one 44-minute call that began at 12:14 p.m., according to the suit.

The Daily News yesterday was unable to reach either James McCrorie, Nevins' New York-based attorney, or Woods Services, for comment.