About Thomas Reardon
Thomas W. Reardon, Jr. joined Goudarzi & Young in 2018. Born in Marshall, Texas and raised in Pittsburg, Texas, he attended the University of Texas at Austin, receiving his B.S. with honors in 1981, then earned his J.D. from Texas Tech University School of Law in 1984. He began his career as a briefing attorney for the Eleventh State Court of Appeals in Eastland, Texas during the 1984-85 term, and has since argued cases before trial and appellate courts throughout the state. Over the years he has handled insurance litigation, business litigation, contract disputes, probate matters, personal injury claims, and deceptive trade practice claims.
Having previously represented insurance companies, he brings firsthand knowledge of the tactics insurers use to deny people the compensation they are owed. He is licensed in Texas state courts, the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Southern Districts of Texas, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Federal Circuits, and the United States Supreme Court. He is AV Preeminent rated by Martindale-Hubbell and a Life Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation.
Proven verdicts and settlements at Goudarzi & Young, L.L.P.
These results are credited to Goudarzi & Young, L.L.P.. A result appears under an attorney's own name only when a published source names them as counsel on the case.
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.
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.
Before dawn on May 24, 2020, a Werner Enterprises tractor-trailer struck the rear of a passenger car stopped in a live lane of Interstate 30 near Sulphur Springs, Texas, with two children, ages 7 and 9, inside. The car caught fire and both children died. Their parents sued Werner and its driver, alleging negligent and grossly negligent operation of the tractor-trailer, negligent hiring, training, and supervision of the driver, and negligent entrustment of the truck. In July 2022, Werner announced it had agreed to pay $150 million to resolve the case without a trial, funded by the company and its insurance carriers. Goudarzi & Young, through founding partner Brent Goudarzi, represented the family.
A 39-year-old man was left quadriplegic in 2017 when an 18-wheeler struck his vehicle on Highway 259 near Ore City in Upshur County, Texas. The case went to trial, where evidence showed the truck's driver, Dijuana Smith, had been involved in multiple crashes before the wreck, and where attorneys said she had violated state and federal trucking regulations. Goudarzi & Young, L.L.P., of Gilmer, Texas, represented the injured man, and the parties reached a $140 million settlement in July 2019. The firm, and later a Lawdragon profile of managing partner Brent Goudarzi, both described it as the largest settlement for a single plaintiff in American legal history. The identities of the plaintiff and the trucking company were not publicly disclosed.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
