Wife files suit after husband dies from fall off golf cart

ROSENBERG, TX (KTRK) -- A lawsuit filed in Fort Bend County Court is asking for $1,000,000 for the family of a retiree moving from Alaska to Texas to be closer to family.

The lawsuit claims Ronald and Joan Burdick were apartment shopping for their upcoming move from Alaska to Texas.

Benny Agosto represents the Burdick family. He says the couple's first stop was at Dolce Living in Rosenberg. Mrs. Burdick says as it started to rain she got into a golf cart with her husband and a leasing agent to look at a unit.

She was in the passenger side and her husband was in the back. As they took off her husband fell as he held onto one handle with one hand and an umbrella in the other, according to the wife's account of what happened.

Agosto says of the leasing agent driving the cart, "She changed her mind, she decided abruptly and unexpectedly to go to the other apartment."

Burdick died eight days later after receiving a head injury in the fall.

Mrs. Burdick released this statement:

Agosto says the cart wasn't equipped properly to haul people in the back claiming the seats were added later and should have seat belts and that operators should receive more training. The attorney for the family also showed a picture of Burdick wearing a seat belt in the back of a golf cart on a family vacation.

"We want the general public to understand golf carts are not toys, they are not to be driven carelessly," says Agosto.

We have placed calls to the leasing agent named in the lawsuit and the parent companies of the apartment complex for a response on the lawsuit. They have not returned our calls yet.