$70 Million Platte County Record for Family of Boy Killed in I-29 Construction Zone Crash
Won by Dollar, Burns, Becker & Hershewe.
A Platte County jury returned a record $70 million verdict after an eight-year-old boy died and his six-year-old sister was seriously injured when a distracted driver rear-ended their grandparents' car in a highway construction zone.
What happened
On June 13, 2020, John and Ruth Cosgrove were driving northbound on Interstate 29 through a construction zone in Platte County, Missouri. They had their two young grandchildren with them, heading west to meet the children's parents for a family camping trip. Traffic slowed ahead of the work zone. A Ford Explorer driven by Cherlyn McWhirt did not.
McWhirt's vehicle struck the Cosgroves' Prius from behind at speed. Eight-year-old Caleb was pronounced dead at the scene. His six-year-old sister, Emery, suffered a fractured leg, lost teeth, and serious emotional trauma. Both grandparents sustained injuries and significant psychological harm.
At trial in Platte County Circuit Court before Judge W. Ann Hansbrough, Tim Dollar and Lauren Dollar of Dollar, Burns, Becker and Hershewe tried the case for the Geiger family. Co-counsel John E. Turner of Turner and Sweeny represented the Cosgroves. The plaintiffs presented evidence that McWhirt had been using her phone at the moment of impact. A recording McWhirt made to her insurance carrier was captured on audio during the crash itself, and jurors heard a redacted version of that call.
The defense contested speed, arguing McWhirt traveled with the flow of traffic, and pointed to construction signage as a contributing factor. Jurors rejected those arguments after deliberation.
On July 27, 2023, the jury awarded $70 million total: $30 million for the wrongful death of Caleb, $20 million for Emery's injuries, and $10 million each to John and Ruth Cosgrove. The verdict is the largest in Platte County history. No reduction or remittitur on the tort judgment has been reported in subsequent court filings or coverage.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Dollar, Burns, Becker & Hershewe
All Dollar, Burns, Becker & Hershewe proven verdicts →A Callaway County jury awarded Beth Mayhew and her husband $82.3 million after a truck driver hit their vehicle on I-70 while driving with both feet on the dashboard and holding an iPad to watch videos.
A Jackson County jury awarded $40 million on Nov. 1, 2023, to the family of Charles Mabie, a 52-year-old man killed when a driver on PCP, traveling over 100 mph, struck his car from behind at a red light in Independence, Missouri. The defendant had admitted liability before trial, so the jury decided only damages. The award rested on the loss of Mabie's relationship with his wife and two children.
A jury awarded nearly $39 million after a New Prime tractor-trailer jackknifed on icy Interstate 40 and triggered a multi-vehicle pileup that killed four people, including two members of a Texas family.
A Jackson County jury awarded $37.5 million to Steven Holdeman, who was left a paraplegic after a semi-truck rear-ended his car on Interstate 435, finding Philip Stratman 99 percent at fault for stalling his vehicle in the center lane.
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 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 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.
A Harris County jury awarded Mary Johnson $557 million against Union Pacific for a 2016 Houston train strike that cost her a leg, several fingers, and left her with a brain injury, a figure the trial court later cut and an appeals court reversed for a new trial.