Cyclist Awarded $14.1 Million After Club Driver Ran Him Over and Tried to Leave
After trial: Bellomo and SHAC, LLC appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court (No. 86412), seeking a new trial on damages and challenging the district court's separate award of attorney fees and costs. On September 8, 2025, the court affirmed the judgment, including the $14,126,607.74 verdict and the denial of a new trial. It also affirmed the NRCP 68 award of $7,923,304.85 in attorney fees (the full contingency fee) plus $327,076.50 in costs, which followed Bellomo's rejection of a pretrial offer of judgment. Chief Justice Herndon, joined by Justices Pickering and Stiglich, concurred in affirming the verdict and the denial of a new trial but dissented on the size of that fee award. No justice dissented from the injury verdict, which stood in full.
Won by Benson & Bingham.
A Clark County jury awarded bicyclist Thunder Roybal $14,126,607.74 after Louis Bellomo, driving for the Sapphire Gentleman's Club (SHAC, LLC), ran him over and then tried to leave before witnesses stopped him. Roybal needed four surgeries for crush injuries to his shoulder, neck, and chest. The jury assigned him zero percent of the fault, rejecting the defense's comparative fault theory. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed the verdict on September 8, 2025.
What happened
In 2016, Louis Bellomo was driving a vehicle for his employer, SHAC, LLC, which operates the Sapphire Gentleman's Club in Las Vegas, when he ran over Thunder Roybal as Roybal rode his bicycle in a left turn lane on a Las Vegas street. Bellomo tried to leave the scene. Witnesses stopped him before he could.
Roybal suffered crush injuries to his shoulder, neck, and chest. He underwent four surgeries, including one in which his surgeon anchored his neck at a particular vertebral level. He sued Bellomo and SHAC, LLC for negligence in the Eighth Judicial District Court in Clark County in July 2018, case number A-18-778040-C.
The case was tried over ten days in May 2022 before Judge Tara Clark Newberry. The defense asked the jury to assign Roybal a share of the fault for how he had been riding, and tried without success to put before the jury a disability application Roybal had filed before the crash. The jury assigned Roybal zero percent of the fault.
On May 25, 2022, the jury returned a verdict of $14,126,607.74, made up of about $2.13 million in past medical expenses, $3 million for past pain and suffering, and $9 million for future pain and suffering. Sean Claggett and Geordan Logan of Claggett & Sykes Law Firm tried the case for Roybal. On appeal, Ben J. Bingham of Benson & Bingham appeared as counsel for Roybal alongside Claggett & Sykes, as the Nevada Supreme Court filings in the appeal record.
Bellomo and SHAC, LLC appealed, arguing the damages were excessive and had been driven by passion or prejudice rather than the evidence. They also challenged a separate order awarding Roybal attorney fees and costs under Nevada's offer of judgment rule, NRCP 68, which applied because Bellomo had turned down a pretrial offer of judgment and then lost far more at trial.
On September 8, 2025, the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. The court held the record contained substantial evidence supporting the award, found no attorney misconduct in closing argument, and declined to require judges to measure pain and suffering awards against verdicts in other cases. Chief Justice Herndon, joined by Justices Pickering and Stiglich, agreed the verdict should stand and that a new trial was properly denied, and dissented only on the size of the fee award, arguing it should have been limited to work performed after the offer of judgment rather than the entire contingency fee.
The $14,126,607.74 verdict stands as the jury returned it. No justice dissented from it.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Nevada Supreme Court, Order of Affirmance, Bellomo v. Roybal, No. 86412, filed September 8, 2025 (court record): states the $14,126,607.74 jury verdict after a ten-day trial, the crash facts (Bellomo ran over bicyclist Roybal while driving for his employer SHAC, LLC a/k/a Sapphire LV Gentleman's Club and tried to flee before witnesses stopped him), Roybal's neck, shoulder, and spine injuries and surgeries, the Eighth Judicial District Court venue and Judge Tara D. Clark Newberry, the affirmance of the judgment and of the NRCP 68 award of $7,923,304.85 in fees plus $327,076.50 in costs, the partial dissent of Chief Justice Herndon joined by Justices Pickering and Stiglich limited to the fee award, and a service list naming Benson & Bingham among counsel
- 2.U.S. Chamber of Commerce amicus curiae brief filed in the Nevada Supreme Court, No. 86412, February 28, 2024 (court filing): its certificate of service lists Ben J. Bingham, Esq. of Benson & Bingham, 11441 Allerton Park Drive, Suite 100, Las Vegas, as counsel for Respondent Roybal alongside Sean K. Claggett, Micah S. Echols, Geordan G. Logan, and David P. Snyder of Claggett & Sykes Law Firm; the caption confirms the district court case number A-18-778040-C and Judge Tara Clark Newberry
- 3.Courtroom View Network, 2022: staffed gavel-to-gavel trial reporter confirming the May 25, 2022 verdict and its breakdown (about $2.13 million past medical expenses, $3 million past pain and suffering, $9 million future pain and suffering), the May 17 to 25, 2022 trial, Roybal's four surgeries for crush injuries to his shoulder, neck, and chest from the 2016 crash, the jury's zero liability finding against Roybal, and trial counsel of record (Sean Claggett and Geordan Logan of Claggett & Sykes Law Firm for Roybal; Justin Zarcone of Winner Booze for the defense)
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