$20 Million Verdict for Immigrant Left with Catastrophic Brain Injury After Truck Ran Red Light
Won by Fried Goldberg LLC.
A Cobb County jury awarded $20 million after a tractor-trailer ran a red light in Kennesaw and left a 57-year-old Pakistani immigrant with permanent, catastrophic brain damage.
What happened
In 2013, Ehsan Khan was riding in a vehicle on a Kennesaw, Georgia road when a tractor-trailer operated by John Teal, a driver for Moore Freight Service Inc., ran a red light and slammed into the car. Khan, who had emigrated from Pakistan in 2009 and become a U.S. citizen, was 57 years old at the time. His wife, Ghulam Khan, was also in the vehicle.
The collision left Ehsan Khan with permanent, catastrophic traumatic brain injury. A neurosurgeon who evaluated him rated the severity at eight out of ten. He lost the ability to walk, speak, bathe, or feed himself. He requires around-the-clock care and will for the rest of his life. Ghulam Khan suffered neck injuries in the same crash.
Moore Freight Service and driver Teal stipulated to liability before trial, so the August 2016 proceedings in Cobb County State Court before Judge Carl Bowers focused entirely on the amount of damages. Plaintiff's counsel Joseph Fried and Michael Goldberg, who now practice at Fried Goldberg LLC and tried the case under the firm's earlier name of Fried Rogers Goldberg, presented a life care plan prepared by expert Sarah Lustig documenting Khan's future medical needs. The firm sought nearly $25 million total, including more than $3.6 million for future medical expenses calculated against Khan's expected remaining lifespan.
Defense attorneys from Swift, Currie, McGhee and Hiers argued the plan overstated necessary expenses because family members, not professional caregivers, provided most of Khan's daily care. They also contended that Khan's life expectancy was shortened by the injury itself, which they argued should reduce the damages figure. In closing argument, Fried turned that contention around, telling the jury that if the defense's own logic were followed, the case would be worth more, not less.
After three days of testimony and less than four hours of deliberation, the jury returned a $20 million verdict. The award was divided as $16.25 million to Michael Smith, who served as Khan's court-appointed conservator, and $3.75 million to Ghulam Khan for loss of consortium. No appeal or reduction of the verdict has been identified in public records.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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