Montgomery Jury Awards Driver $2.56 Million After Police Cruiser Hit Her at 111 mph
After trial: The City of Montgomery said it was reviewing the verdict and weighing its legal options, and we found no post-trial motion, reduction or appeal in news or court records as of October 2026. Alabama law limits what a city itself must pay one injured person to far less than this verdict, though that limit does not reach a claim against an officer personally.
Won by Hollis, Wright & Clay, P.C..
A Montgomery County jury returned $2.56 million on July 24, 2025, for Wilshondra Soles, 32, of Montgomery, against the City of Montgomery and police officer Damian J. Smith. Smith was answering an emergency call at 111 mph with lights and sirens on East South Boulevard when he failed to slow at the Strathmore Drive intersection and struck Soles, who had a green light. She suffered a head wound that left a permanent forehead scar and a broken right wrist that needed surgery.
What happened
On East South Boulevard in Montgomery, Alabama, a city police officer was answering an emergency call with his lights and sirens on. He was traveling 111 mph. Wilshondra Soles, then 32, was driving through the Strathmore Drive intersection on a green light.
Officer Damian J. Smith approached the same intersection facing a red light. According to the account the Montgomery Advertiser published after the trial, he did not slow down, and his vehicle collided with Soles's car.
Soles suffered a head wound that took between 12 and 18 sutures to close and left a permanent scar on her forehead. Her right wrist was broken in the crash. Surgeons repaired it with a plate and seven screws.
The facts reported after trial were simple. One vehicle was moving at 111 mph through a signal-controlled intersection against a red light, and the other had a green light and the right of way. Officers on emergency calls may exceed the speed limit and pass red signals in Alabama, but only with due regard for the safety of other drivers.
Soles sued the City of Montgomery and Officer Smith. Hollis, Wright & Clay, a Birmingham firm, represented her at trial in Montgomery County Circuit Court. The case turned on a plain question: whether an emergency response excuses driving at that speed through a red light with cross traffic moving on green.
On July 24, 2025, the jury answered it in her favor and returned a verdict of $2.56 million against the city and the officer. The newspaper's report did not give an itemized breakdown between medical costs, pain and suffering or other categories.
Both defendants were named in the verdict: the municipality that employs the officer and the officer himself. Public reporting on the trial did not name the presiding judge or the individual lawyers who tried it, so this account credits the firm rather than a specific attorney.
The city did not contest the verdict in public at the time of the report. A spokesperson, Cody Clark, said the city would not comment while it carefully reviewed the ruling and considered its legal options.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Hollis, Wright & Clay, P.C.
All Hollis, Wright & Clay, P.C. proven verdicts →A Jefferson County jury awarded $10 million to Sheriff's Deputy Aimee Jo Brasher after Hueytown Police Officer David McIntosh allowed his narcotics dog, Rocco, to run uncontrolled and unmuzzled during a May 2021 training exercise, mauling her face and body.
Related car accident verdicts
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