Jury Awards $12 Million for a Double Leg Amputation, Judgment Entered at $4.2 Million Under Tennessee's Damages Cap

Charles Ray Peterson Jr. was driving from Memphis to Nashville on Christmas Day 2017 when another driver, Jonathan L. Smith, struck his vehicle and forced it into the median. Before Peterson could recover from that first impact, a commercial truck owned by Mid-TN Erosion and Sediment Control, Inc. and driven by Christopher Richey made a sudden highway turn. The trailer fishtailed and struck Peterson's car a second time. Peterson survived, but both of his legs had to be amputated.

He filed suit in Davidson County Circuit Court in August 2018, naming Smith, Richey, and Mid-TN Erosion as defendants. The insurer representing the truck side of the case denied liability outright at first and offered $50,000 to settle. As trial approached, the number moved, first to $200,000, then $400,000, then $600,000 during the trial itself. Peterson's attorneys, D. Joe Griffith and Zachary Smith of Hughes & Coleman, kept the case in front of the jury.

Trial ran November 15 through November 19, 2021, before Judge Joseph P. Binkley Jr. The jury found Peterson free of fault and returned a verdict of $12 million, splitting responsibility between the two collisions: 55 percent to Jonathan Smith for the first impact and 45 percent to Christopher Richey and Mid-TN Erosion for the second.

The number reported in verdict trackers and news coverage stops there. It is not the number that was actually entered against the defendants. The Judgment Entry on Jury Verdict, signed by Judge Binkley and filed December 2, 2021, states plainly that "pursuant to statute, the gross verdict is hereby reduced to $4,203,547.00." Tennessee law caps noneconomic damages, the pain-and-suffering component of a verdict, at $750,000 in most personal injury cases, but raises that ceiling to $1 million for a catastrophic injury, which the statute defines to include the amputation of two feet or one of each. Peterson's injury meets that definition. While the judgment entry does not itemize the calculation, the size of the reduction is consistent with a noneconomic award capped at $1 million layered on top of an economic damages award, for medical costs and future care, that was not capped at all.

Working from the reduced total, the court entered judgment against Jonathan Smith for $2,311,950.85 and against Christopher Richey and Mid-TN Erosion jointly for $1,891,596.15, tracking the jury's 55/45 fault split. Peterson was also awarded his court costs as the prevailing party.

No appeal of the judgment has been reported. The case is a useful illustration of a gap that shows up across verdict reporting generally: press coverage and legal-marketing pages tend to repeat the jury's gross number because that is the figure announced in the courtroom, while the amount a defendant is actually ordered to pay, after a state's damages statute is applied, is a separate figure that requires the judgment itself to confirm.