At Four Times the Legal Limit He Tore a Wheel Off His Truck on a Guardrail and Drove 800 Feet on Three. The Wheel He Left in the Road Put Her Into the Next Guardrail. A Morehouse Parish Jury Added $3 Million in Exemplary Damages, and the Second Circuit Let All of It Stand.
After trial: Affirmed in full and final. The jury's award of $843,155 in compensatory damages and $3,000,000 in exemplary damages under La. C.C. art. 2315.4 was affirmed by the Louisiana Second Circuit on April 10, 2024 (Duran v. Allmerica Financial Benefit Insurance Co., Nos. 55,599-CA c/w 55,600-CA), which upheld the approximately 3.56 to 1 exemplary-to-compensatory ratio. No cap applies to a private-defendant tort claim in Louisiana. Collectability: the exemplary award runs against an individual drunk driver and exemplary damages are generally outside liability coverage; no source reports payment, so the disclosure stays at not public.
Won by Downs Law Firm.
On October 26, 2016 Gerald Farrar, with a blood alcohol content of 0.346 percent, struck a guardrail on U.S. Highway 425 in Morehouse Parish hard enough to tear the right front wheel off his truck, then drove about 800 feet on three wheels and left the wheel in the road. Monica Duran hit it and crashed into a guardrail, suffering a concussion, a back injury and neurological damage. A jury awarded her $843,155 in compensatory damages and $3,000,000 in exemplary damages for the drunk driving. On April 10, 2024 the Louisiana Second Circuit affirmed every dollar.
What happened
On October 26, 2016 Gerald Farrar was driving a 2015 Chevrolet Silverado on U.S. Highway 425 in Morehouse Parish, Louisiana with a blood alcohol content of 0.346 percent, more than four times the legal limit. He hit a bridge guardrail hard enough to tear the right front wheel off the truck. Then he kept going, about 800 feet on three wheels, and left the wheel lying in the roadway.
Monica Duran came along behind him, struck the detached wheel and crashed into a guardrail. She suffered a concussion, a low-back injury and neurological damage. Farrar refused field sobriety tests and a breathalyzer, gave false statements about how much he had been drinking, and had a documented history of drunk driving.
She sued Farrar, his insurer Allmerica Financial Benefit Insurance Company, her own uninsured-motorist carrier and a bank in the Fourth Judicial District Court in Morehouse Parish. The jury itemised her compensatory damages at $843,155: $80,000 in past medical expenses, $82,556 in future medical expenses, $478 in past lost earnings, $230,121 in lost future earning capacity, $300,000 for past and future physical pain, $75,000 for past and future mental suffering and $75,000 for loss of enjoyment of life. Then, under Louisiana Civil Code article 2315.4, which allows exemplary damages against an intoxicated driver whose conduct shows wanton disregard for others, it added $3,000,000.
Farrar and Allmerica appealed. On April 10, 2024 the Louisiana Second Circuit, in consolidated Nos. 55,599-CA and 55,600-CA, affirmed the whole award, holding the roughly 3.56 to 1 ratio of exemplary to compensatory damages reasonable on these facts.
E. Ross Downs Jr., E. Ross Downs III, Hayden S. Downs and Emily W. Downs of The Downs Law Firm in Bastrop represented Duran.
It is one of the few Louisiana verdicts in this directory where the headline number is the final number, with nothing cut on appeal.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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.