Jury Awards $3.5 Million to Woman Who Needed Neck Fusion After Ambulance Rear-Ended Her Car in DeKalb County
After trial: We found no report of post-trial motions or an appeal. We could not confirm whether the judgment was paid or what Rural/Metro's insurers covered.
Won by Fried Goldberg LLC and Fried, Rogers, Goldberg.
A DeKalb County State Court jury awarded Stephanie Nelson $3.5 million in August 2015 after a Rural/Metro ambulance rear-ended her stopped car in 2011. The driver and the ambulance company admitted fault and fought only over how badly she was hurt. She had a cervical fusion and never returned to her job as a hospital pharmacy technician. The jury deliberated for less than an hour.
What happened
On May 10, 2011, Stephanie Nelson was driving west on Columbia Drive in DeKalb County, Georgia. She was 55. Traffic ahead had stopped, and so had she. Behind her, a Rural/Metro Corporation ambulance driven by Ryan Beiner was approaching with its lights flashing.
Beiner was reaching to turn on the siren and looked away from the road for a moment. The ambulance, moving at about 30 miles per hour, struck the back of Nelson's car. Both she and the car in front of her were standing still at the time.
Nelson was treated for neck and back injuries. The nerve damage in her neck left her in considerable pain, and her surgeon performed a cervical fusion. She worked as a pharmacy technician at Emory Hospital and was not able to go back to that job.
Nothing about the crash was complicated. A trained ambulance driver took his eyes off the road for a task that belongs to the job, and a driver who was doing everything right absorbed the impact.
The case took more than four years to reach a courtroom. It was filed in DeKalb County State Court as case number 13-A-47097-2, Stephanie Nelson v. Ryan Beiner and Rural/Metro Corporation. By the time of trial, the defendants no longer disputed that the driver caused the crash. What remained was damages: whether the collision caused the injuries Nelson described, whether the surgery was needed, and what the medical care and her lost career were worth.
Michael Goldberg and Eric Rogers of Fried, Rogers, Goldberg tried the case for Nelson in August 2015. The defense was led by John Farrish and Reginald John Clyne of Quintairos, Prieto, Wood & Boyer. In closing, Goldberg argued that the defense had admitted fault while denying that the crash caused the injuries. He pointed to the risks of a cervical fusion as a reason no one would undergo one for money, and he answered the defense suggestion that doctors had been running up the bills by citing expert testimony on why each procedure was needed.
The jury heard the evidence over three days of trial, from August 12 to August 14, 2015. It deliberated for less than an hour and returned a verdict of $3.5 million against Beiner and Rural/Metro.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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