TV & VIDEO - Jan. 29, 1988

The estate of NBC anchorwoman Jessica Savitch reportedly will get more than $8 million in the settlement of a lawsuit stemming from her drowning more than four years ago. Savitch was 35 when she died in a car accident that also claimed the life of New York Post executive Martin Fischbein, who was driving a leased car when that plunged into a canal during a rainstorm. Defendants included the restaurant in which they had dined, the New York Post, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources and Fischbein’s estate, among others. “The settlement established the principle of equality of salary and longevity for women in television news,” said Arthur G. Raynes, the Philadelphia attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Savitch’s estate. Raynes declined to disclose terms of the settlement, but KYW-TV in Philadelphia reported that the agreement totaled more than $8 million, the equivalent of Savitch’s projected lifetime earnings.