Truck Crash Settlement Reaches $5.6 Million for Two Injured Women
After trial: The settlement was paid: plaintiffs' counsel said the defendants' insurers covered what remained of the available policy limits. As a pre-trial settlement it was not appealed, and the case did not reach the trial that had been scheduled in Forsyth County State Court.
Won by Butler Prather LLP.
Kayla Kummala and Madison Fortier were injured in Cumming, Georgia on July 14, 2015 when a Downey Trees, Inc. work truck ran a red light and struck their car at high speed. Kummala suffered a moderate traumatic brain injury and Fortier suffered a partial thumb amputation and multiple facial fractures requiring three surgeries. The women sued the driver and Downey Trees, defeated a summary judgment motion, and settled for a combined $5,599,426.12 on Dec. 27, 2017, weeks before the joint trial that had been scheduled in Forsyth County State Court. Plaintiffs' counsel said the defendants' insurers paid what remained of the available policy limits.
What happened
On July 14, 2015, Kayla Kummala and Madison Fortier were driving through Cumming, Georgia when a Ford F-150 owned by Downey Trees, Inc. ran a red light and struck their car at high speed. The truck was driven by Jeremy Ryan Stephens, a Downey Trees employee. Both women were knocked unconscious in the crash and taken to the hospital in critical condition.
Kummala suffered a moderate traumatic brain injury. Fortier's injuries included a partial amputation of her thumb and multiple facial fractures. She underwent three surgeries and spent two weeks at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, followed by months of physical and occupational therapy to regain use of her hand and recover from the facial trauma.
The two women sued Stephens and Downey Trees in Forsyth County State Court, in cases numbered 155C-G846-A and 155C-G845-B. Stephens admitted he caused the wreck but disputed the extent of the injuries. Downey Trees denied all liability, arguing it was not responsible for its employee's actions and that it had not been negligent in hiring Stephens or letting him drive the company's trucks. Robert Luskin and Elissa Haynes of Goodman McGuffey Lindsey Johnson represented Stephens, and Michael Miller, Eric Mull and Eric Retter of Drew Eckl Farnham represented Downey Trees.
Represented by Butler Wooten & Peak, the firm now known as Butler Prather LLP, the two women defeated the defendants' motion for summary judgment, according to the firm's account as reported by the Daily Report, and the two cases were set to be tried together in Forsyth County State Court in January 2018.
The parties settled on Dec. 27, 2017, about three weeks before that trial date, for a combined $5,599,426.12. No source broke the figure down between the two plaintiffs. Attorney Rob Snyder, who handled the case with firm founder Jim Butler, said the defendants' insurers paid what remained of the available policy limits to reach the resolution.
"We were very much looking forward to trial, but our clients are pleased with this resolution," Snyder said in the firm's announcement. Stephens's lawyer, Robert Luskin, said his firm had no comment on the settlement, and reporters who sought comment from Downey Trees and its lawyers could not reach them. The case ended with the December 2017 settlement, and no trial was held.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Daily Report (Law.com), Jan. 16, 2018, by Katheryn Tucker: staffed legal trade press article naming the driver (Jeremy Ryan Stephens), his vehicle, defense counsel on both sides, the case numbers and court, the summary judgment win, the counsel of record (Rob Snyder and firm founder Jim Butler), and the policy-limits statement.
- 2.Forsyth County News, Jan. 17, 2018, by Alexander Popp: independent local news article confirming the crash date of July 14, 2015, the red light and high speed, the injuries attributed to each woman, the settlement date of Dec. 27, 2017 and the exact figure of $5,599,426.12, and the defense response to requests for comment.
- 3.Butler Prather LLP (firm)
More proven verdicts from Butler Prather LLP
All Butler Prather LLP proven verdicts →A federal jury in Columbus, Georgia awarded $30.5 million in compensatory damages and $2.5 billion in punitive damages against Ford Motor Company for the deaths of Herman and Debra Mills, killed when the roof of their 2015 F-250 Super Duty crushed down on them in a rollover. Butler Prather LLP tried the case, with James E. Butler Jr., Ramsey Prather, Daniel Philyaw, and Allison Bailey on the trial team. The honest frame: Ford called the verdict impermissibly extreme, moved for a new trial, and in September 2025 settled this case and the related $1.7 billion Hill case on confidential terms, so the verdict was never collected as awarded.
A Gwinnett County jury awarded roughly $24 million in compensatory damages and $1.7 billion in punitive damages against Ford Motor Company for the 2014 rollover deaths of Melvin and Voncile Hill in a 2002 F-250, with James E. Butler Jr. of Butler Prather LLP as lead trial counsel; the Georgia Court of Appeals vacated the judgment in November 2024 and ordered a new trial, and Ford settled the case on confidential terms in September 2025 before a third trial could begin.
On July 18, 2016, a Schnitzer Southeast tractor-trailer crossed the center line of U.S. Highway 80 in Russell County, Alabama, and killed five members of one family in a head-on collision, including Judy Madere, 58. A Muscogee County State Court jury in Columbus, Georgia found Schnitzer Southeast and its parent, Schnitzer Steel Industries, liable and returned a $280,065,000 verdict for Madere's death on August 23, 2019, reported at the time as the largest wrongful death verdict against a trucking company. Schnitzer said it would appeal, but instead of litigating the verdict, it resolved Madere's suit together with her twin sister Trudy Hebert's separate, still pending suit from the same crash for a combined $68 million in the following fiscal quarter, according to Schnitzer's SEC filings. Three earlier suits from the same crash, brought by the estates of the two children and their mother, had already settled for $35 million combined. The individual amounts within the $68 million settlement are not public.
On April 12, 2013, Micah Andrews, 38, died on Interstate 575 north of Atlanta when he swerved to miss a snapping turtle in the road, ran off the shoulder into trees at about 35 miles an hour, and was killed inside a crash he should have survived: his airbag did not deploy and his Autoliv designed seatbelt spooled out about 20 inches of webbing, letting his face hit the steering wheel hub hard enough to fracture the base of his skull. His widow, Jamie Andrews, sued Autoliv and Mazda in 2014, Mazda settled its own part of the case confidentially in June 2016, and Jim Butler of Butler Prather LLP tried the case with co counsel to a bench verdict before U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones, who found the seatbelt defectively designed and entered a $127,019,343.40 judgment at the end of December 2021, including $100 million in punitive damages. Autoliv appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, arguing the punitive award was excessive under Georgia law, then abandoned that appeal and paid $56 million to close the case on July 27, 2023, of which $42 million went to Jamie Andrews and $14 million went to the State of Georgia, which had claimed a share of the punitive award.
Related car accident verdicts
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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.