Attorneys Kathy McArthur and Caleb Walker of the McArthur Law Firm successfully
tried a truck accident case earlier this month in Forsyth, Georgia in Monroe County. The firm’s clients were stopped at a light when a log truck coming from behind them couldn’t stop, swerved left and sideswiped their car. The truck driver said he couldn’t stop, although he was standing on his brakes for 50 yards prior to the impact. The truck driver claimed that there was no problem with the brakes, but admitted that the speedometer on the truck didn’t work.
The clients, whose car was driveable after the wreck with the back left tire changed, went to a doctor the next day. They both had soft tissue injuries, including a neck sprain, shoulder sprain, and wrist sprain. They each had prior chronic problems with neck pain and had arthritis in their necks that existed before the wreck. The man, 71, had $15,000 in medical bills and his wife, 67, had $8000 in medical bills. They had no time in the hospital, no broken bones, no cuts, no stitches, etc. The husband had severe chronic low back pain that was not caused by this wreck. The wife had psychological problems with depression and anxiety that made her unable to testify in the trial of this case. The final offer before trial was $18,000 on each case. The defense attorney argued that each plaintiff should be awarded $4500 by the jury and that they were not really hurt in this wreck.
The jury’s verdict was $66,000 for the husband and $30,000 for the wife.
These clients are the parents of a prior client that Kathy had represented about 10 years ago and for whom she had won a jury verdict of $1,025,000. The clients insisted that McArthur handle and try this case for them, and McArthur felt compelled to do so because of the unfair nature of the offers on their cases. While the result on this case is not huge in monetary value, it is a triumph of what is right over the greed and unfairness of the insurance industry in dealing with deserving victims of careless truck drivers. McArthur argued that the brakes on the truck probably weren’t in good working order, just like the speedometer, and that the driver was being paid by the load which encouraged him to drive this truck that was in poor condition too fast for conditions.
