$2 Million Underinsured Motorist Settlement for Writer Rear-Ended on I-95 by Drunk Driver
Won by Kenneth Berger and Yarborough Applegate.
Douglas Mincey, a retired engineer and author, was rear-ended on I-95 in Jasper County in March 2016 by a driver who had been drinking. He had a lower back injury that required several surgeries and concussive symptoms. His underinsured motorist carrier, USAA, agreed to pay $2 million on April 6, 2018, before the case reached the jury roster.
What happened
In March 2016, Douglas Mincey, a 57-year-old retired engineer from Bluffton, South Carolina, slowed for traffic on Interstate 95 in Jasper County. Another vehicle struck the rear of his car. The driver, Eric Akers, had reportedly been drinking as he drove north from Florida.
The evidence on fault was unusually direct. A police car's rear-facing dashcam recorded Akers drifting in and out of consciousness after the crash. Mincey said Akers offered him money not to call police, and Berger said Akers stumbled and nearly fell into Mincey's arms. Akers had prior DUI arrests and later pleaded guilty to DUI in the crash. Kenneth Berger, Mincey's lawyer, told South Carolina Lawyers Weekly the footage was strong enough that the team did not need to depose Akers.
Mincey's injuries were to his lower back and head. He struck his head on the steering wheel and had concussive symptoms, and the back injury required several surgeries. Before the crash he had been writing an inspirational book for boys, A Guy's Guide to Being Great, and the injuries delayed its publication by about a year. His wife, Rhonda, wrote a companion book for girls and founded a nonprofit for girls.
Because Akers's own coverage could not answer for the harm, the case turned to Mincey's underinsured motorist carrier, USAA, which defended the claim through Ronald Diegel of Murphy & Grantland in Columbia. Mincey sued in Jasper County Circuit Court (case no. 2017-CP-27-00101). Berger, of Columbia, was joined by David Yarborough and David Lail of Yarborough Applegate in Charleston.
Mincey was a veteran who had paid his own way through college after his parents died, and Berger said the Jasper County school district had folded some of Rhonda Mincey's work into its curriculum. With the dashcam footage and the DUI plea in hand, fault was not the open question.
The parties went to mediation with Blaney Coskrey of Columbia. On April 6, 2018, before the case was placed on the jury roster, USAA agreed to pay $2 million to settle. Berger said that without a settlement the carrier would likely have faced a larger excess verdict from a Jasper County jury.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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