The Fairfax County Jury Award
In April a Fairfax County jury awarded more than $4M to Brian Glass’s client following a head-on collision with a drunk driver. The crash happened in Burke, Virginia, in September 2018. The trial was delayed by criminal proceedings against the defendant, and by COVID.
The Criminal Charges for Drunk Driving
The Defendant was charged with a DUI, but escaped punishment for more than three years before a conviction in early 2022.
The defendant’s blood alcohol concentration at the time of the crash was 0.165, which is more than twice the legal limit. Despite that fact, he and his lawyer from Elephant Insurance argued to a jury that he had only consumed two beers on the evening of the crash. The responding police officer testified that an empty bottle of Fireball whiskey was found in the driver’s side well of his vehicle after the crash.
The Injuries from the Drunk Driving Collision
Our client suffered massive injuries to her abdomen including a hemothorax (a medical condition characterized by the accumulation of blood in the pleural cavity, the space between the chest wall and the lungs), torn colon, (a major part of the large intestine responsible for absorbing water and electrolytes from digested food, and for storing and controlling the evacuation of feces) and torn ileum (the final and longest segment of the small intestine) that had to be surgically repaired.
The tear in the colon did not heal and required a colostomy (A colostomy is a surgical procedure that creates an opening (stoma) from the colon to the surface of the abdomen to allow waste material to bypass the damaged part of the colon and exit the body) during her monthlong stay in the hospital. She has a permanent injury today in the form of a large hernia in her abdomen.
The Fairfax County Civil Trial for Life Altering Injuries Sustained in the Collision
Trial was conducted in Fairfax County. After listening to two days of evidence about her personal injury claim, the jury awarded $3,240,000 in compensatory damages and $1,000,000 in punitive damages. In addition, they awarded interest on the sum of $1,000,000 from the date of the crash.
The punitive damages award was reduced to Virginia’s “cap” on punitive damages of $350,000. Virginia’s cap was established through legislation passed by the Virginia General Assembly in 1988.
How the Jury Award is Paid
Insurance covered a portion of the verdict. Since the crash was caused by drunk driving, the jury award is not dischargeable in bankruptcy and the plaintiff continues to get paid out of the defendant’s bi-weekly paycheck and will likely continue to do so for as long as the defendant works. The defendant was a young professional with good wage earning capacity for his lifetime.
This was the sixth largest verdict in Virginia for 2022.
This punitive damages award is one of the largest awards of punitive damages for a drunk driving case in the history of Virginia. To obtain punitive damages in Virginia in a drunk driving case, the Plaintiff must show that the Defendant’s blood alcohol concentration was over a 0.15 mg/DL; that he knew or should have known that he was too intoxicated to operate a motor vehicle; and that his intoxication was a proximate cause of the crash. The jury in our case found that all three were true.
Brian Glass leads the car accident division of BenGlassLaw and has significant experience representing victims of drunk drivers.