Already on the hook for the lion’s share of a $17.7 million judgment and waiting for a decision from a jury that was out considering punitive damages, Ford Motor Co. decided to settle with a couple who sued following a Christmas 2005 wreck that left the woman paralyzed. The agreement…
By the time Bryan Lee headed to work along Highway 51 in Texas on Sept. 15, 2005, the road-building industry and its government overseers were painfully aware of a deadly, though easily corrected, construction hazard: pavement-edge drop-offs. Accidents involving dangerous drop-offs kill about 160 people and injure 11,000 each year.…
A Santa Rosa winery has agreed to pay $3 million to settle a lawsuit brought by a Sebastopol man who was permanently disabled in an alcohol-related car crash in 2006. Paradise Ridge Winery was sued by Joshua Apodaca, the passenger in a car driven by a 19-year-old classmate, Sean Bradley,…
A Lee County jury awarded $44.9 million to a Cape Coral man who was paralyzed in a 2006 motor vehicle accident. The verdict, one of the largest in the county’s history, was awarded to Gerald Aloia. Aloia was riding on his motorcycle on Oct. 22, 2006, when he was struck…
The Supreme Court has left in place an $82.6 million award to a woman who was paralyzed after her Ford Explorer rolled over. The justices rejected Ford Motor Co.’s challenge to the portion of the award, $55 million, that was intended as punitive damages. Ford argued that it should not…
A jury has awarded $89 million in damages to the family of a man killed in a 2008 crash with a drunken driver, and to the man’s fiancée and daughter. “The eye-popping numbers were the jury’s attempt to send a message the only way they could,” said attorney Mark Bronson,…
The state Supreme Court reinstated an $8 million default judgment against Hyundai Motor Co. in a lawsuit over the backward collapse of a front seat in a 1997 crash that left a man paralyzed. In a 7-2 ruling, the high court reversed the Court of Appeals, which had overturned a…
A Phillipsburg man was awarded nearly $6 million for injuries suffered when a large tree limb dropped onto their car in 2006. Kenneth Matlock is permanently disabled and can no longer work as a truck driver, his career for more than 20 years. On July 4, 2006 Matlock, his wife…
The Iowa Supreme Court overturned lower court rulings and said a minister who crashed his car trying to avoid a trampoline that had blown into the road during a storm can sue its owners. Thompson and his wife filed a lawsuit against the owners of the trampoline, Kaczinski and Lockwood,…
An Albemarle County, Va jury awarded $5.25 million to the parents and sibling of a 16-year-old county girl who was killed in a car accident in 2008. The jury found that Don B. Swisher Trucking Corp., McCann Delivery Service and Kenneth Barbour were negligent when Barbour hit Sydney Aichs’ 1999…