She Was Driving to Buy a Dress for a Child Patient's Funeral. The Work Truck Behind Her Never Slowed, and the Oncology Nurse Never Worked Again.
After trial: The jury returned $9,141,750 on August 15, 2025 before Judge Cynthia Spadoni in the 15th Judicial District Court, Lafayette Parish, No. 19-5629. The Louisiana Jury Verdict Reporter records that the figure was increased to about $12 million in the judgment once judicial interest was added, which in Louisiana runs from the date of filing. We publish the verdict rather than the interest-inclusive judgment. No appeal, remittitur or motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict has been located, and the Louisiana Third Circuit record shows nothing, so treat this as an entered judgment whose appellate fate is not yet known. One sourcing caveat: the Louisiana Jury Verdict Reporter is the only source located for the counsel line and the itemization. It is independent of both firms, which is what matters, but there is no second source corroborating it. Louisiana caps nothing relevant here; the state's only general damages cap applies to claims against the state and its agencies under La. R.S. 13:5106, and no public entity was a defendant.
Won by Broussard, David & Moroux.
Alise Ardoin was a 26-year-old pediatric oncology nurse. On her day off she was driving to a Lafayette mall to buy a dress for the funeral of one of her child patients. A commercial pickup rear-ended her at roughly 40 mph and pushed her into the car ahead, whipping her head in two directions. The brain injury and the headache disorder that followed ended her nursing career.
What happened
On October 12, 2018, Alise Ardoin had the day off. She was 26 and a pediatric oncology nurse at Women's and Children's Hospital in Lafayette. One of her patients, a child, had died. She was driving to the Acadiana Mall to buy a dress to wear to the funeral.
She slowed for a light on Kaliste Saloom Road.
Behind her was a Ford F-250 that Taylor Foster was driving for his employer, Taylors International Services. He was doing roughly 40 miles an hour and, by his own account, never saw her before impact. The collision shattered her back glass and drove her car into the Volvo stopped ahead of her, so her head was thrown forward and then back again.
She sustained a mild traumatic brain injury and an intractable headache disorder. She did not return to nursing.
The jury returned its verdict on August 15, 2025, and the way it itemized the award is worth reading closely, because it is not the shape people expect from an eight-figure injury verdict. Past medical expenses came to $536,750. Future medical care, $4,000,000. Past lost wages, $505,000. Future lost earning capacity, $2,500,000. Non-economic damages, meaning everything the law calls pain and suffering, came to $1,600,000, which is less than a fifth of the total.
That is a verdict built almost entirely on what a career in pediatric oncology nursing was worth over a working life, and on what her care will cost for the rest of it.
Ardoin was represented by Blake R. David and Reed K. Ellis of Broussard, David and Moroux in Lafayette, with Alfred F. Boustany II, Alfred F. Boustany III and Chase Manuel of the Boustany Law Firm as co-counsel.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Louisiana Jury Verdict Reporter case sheet: the $9,141,750 verdict for the plaintiff, Lafayette Parish, Judge Cynthia Spadoni, dated 8-15-25, together with the itemized award and the counsel line naming Blake R. David and Reed K. Ellis of Broussard David & Moroux, Lafayette, and Alfred F. Boustany II, Alfred F. Boustany III and Chase Manuel of the Boustany Law Firm, Lafayette. The reporter labels federal matters 'Federal:' and this entry reads 'Parish:', which is what establishes state-court venue
- 2.The verdict form, signed 8-15-2025, asking the jury for 'the total amount that you feel is appropriate to fully compensate Alise Ardoin for each element of compensatory damages', which establishes a single plaintiff
- 3.Louisiana Jury Verdict Reporter blog: 'awarded the plaintiff $9.1 million (upped to $12 million in the judgment with interest)'
Related car accident verdicts
On December 7, 2021, a Nueces County jury in Corpus Christi returned $1.04 billion in actual damages and $300 billion in exemplary damages, about $301.04 billion in total, against Beer Belly's Sports Bar and its owner for overserving a driver who killed Tamra Kay Kindred, 59, and her 16-year-old granddaughter in a 2017 crash. It was reported as the largest jury verdict ever recorded, and the honest frame is that it was built to be symbolic: the bar had closed in 2019, Texas does not require bars to carry liquor liability insurance, and the family and its lawyers said openly that they expected to recover nothing and sought the number as a public statement against drunk driving. John Flood of Flood Trial Lawyers was lead counsel, with Sico, Hoelscher & Harris LLP as co-counsel; Craig Sico delivered the closing argument that asked jurors to decide how loudly their voice would be heard.
An Oakland County jury awarded $896.5 million to a young boy who was struck by a prototype test car during a student field trip at a Continental test track, reported as the largest verdict in Michigan history. The award is pre-appeal: post-trial motions are pending, Continental never made a settlement offer, and the amount could still be reduced.
A Bexar County jury awarded roughly $831 million to Blas Mendez Jr., a longtime Seguin ISD special education behavior specialist left partially paralyzed after his motorcycle hit wreckage left in the road by an 18-year-old drunk driver who had been served at Koozies Icehouse & Grill in New Braunfels. Todd A. Hunter of Hunter Trial Law tried the dram shop case with E. Chevo Pastrano and Ginna G. Pastrano of The Pastrano Law Firm. The honest frame: the award was reported as the largest verdict ever returned by a San Antonio jury, and the bar had already closed by the time it came in, so the family is not expected to collect most, if any, of it.