Jury Finds Walmart Grossly Negligent, Awards $6 Million After Employee Backs Into Customer
After trial: Reversed by agreement. Walmart appealed to the Second Court of Appeals of Texas, and while the appeal was pending the parties agreed to reverse the judgment and remand.
Won by Hamilton Wingo, LLP.
A Tarrant County jury found Walmart 80 percent at fault, including gross negligence, after a Walmart employee backed a customer's vehicle into Carl Chojnicki at a Walmart Auto Care Center in North Richland Hills, Texas, breaking his femur. On April 25, 2024, the jury awarded him $6 million: $1.482 million in compensatory damages and $4.518 million in exemplary damages. Walmart appealed, and while the appeal was pending the parties settled; the Fort Worth Court of Appeals set aside the trial court's judgment by agreement in October 2024, so no public dollar figure from the case legally stands today.
What happened
On November 1, 2019, Carl Chojnicki was at the Auto Care Center of a Walmart Supercenter in North Richland Hills, Texas, when a Walmart employee working in the center put a customer's vehicle into reverse and backed it into him. Chojnicki suffered a broken femur that required surgery.
Chojnicki sued Walmart and the employee, Edward Williams, for negligence. Walmart removed the case to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, but the court granted Chojnicki's motion to remand, sending the case back to the 67th District Court of Tarrant County, where it was tried before a jury.
At trial, evidence showed the Auto Care Center had an established 'spotter' policy requiring an employee to watch and guide a vehicle before it was moved in reverse, and that the policy was not followed when Williams backed the customer's car into Chojnicki. A jury of nine men and three women heard four days of testimony and deliberated for about five hours before returning a unanimous verdict on April 25, 2024, in the court of Tarrant County District Judge Don Cosby.
The jury assessed 80 percent of the fault against Wal-Mart Stores Texas, LLC and 20 percent against Williams. It awarded Chojnicki $1.482 million for future medical care, past physical pain, past mental anguish, and past and future physical impairment. It then found, unanimously, that Walmart's conduct amounted to gross negligence and assessed an additional $4.518 million in exemplary damages, bringing the total verdict to $6 million. Barrett Robin and Sean T. Cook of Hamilton Wingo tried the case for Chojnicki. Walmart was defended by Randy Walters of Walters, Balido & Crain.
Walmart appealed the judgment to the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth, docketed as Wal-Mart Stores Texas, LLC v. Carl Louis Chojnicki, No. 02-24-00342-CV. Allie Hallmark, Barrett Robin, and Chris Hamilton represented Chojnicki as appellee. While the appeal was pending, the parties reached an agreement. On October 24, 2024, the court granted their agreed motion to reverse the judgment and remand, setting the trial court's judgment aside without regard to the merits and sending the case back so judgment could be rendered in line with what the parties had agreed. The mandate issued on January 10, 2025.
The terms of that agreement were not made public, and no dollar figure from the case carries legal force today. The jury's findings on liability and gross negligence, and the size of the verdict it returned, remain part of the public record even though the judgment itself was vacated by agreement.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.The Texas Lawbook, Michelle Casady, April 29, 2024·Archived copy
- 2.Texas Second Court of Appeals docket No. 02-24-00342-CV·Archived copy
- 3.CourtListener, Second Court of Appeals per curiam memorandum opinion, Oct. 24, 2024
- 4.CourtListener/RECAP, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, No. 4:21-cv-01064-P
- 5.Hamilton Wingo, LLP (firm)·Archived copy
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