FRANKFORT, Ky. (Legal Newsline) - A Kentucky appeals court has affirmed a $32 million verdict in a lawsuit over a fatal crash involving a dump truck hauling asphalt.
The state Court of Appeals on Aug. 18 found the verdict, which is to be split evenly between driver Eric Jenkins and his employers at now-defunct Atlas Excavating, appropriate, and refused to impose any liability on the company that hired Atlas to take asphalt from its plant to a jobsite.
The case concerns the death of Marie Garmon, a hospice nurse who was killed after Jenkins swerved across the center line of Highway 62 in Anderson County in September 2012. She was alive and alert as responders tried to free her from her minivan pinned under the truck, and she died from her injuries five days later.
The resulting wrongful death lawsuit provided millions for her family from Jenkins and the owners of Atlas. The suit attempted to pin blame on Mago Asphalt for hiring Atlas but was not successful.
"The Garmons' negligence claim is premised on the fact that Mago knew or should have known that Atlas was derelict in its duties in hiring and overseeing Jenkins," the decision says. "However, we agree with Mago that it was not required to, nor did it, have access to Atlas' records pertaining to Jenkins.
"As such, the Garmons failed to show Mago knew or should have known of any breaches by Atlas with respect to Jenkins such as its failure to drug test him as alleged by the Garmons, making Mago entitled to summary judgment."
Jenkins swerved left when he realized he was going to rear-end the car in front of him and struck Garmon's minivan. The opinion says she was aware of the possibility she was going to die from her injuries and told responders of her worry of leaving her children motherless.
On a helicopter to the University of Kentucky's hospital in Lexington, she remained conscious and reported being in excruciating physical pain.
Jenkins admitted to smoking marijuana less than 24 hours prior to the accident and taking Valium and Lortab the day of. A jury awarded $32,144,971.88 in compensatory and punitive damages, assessing 50% blame each for Jenkins and Atlas' owners.
The punitive damages portion of the verdict was $10 million, with another $5 million for pain and suffering.
The Atlas owners alleged several errors during the trial, all of which were rejected by the Court of Appeals. Atlas objected to Jenkins' use of controlled substances, inflammatory statements by the plaintiffs' lawyer and the admission of Atlas' failure to abide by regulations.