$82.3 Million Verdict for I-70 Crash Victim Struck by Trucker Watching Videos on iPad
Won by Dollar, Burns, Becker & Hershewe.
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.
What happened
In February 2023, Beth Mayhew was traveling on Interstate 70 in Missouri when a tractor-trailer driven by Vladimir Sadovyh slammed into her vehicle from behind. Traffic ahead had slowed. Sadovyh did not stop in time. A witness, another commercial truck driver, had already called 911 to report what he saw: Sadovyh operating his rig with both feet on the dashboard while holding an iPad and watching videos.
The collision was catastrophic. Mayhew suffered a displaced comminuted femur fracture, pelvic ring fractures, a severed iliac vein, spinal compression fractures, rib fractures, and bilateral pneumothoraces. The injuries required emergency surgery, intensive care, and prolonged hospitalization. Her husband Matthew brought a derivative loss-of-consortium claim alongside hers.
Tim Dollar and Lauren Dollar of Dollar, Burns, Becker and Hershewe in Kansas City tried the case in Callaway County Circuit Court. The theory against the motor carriers, Nova First LLC and Globex Transport Inc., centered on negligent supervision and entrustment: Sadovyh was their driver and their responsibility.
On November 19, 2025, the jury returned a verdict of $82,300,000. The compensatory portion totaled $12.3 million: $11.3 million for Beth Mayhew and $1 million for Matthew Mayhew. Punitive damages reached $70 million, allocated as $20 million against Sadovyh personally, $20 million against Nova First, and $30 million against Globex Transport. The case was tried before Judge Jeff Harris.
As of the Missouri Lawyers Media report published in February 2026, a mediation between the parties had been scheduled. No court record of a remittitur or appellate reduction has been confirmed. The verdict ranked second among all Missouri plaintiffs' verdicts for 2025.
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 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.
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 truck accident verdicts
A Nassau County jury found two trucking companies responsible for the 2017 chain-reaction crash on I-95 near Yulee that killed 18-year-old Connor Dzion, returning a $1 billion verdict that Curry Pajcic won for the teen's parents.
A Titus County jury awarded $730 million to the family of Toni Combest, a 73-year-old great-grandmother killed when a Landstar Ranger truck hauling a 197,000-pound Navy submarine propeller struck her car on a narrow Highway 271 bridge, though the family's actual recovery came from pretrial settlements: $50 million from Landstar Ranger and $1 million from escort company S&M Pilot Service, with the verdict itself returned against the small front-escort company 2A Pilot Cars.
A Leon County jury awarded $411,726,608 to Duane Washington, a career Army sergeant left partially paralyzed in a 45-vehicle pileup on Interstate 10 near Tallahassee, in the Second Judicial Circuit's first virtual jury trial. Ben Crump tried the damages case with co-counsel Robert Cox. Liability was entered by default after defendant Top Auto Express stopped responding in the litigation, its lawyer withdrew months before trial, the one-truck Pembroke Pines carrier sat out the Zoom trial undefended, and industry observers called the record number essentially uncollectable beyond the roughly $1 million in insurance that was offered and rejected before trial.
On February 13, 2016, 21-year-old Riley McPherson was killed on U.S. 271 near Gilmer, Texas, when his van struck the side of a Jefferson Trucking flatbed tractor-trailer that was blocking all four lanes of the highway while its driver, on hour 17 of a run home from Ohio, tried to back it into a private driveway. McPherson's parents, Eddie McPherson and Karen Pearson, sued Jefferson Trucking, driver Eric Wayne Jefferson, and Timothy Wayne Jefferson in the 115th District Court of Upshur County. On November 8, 2018, a jury apportioned 65 percent fault to Eric Jefferson, 20 percent to Jefferson Trucking, 10 percent to Timothy Jefferson, and 5 percent to McPherson, and set damages at $260 million, which the comparative-fault finding reduced to $247 million. The defendants appealed, then voluntarily dismissed their own appeal, leaving the trial court judgment intact.