Hoyt & Blewett PLLC

Jeremy Vangsnes, a 21-year-old cross-country athlete who was left quadriplegic and brain-injured after a 2009 rollover on Interstate 90 near Belgrade, Montana, settled for $26 million against the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention after a judge ruled the driver was acting within the scope of his agency with the organization.

A Butte federal jury returned a $2.5 million verdict for the families of two women killed when a Patrol Helicopters fuel-truck driver failed to signal before turning on a Park County road, and the Ninth Circuit unanimously affirmed the award.

Allen Ginn, a log truck driver, was injured in July 2008 when logs fell on him at a Smurfit-Stone mill near Missoula. Smurfit-Stone defaulted on liability, and a Missoula County jury set damages at $3,470,899.56 for Ginn and $500,000 for his wife Laurie. The Montana Supreme Court affirmed in 2015, but a bankruptcy stipulation the Ginns had to accept to bring the suit capped their recovery at $2.5 million.

The Montana Supreme Court reversed a 50% contributory-negligence deduction and restored the full $969,797 jury verdict for the widow of welding supervisor Andre Woods, who was killed when a hy-rail vehicle traveled more than four miles past its authorized track warrant limits and collided with an oncoming train.