Alaska Court Enters $2.57 Million Judgment for Physician Hurt in Rear-End Crash, Affirmed on Appeal
After trial: The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the judgment on January 17, 2025, after an earlier 2023 appeal restored the lost earning capacity claim. We could not confirm whether the judgment has been paid.
Won by Law Offices of William Dennie Cook, PC.
Dr. Peggy Downing, a 60-year-old Alaska obstetrician-gynecologist, was rear-ended by a Shoreside Petroleum truck in June 2017 and suffered bruising, broken ribs and a traumatic brain injury. After a bench trial in Palmer and a remand on lost earning capacity, the superior court entered a total judgment of $2,566,155.58 against Shoreside Petroleum and its driver. The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed on January 17, 2025.
What happened
On June 5, 2017, Dr. Peggy Downing was stopped at a construction site in Alaska when a truck driven by an employee of Shoreside Petroleum, Inc. struck the rear of her car. She was 60 years old and ran her own obstetrics and gynecology practice, where she performed complex surgeries at three area hospitals. The crash left her with bruising, broken ribs and neurological symptoms, and her experts attributed a traumatic brain injury to it.
Downing sued Shoreside and the driver, Russell Mills, in the Superior Court at Palmer (Third Judicial District, case 3PA-18-01949 CI). The case was tried to the court rather than a jury, with Judge Kari Kristiansen presiding. Downing's experts testified that the brain injury, together with other injuries the crash aggravated, limited how much surgical work she could do. The defense disputed that she had lost any income beyond a few months in 2017, and its expert, Mason, put her lost income at $79,961 for June through September 2017.
The trial court accepted much of Downing's evidence. It awarded $1,036,491 for future medical and life care expenses, $79,961 for past lost income and $500,000 in noneconomic damages for the impairment of her ability to carry out a significant part of her professional work. Together those awards came to $1,616,452. The court found that her future earning capacity had been reduced, particularly through her loss of complex surgery, but declined to award anything for it because it found the amount had not been proved with enough certainty.
Downing appealed that single ruling. In 2023 the Alaska Supreme Court reversed, holding that once a court finds a loss of future earning capacity, it must estimate the amount from the record rather than dismiss the claim. The case went back to the superior court for that narrow purpose, and both sides told the court no new evidence was needed.
On remand the superior court rejected the methods of both sides' experts. It took the income Downing had actually lost in the 122 days after the crash, converted it to a daily loss, projected that over 230 work days a year, and applied the annual figure over the 6.3 years of work life the court found likely. That produced an award of $949,703.58 for lost earning capacity and a total judgment of $2,566,155.58.
Downing appealed again, arguing the court had set her post-accident earning capacity too high. In a January 17, 2025 opinion, the Alaska Supreme Court found no clear error and affirmed. William D. Cook of the Law Offices of William Dennie Cook in Eagle River, with co-counsel Griffith J. Winthrop III of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, represented Downing on appeal; Matthew T. Findley and Benjamin J. Farkash of Ashburn & Mason, P.C., Anchorage, represented Shoreside and Mills.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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