Freeman responds to US car wreck lawsuit

The woman in the passenger seat the night Morgan Freeman crashed a car on a rural Mississippi highway was partly to blame for the accident, the actor's attorney said Friday in court papers.

Demaris Meyer is suing the 71-year-old actor in United States District Court in Oxford, Mississippi, claiming Freeman was negligent when the car he was driving ran off the side of a road in the Mississippi Delta and flipped several times.

Both Meyer and Freeman were seriously injured in the August crash, which happened on a two-lane highway about 8km west of Freeman's home in Charleston.

Meyer, who lives in Memphis, Tennessee, sued Freeman in February for medical expenses, pain and suffering, lost wages, permanent disability and property damage. The lawsuit alleged Freeman was drinking that night, though it stops short of saying he was intoxicated. No charges were filed.

Freeman's attorney, Jack H. Hayes Jr., responded to the lawsuit Friday in a four-page court document denying almost all the allegations or saying Freeman doesn't know enough about them to form an opinion.

Freeman admitted driving the car, and that it left the road and "sustained significant damages." The filing said he "would show (Meyer) is comparatively negligent," though it did not describe what that means.

Hayes would not elaborate Friday when contacted by phone.

"It's just a car wreck case and that's it," he said.