$35.36 Million Verdict After Cement Truck Crash Killed a Girl, 8
After trial: Reduced and largely affirmed. The jury returned $35,357,826.72 on February 7, 2025, and in May 2026 the Louisiana Third Circuit reversed the $250,000 future pain and suffering award to one plaintiff and affirmed the rest.
Won by Broussard Knoll Law Firm.
Katie Carmouche was stopped on Highway 1 waiting to turn into her children's daycare with her three children in the back seat. A cement truck rear-ended her at high speed, crushing the back of the car and shoving it into oncoming traffic. Her 8-year-old daughter was killed; her two sons were badly injured.
What happened
Just before eight in the morning on November 22, 2021, Katie Carmouche was stopped in the northbound lane of Highway 1 in Avoyelles Parish, waiting to turn left into her children's daycare. Her three children were in the back seat: a daughter aged eight, a son aged five, and a son aged two.
A Bayou Ready Mix cement truck driven by Gene Adam Lemoine rear-ended her at high speed. The impact crushed the back of the car, drove the rear seats into the front seats and the front seats into the dashboard, and shoved the car across into the southbound lane, where an oncoming Ford F-150 hit it again.
The five-year-old suffered a severe head injury and drifted in and out of consciousness. The two-year-old had fractures of the tibia and fibula. The eight-year-old was wedged so tightly between the seats that first responders needed the jaws of life to get her out.
Her father, Jake Carmouche, is an Army National Guard medic. He arrived within minutes and tried to revive his daughter with a defibrillator. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
On April 13, 2023 the trial court granted partial summary judgment finding the cement-truck driver solely at fault, so the four-day trial was about damages only. On February 7, 2025 the jury returned $35,357,826.72, itemized per family member: $26,492,591.37 to Katie, $8,315,818.35 to Jake, and $336,556.68 and $212,860.32 for the two sons through their parents.
In May 2026 the Louisiana Third Circuit vacated $250,000 of Jake Carmouche's award for future pain and suffering and affirmed everything else, including his $3,000,000 bystander award. The defendants had asked the court to cut the bystander awards to $275,000 each and to reduce the wrongful-death awards; it refused. The judgment stands at $35,107,826.72.
The family was represented by Jerold Edward Knoll, Jerold Edward Knoll Jr., Aaron Broussard and Laura B. Knoll of the Broussard Knoll Law Firm. The children are not named here.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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