‘A preventable accident’: Woman sues Biltmore after tree falls, kills her husband

By Anjali Patel

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    ASHEVILLE, North Carolina (WLOS) — A lawsuit has been filed against the Biltmore Estate after a fallen tree crashed onto a family’s car last month, leaving a father of two dead.

“It’s been 32 days, and it’s just kind of been just kind of a cyclical repeat of a complete nightmare, from the moment I open my eyes until I go to bed,” Angela Skudin shared with News 13 Wednesday, July 20.

A graduate of UNC Wilmington, her husband, Casey Skudin, had always wanted to visit the Biltmore and was a huge history buff.

“With the history aspect of Asheville, combined with the Blue Ridge mountains, it was the perfect place for Casey to choose to spend his birthday and Father’s Day, that were both to be celebrated on the 19th,” Skudin said.

But her husband, tragically, got to celebrate neither of those occasions last month.

On June 17, she, her husband and their two kids were driving near the entrance of the Biltmore Estate when a tree fell across the road, striking the car. Casey Skudin, a decorated FDNY firefighter, died on impact.

Angela Skudin captured the whole tragic incident on video, as she was already recording the drive into the Biltmore Estate because of the view.

“We were just enjoying the pretty drive, and the tree branch literally fell out of nowhere,” Angela Skudin said.

Skudin said right away, she could tell the tree that fell “had been compromised.”

“It just looked like somebody should’ve known it shouldn’t have been there,” she said. “I could see that the tree was black on the inside in the middle.” Skudin has filed a lawsuit against the Biltmore Estate, seeking punitive and compensatory damages.

“It just leaves me wondering, is everybody else safe going on the Biltmore property right now?” she said.

Attorney Kyle Findley, from the law firm of Arnold & Itkin, represents the Skudin family.

“How do you have people pay that kind of money to go to your home and you’re suspending a tree branch, a 400-thousand-pound section of a tree over them on a road playing Russian Roulette with every single person’s life?” Skudin asked on Wednesday.

She said it’s a miracle that she and her sons lived through this.

“The whole thing, if I just ponder on it, just will consume me, and it’s just really disappointing that it appears to have been a preventable accident,” she said.

Biltmore provided the following statement to News 13 on Wednesday, July 20:

“We received notification of a lawsuit filed by Arnold and Itkin Trial Lawyers on behalf of their clients, Angela Skudin and her two children. The complaint is regarding a tragic accident on our entrance road that resulted in fatal injuries to Ms. Skudin’s husband, Casey, and injuries to their son. A portion of a tree fell during a period of high winds and struck the guest’s vehicle as they entered the estate. There have been multiple eyewitness accounts of a short duration high wind event around that time. There are no words to express our deep sorrow for the Skudin family’s unimaginable loss and we offer them our deepest sympathy.

We are preparing our answer to this lawsuit and will not provide further details while in litigation. We adamantly deny all allegations of willful or intentional conduct on the part of Biltmore, as well as the allegations of negligence. We will present all of the facts about this heartbreaking accident through the legal process.”

As the wife of a beloved firefighter, Angela Skudin said she had prepared herself for the possibility that he might not make it home from work one day. She said she never imagined, though, that he wouldn’t return home from what was supposed to be a fun family vacation.

“Casey was definitely the best human I knew. He was the best husband, the best friend, the best firefighter, literally the best everything,” she said.

She said she and her husband had matching engraved rings, and when he passed, she put his ring on her finger.

He never took his ring off, so I took his ring off and I slid it onto mine. But when I was scattering his ashes in the ocean, the ring fell off my finger, so he has his ring again,” she said, smiling.

She and her two sons are getting the counseling and the help they need after experiencing something so traumatic.

“My youngest — he’s still not able to speak about his father,” she said, adding that she hopes one day he’ll be able to speak about his father again.

She also wants the world to know how much of a hero her husband was.

“He put his life on the line for anyone, for his family. I don’t even know how many people he saved. He literally would randomly save people anywhere we were,” she said.

She said her husband was always saving others. Now, she said she’s made it her mission to do the same, in his memory.

“I mean at this point, there’s nothing they could offer me that’s going to give me my husband back. At this point, the only thing I can offer everyone with Casey’s life is to ensure that’s not going to happen again,” she said. “This is what we’re going to do in Casey’s name.”

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