Two years ago, a terrible four-vehicle crash in Louisa County left 9-year-old Connor Smith with brain damage and a difficult struggle to relearn how to walk and talk.

Connor, his sister Caitlin and three others were riding in a minivan driven by their mother, Cheryl Smith, when they were first clipped by a car coming at them head on, then smashed in the passenger side by a pickup truck. At least four people were injured and three were killed.

This week, Connor's family filed a $60 million lawsuit against the manufacturer of the van, the dealer who sold the van and the pickup truck's driver.

The primary target of the lawsuit is Chrysler LLC. The suit claims that the 1994 Chrysler Grand Voyager minivan was not adequately designed to handle side impacts.

"Chrysler had an obligation to protect children," said Salem lawyer Brent Brown, who filed the suit in Louisa County Circuit Court on behalf of the Smith family, who lives in Roanoke County. "This lawsuit will put before the jury the central question as to whether or not they truly met that obligation."

Brown said the damages asked for in the suit are based on Connor's projected medical costs, which are expected to approach $10 million through the course of his life. "It really does reflect the extraordinary gravity of the injuries in the case," he said.

Michael Palese, a Chrysler spokesman, said the company has not received the suit and cannot comment on its merits. "Unfortunately, there's no such thing as perfect safety," he said. "We design vehicles to protect the greatest number of people in the greatest number of accidents, but unfortunately, bad things happen."

Chad Burruss, 36, of Kents Store drove the 1996 Ford F350 pickup truck that struck the Smiths' van. He could not be reached for comment Thursday. Although state police say another driver caused the wreck, the suit accuses Burruss of negligence.

The suit also names Fulton Motor Co., the Roanoke dealership that resold the van to Cheryl Smith's father in 1999, saying the company is liable because of breach of warranty. Fulton Motor Co. is no longer in business. The company's attorney, James Jennings, declined to comment.

The Oct. 1, 2005, wreck devastated three Roanoke-area families. The four children in the van all attended a Christian school in Roanoke County now called Life Academy. The group had visited King's Dominion earlier that day.

Two of the van's passengers, 10-year-old Thomas "J.T." Mosier and Boones Mill mother Bridget Stoops, died in the crash. Police say Myrta Claudio, 34, of Staten Island, N.Y, caused the wreck. She also died.

Connor and his sister and mother were all injured, as was Cameron Stoops, Bridget Stoops' son.

According to court documents, as Smith was driving the van north on Virginia 15, a two-lane road in Louisa County, she was confronted by two sets of headlights coming toward her. The pickup truck driven by Burruss was in the southbound lane. The car driven by Claudio was in the northbound lane.

Claudio swerved in front of Burruss to avoid Smith but wound up clipping the left front of the van. The impact sent the van into the path of the pickup truck, which smashed into the van's passenger side.

Meanwhile, Claudio swerved back into the northbound lane and hit another car head on.

The suit claims that Burruss and Claudio had met and "interacted" at a gas station just prior to the crash.

In April, all the families involved in the wreck petitioned for a $1.3 million settlement that involved underinsured motorist coverage because Claudio had limited insurance. The settlement was finalized in July.

Thursday, Cheryl Smith declined to comment on the suit. She said Connor, who is now enrolled in Mason's Cove Elementary School, can walk for short periods of time as long as someone can catch him when he loses his balance. He continues to push himself in speech therapy and underwent horseback therapy over the summer, his mother said.

He's in third grade and excels at spelling but struggles to remember math. He still has paralysis in the left side of his body. "He's got a long way to go. It's still a marathon, not a sprint," his mother said. But given his improvements, "I know there's been divine intervention."

The strategy in Smith's lawsuit is similar to one tried by Brown's firm in June 2006. A Roanoke jury found a lawnmower company liable for $2 million in the death of a 4-year-old Daleville boy. Brown, who represented the boy's family, argued that MTD Products could have designed the mower to prevent the type of misuse that caused the boy's death. The verdict in that case has not yet been finalized by a judge.