Iowa Jury Puts a Family's Loss at $1.8 Million in Underinsured Motorist Trial
After trial: No appeal was located in Iowa Court of Appeals or Iowa Supreme Court records after the September 2017 verdict, and no post-trial reduction appears in the filings collected with the Iowa State Bar Association verdict report. One caveat on collection: this was a contract trial against an underinsured motorist carrier, and the jury was asked to appraise the family's total loss rather than to enter a sum certain against the insurer. What American Family Mutual Insurance Company ultimately paid under the policy, after the credits and coverage limits the contract and Iowa law apply, is not public.
An eastbound SUV drifted onto the shoulder of Iowa Highway 141 east of Sloan on November 22, 2014, overcorrected, and crossed into the westbound lane, hitting a pickup head on. Five people died, among them Myrna Malone, 70, who was riding beside her husband Larry. The at-fault driver carried too little liability coverage to pay for the losses, so Larry Malone, individually and as administrator of his wife's estate, sued the family's own underinsured motorist carrier, American Family Mutual Insurance Company, for breach of contract in Polk County. The jury's verdict form, filed September 21, 2017, valued the loss of spousal consortium at $1,300,000 and the loss of parental consortium at $250,000 for each of the couple's two adult children, $1,800,000 in all. No appeal followed.
What happened
Around 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 22, 2014, an eastbound 2002 Chevrolet Trailblazer driven by Shishay Gidey, 53, of Sioux City drifted onto the north shoulder of Iowa Highway 141 near Eastland Avenue, just east of Sloan. Gidey overcorrected. The Trailblazer crossed into the westbound lane and struck a 2014 GMC Sierra head on, the Woodbury County Sheriff's Office reported.
There were four people in each vehicle. Larry Malone, 70, of Des Moines was driving the pickup. His wife, Myrna Malone, 70, her sister Donna Timm, 80, of Ute, and the Malones' daughter Jessica were riding with him. Myrna Malone and Donna Timm were both killed. So were three of Gidey's passengers: Kibrom Gebremicael, 46, Yohanes Tesfamariam, 34, and Bahta Gebremedhen, 60, all of Sioux City. Five people died. Three survivors were taken to a Sioux City hospital in serious condition, and the driver of the Trailblazer was later released from the hospital.
Nobody contested how the crash happened. In the litigation that followed, every party agreed Gidey was 100 percent at fault and that he carried too little liability insurance to pay for the harm he caused. The Malones had bought underinsured motorist coverage for precisely that gap, so Larry Malone, individually and as administrator of the Myrna Malone estate and on behalf of the couple's adult children Ryan and Jessica, sued American Family Mutual Insurance Company for breach of that contract in Iowa District Court for Polk County, case number LACL134770. The estate of Donna Timm litigated alongside the Malones in the same case, with its own counsel and its own claims against two other carriers.
Jim Lawyer, John Lawyer and Rob Conklin, then practicing as Lawyer, Lawyer, Dutton & Drake, represented the Malone plaintiffs. The service list on American Family's proposed jury instructions, filed with the Polk County clerk on September 11, 2017, names all three. Liability was not the fight at trial. The jury's job was to appraise the family's total loss under Iowa law, and the claim put to it was loss of consortium: the value of the services, companionship, love, affection and guidance Myrna Malone would have given her husband and her children.
The jury answered five questions on a verdict form filed September 21, 2017. It set the loss of spousal consortium to Larry Malone at $1,300,000, and the loss of parental consortium at $250,000 each for Ryan Malone and Jessica Malone. The total was $1,800,000.
No appeal followed. Searches of Iowa Court of Appeals and Iowa Supreme Court decisions turned up no appellate ruling in the case, and nothing in the trial court file collected by the Iowa State Bar Association's verdict reporter shows the figure being cut after trial.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Official jury verdict form, Iowa District Court for Polk County, case LACL134770, e-filed Sept. 21, 2017: captioned Larry Malone, as administrator of the Myrna Malone estate, v. American Family Mutual Insurance Company, and recording the jury's answers of $1,300,000 loss of spousal consortium to Larry Malone, $250,000 loss of parental consortium to Ryan Malone and $250,000 to Jessica Malone
- 2.Court filing (First Proposed Jury Instructions by Defendant American Family Mutual Insurance Company), Iowa District Court for Polk County, e-filed Sept. 11, 2017: establishes the full caption and the three insurer defendants, states that the jury's task was to decide the damages of the Timm and Malone estates, and its service list names Jim Lawyer, John Lawyer and Rob Conklin of Lawyer, Lawyer, Dutton & Drake as attorneys for the Malone plaintiffs and Tom Drew of the Drew Law Firm for the Timm estate plaintiffs
- 3.Iowa State Bar Association Civil Jury Verdict Reporter entry for case LACL134770, Polk County, trial date Sept. 18, 2017: names James R. Lawyer as plaintiff's counsel and Scott K. Green for the defense, reports the $1.3 million spousal and $500,000 parental loss verdict, and gives the court's statement of the case, including that all parties agreed Shishay Gidey was 100 percent at fault and underinsured and that Jessica Malone and Donna Timm were in the pickup
- 4.Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier (Lee Enterprises), Nov. 23, 2014: reports the Nov. 22, 2014 crash on Highway 141 at Eastland Avenue near Sloan, that the eastbound Trailblazer driven by Shishay Gidey entered the north shoulder and overcorrected into the westbound lane, striking Larry Malone's GMC Sierra, and identifies the five people killed, including Myrna Malone and Donna Timm
- 5.Sioux City Journal, Nov. 2014: follow-up reporting that the driver of the Trailblazer was released from a Sioux City hospital after the crash
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