Jury Awards $15 Million in Accident Case

Posted on Mar 16, 2010

A Georgia state court jury has held an alleged drunk driver responsible for $15 million in damages to a girl injured in a car accident, but the plaintiff likely will get only a fraction of the award because the driver has few resources and the designer of the girl's seat, which broke during the wreck, was cleared by the jury.

Complicating matters, according to the plaintiffs lawyers, was the bankruptcy-mandated dismissal of what was then DaimlerChrysler Co. from the case. Jurors faced a verdict form containing a line allocating blame to Chrysler, but no one represented the automaker at trial.

"The jury wanted to attribute some portion of the liability to Chrysler, given that Chrysler had designed the vehicle," said Law & Moran partner E. Michael Moran, who spoke to the panel after the Feb. 17 verdict (pdf) was released. "But as they were working through that, they had concerns about the fairness issue, because Chrysler didn't have a lawyer there defending them."

Chrysler went into bankruptcy protection last year, and the bankruptcy court approved its sale to Italian automaker Fiat last June; its new incarnation, Chrysler Group LLC, is protected from liability for cars manufactured prior to its bankruptcy declaration. But, in accordance with Georgia's 2005 tort reform law, Chrysler was still listed as a non-party defendant on the verdict form, which provided a space for apportioned damages.

"Under the law, Chrysler would not have had to pay anyway," said Moran. "We attempted to explain to the jury how it worked, but it's a bit complicated, and I guess we didn't do a good enough job explaining it."

The case began Jan. 1, 2007, when a Honda Accord driven by Joseph J. Covert ran a red light in Alpharetta, Ga., and hit the right side of a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee carrying Michael and Jacqueline Maybaum and their daughters, Jennifer, then 5, and Erica, then 11.

Erica was in the rear left-hand seat and wearing her seatbelt, according to the pretrial order. The impact caused a hinge pin at the base of her seat to pop out and she was pitched backward into the cargo compartment.

by Greg Land
Fulton County Daily Report
March 16, 2010