Jury awards over $22 million in punitive damages for Rebecca Grossman and Scott Erickson in wrongful death suit

After a jury awarded $176 million in compensatory damages to the Iskander family last week, further punitive damages were issued on Wednesday for defendants Rebecca Grossman and former Dodger Scott Erickson.

A jury in Van Nuys ordered Grossman to pay $21 million and Erickson to pay $1.17 million in punitive damages, on top of the $176 million.

The awarded damages are part of a civil lawsuit involving the deaths of 11-year-old Mark Iskander and his brother, 8-year-old Jacob, who were struck by Grossman's Mercedes-Benz SUV as they were crossing the street with their family in a marked crosswalk in 2020.

Grossman, co-founder of the Grossman Burn Foundation, is already serving a 15-year-to-life sentence for her 2024 conviction on two counts each of second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter, and one count of hit-and-run driving.

Prosecutors said that Grossman and her then-boyfriend, Erickson, had been out for drinks and were heading toward her home, racing in separate vehicles, when she struck the boys.

Jurors found that Grossman and Erickson both acted with conscious disregard for the boys' safety and malice, thereby awarding punitive damages in the wrongful death lawsuit.  

Data from her car showed that she was driving at about 73 mph through the residential neighborhood at the time of the crash, according to the district attorney's office. 

Grossman continued driving after hitting the boys, eventually stopping about a quarter-mile away from the scene when her vehicle automatically shut off. The older boy died at the scene, and his 8-year-old sibling died at a hospital.