She Was Starting an IV in the Back of a Moving Ambulance When a Pickup Turned Across Its Path. The Jury Said $219.9 Million.
After trial: Remitted on appeal, and the figure here is approximate. The jury returned $219,910,110.82 on September 23, 2024. The trial court reduced past medicals to $885,991.13, producing a second amended judgment of $219,742,924.13 on October 4, 2025. In July 2026 the Louisiana Third Circuit affirmed liability and every evidentiary ruling but remitted general damages from $155,500,000 to $40,000,000 and future medicals from $61,433,984 to $41,300,219. The roughly $84.1 million figure is arithmetic off the surviving judgment components rather than a total the court itself stated, so read it as reduced to roughly $84 million on appeal and not as an exact judgment. Whether a writ was taken to the Louisiana Supreme Court after July 2026 is not confirmed. The Louisiana Supreme Court separately denied Arch Insurance's writ and stay over garnishment (2026-CC-00250). One correction: several summaries give the verdict as $219,190,110; both the verdict reporter and the opinion say $219,910,110.
Won by Gordon McKernan Injury Attorneys.
Sherri Tramble, 36, was a St. Landry Parish paramedic riding unrestrained in the back of an ambulance, starting an IV on a patient en route to hospital, when a pickup turned across the ambulance's path without yielding. She has multiple skull fractures, a C-7 fracture and a permanent traumatic brain injury, and has since been interdicted.
What happened
At about seven in the evening on July 8, 2021, Sherri Tramble was working. She was 36, a paramedic with St. Landry Parish EMS, riding unrestrained in the back of a 2019 Ram ambulance on westbound LA 182 near I-49, starting an IV on a patient they were taking to Opelousas General Hospital. Being unrestrained is not carelessness in that job. It is how you treat someone in a moving ambulance.
Joshua Briscoe was driving a Chevrolet Silverado for his employer, Linetec Services, taking an electrical-line crew home from a job. He turned across the ambulance's path to reach the I-49 on-ramp without yielding. The ambulance T-boned him.
Tramble was thrown around the cabin and struck her head. She suffered a large scalp laceration, multiple skull fractures involving her eye socket, cheek and nose, a subdural bleed, a fracture of the C-7 vertebra, and a permanent traumatic brain injury. She was unconscious at the scene and barely breathing, with blood obstructing her airway.
She has since been interdicted, which is Louisiana's term for a court finding that a person can no longer manage their own affairs. The appeal in her case is captioned in her brother's name as her curator.
On September 23, 2024 the St. Landry Parish jury put 100 percent of the fault on Briscoe. It valued her noneconomic damages at $155,500,000 and her life care plan at $61,443,984, for a verdict of $219,910,110.82.
What happened on appeal is the part that matters for understanding Louisiana. Louisiana appellate courts review general damages de novo on the record, which means they can substitute their own number. In July 2026 the Third Circuit affirmed liability and every evidentiary ruling, then cut the general damages from $155,500,000 to $40,000,000, describing that as the highest amount the jury reasonably had within its discretion, and cut future medicals from $61,433,984 to $41,300,219.
Tramble was represented by Richard F. Zimmerman III, Justin R. Glenn, Misti L. Bryant and Brian C. Colomb of Gordon McKernan Injury Attorneys, with A.M. Clayton and Michael P. Fruge of Clayton Fruge and Ward as co-counsel and The Dupre Law Firm on the appeal.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Louisiana Third Circuit, No. 25-423 (July 2026): the opinion, giving the Twenty-Seventh Judicial District Court, Parish of St. Landry venue, the affirmance of liability and the evidentiary rulings, the remittitur of general damages from $155,500,000 to $40,000,000 as the highest amount the jury reasonably had within its discretion, the reduction of future medicals to $41,300,219, and the second amended judgment figure
- 2.Louisiana Jury Verdict Reporter, October 2024: the single plaintiff against Briscoe and Linetec Service, LLC, the St. Landry Parish venue before Judge A. Gerald Caswell, case No. 22-C-10939-B, the 100 percent fault finding, the $155.5 million noneconomic and $61,443,984 life care plan components, and the counsel line naming Richard F. Zimmerman III, Justin R. Glenn and Misti L. Bryant of Gordon McKernan Injury Attorneys with Michael P. Fruge and A.M. Clayton of Clayton Fruge & Ward
More proven verdicts from Gordon McKernan Injury Attorneys
All Gordon McKernan Injury Attorneys proven verdicts →Jerrod Snearl, 22, was riding in the middle of the front seat of his employer's empty dump truck on the way to a tree-clearing job when the driver swerved on the I-12 overpass at Jefferson Highway in Baton Rouge, the brakes locked, and the truck rode up over the bridge rail and fell about 30 feet onto the bank of Ward's Creek, where it caught fire. The driver burned to death. Snearl, trapped with a broken pelvis, was burned over 51 percent of his body and lost both legs, his penis, a testicle and his spleen. An Iberville Parish jury found the state's bridge rail an unreasonable risk of harm and awarded him $9,352,826.67, which the First Circuit affirmed in 2001 while raising the driver's fault and reallocating it to the state.
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