Northampton Police say a drunken driver hit 20-plus gravestones: So who will pay? [masslive.com]

Damages to about two dozen grave markers could total more than $100,000 after a driver, who police claim was intoxicated at the time, barreled through part of a Northampton cemetery last weekend.

For the families whose loved ones’ headstones were hit, the focus now turns to a key question: who will cover the repairs — or in some cases, the total replacement — of the grave markers?

That responsibility may fall to the accused driver, or at least his auto insurance company.

According to the Northampton Police officers who investigated the crash at St. Mary Cemetery early Saturday morning, Holyoke 19-year-old Matthew Fontaine-Dulude was behind the wheel of an Infiniti sedan that careened off an adjacent road and into the burial grounds.

In the aftermath of the crash, headstones lay in pieces where the car blew through them. Shrapnel from the collision chipped some of the stones beyond the point of repair. Where the car came to a stop, one stone and the grass surrounding it were steeped in dark and odorous motor oil.

“It’s just awful,” one woman said on Tuesday, looking down at the six fractured pieces of a headstone above her grandfather’s resting place. “I don’t know how that could happen in a cemetery.”

The total repair and replacement costs for grave markers could amount to $75,000 to $125,000, said Chris Bailey, of Dorsey Memorials in Amherst, who assessed the damaged monuments.

“Hopefully the individual who caused this damage has enough [insurance] coverage,” said Kelly Laprade, of Northampton’s Whalen Insurance.

Under Massachusetts law, drivers are only required to carry at least $5,000 insurance coverage for damage they cause to someone else’s property in an auto collision.

“Some people will default and pick that minimum if they’re trying to be price-conscious,” said Meghan Kelleher, of Webber and Grinnell Insurance in Northampton.

But crashes often cause far more than $5,000 in damage.

Kelleher said her agency recommends customers write at least $100,000 in property damage coverage into their insurance plans.

Two parallel processes play out after a crash of this sort, Laprade said — insurance providers will decide if the driver is at fault, and the court system will determine if the driver is guilty of a crime.

In single-vehicle crashes, insurers typically find the driver to be responsible, she said.

“The fact that he was able to drive through all those stones is wild,” Kelleher said. “But it’s a pretty typical property damage claim.”

Independent of that, Fontaine-Dulude — who was also listed in court filings as Matthew Dulude — is facing a count of driving under the influence of alcohol and three related motor vehicle charges, to which he pleaded not guilty Monday in Northampton District Court.

Police said he registered a blood alcohol content of nearly .12 percent more than an hour after the crash.

Fontaine-Dulude’s lawyer has not responded to requests for comment by call and text this week.

Crashes are treated by insurers on a case-by-case basis, and Laprade said it is difficult to know how a driver’s insurance company will handle a claim without direct knowledge of the policy.

An insurance company could determine that an intoxicated driver was operating negligently, but Laprade said she expects an insurer would still try to cover damages in a crash of this nature.

“His agent and the company may be the only ones who know exactly how this will play out,” she said. “But I do hope the families won’t have to struggle with coverage.”

Though it is not reserved for service members, the area of the cemetery where the crash took place is home to the remains of a number of veterans of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

About a dozen veterans’ grave markers were damaged in total, Steven Connor, the director of Central Hampshire Veterans’ Services, said.

Headstones are not cemetery property, staff at the facility said. Instead, families purchase them individually, and may therefore need to pursue their insurance claims individually, as well.

Connor planned to investigate if the federal Department of Veterans Affairs would chip in to replace the damaged gravestones of the people who served. He also wanted to speak with the families of the deceased, to understand their wishes for their loved ones’ graves.

“If the families of the veterans have questions, they should call my office,” Connor said. “We’ll go to bat for them.”

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