$15.4 Million Verdict for DUI Crash Passenger With Skull Fractures and Permanent Brain Damage
Won by Leesfield & Partners.
A Broward County jury awarded $15.4 million to Dwight Grant, a 22-year-old backseat passenger who suffered skull fractures and permanent frontal-lobe brain damage when a drunk driver with a BAC of .21 rear-ended the stopped car at a drawbridge in Pompano Beach.
What happened
Dwight Grant was in the backseat of a friend's car on a Pompano Beach road, waiting for a raised drawbridge to come down, when Matthew Lyons plowed into them at high speed. Police found Lyons had a blood alcohol concentration of .21, nearly three times Florida's legal limit. Lyons had been driving so fast that by the time he turned and saw the line of stopped vehicles, he had no room to stop.
The collision left Grant with skull fractures, facial fractures, and frontal-lobe brain damage. Surgeons repaired the fractures, but the neurological damage proved permanent. After discharge, Grant developed a seizure disorder that did not respond to medication, ending his ability to work as a handyman in Fort Lauderdale.
Thomas Scolaro of Leesfield and Partners (now Leesfield Scolaro) tried the case before Judge Mily Rodriguez-Powell in Broward County Circuit Court. The legal fight had begun years earlier: before trial could even start, Lyons's insurer, AIG, tried to enforce a policy-limits settlement that included terms Grant had not agreed to, such as a blanket release of all parties and a nondisclosure clause. Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed the trial court's enforcement order in June 2009, finding AIG's response was a counteroffer, not an acceptance, and the case proceeded toward trial.
At trial, the jury heard evidence on Grant's lost earning capacity, his ongoing medical needs including lifetime seizure management and neurological care, and the daily impact of his frontal-lobe injury on memory, cognition, and independence. After a five-day trial, the six-person jury awarded $2.7 million for past and future lost wages, $6.7 million for past and future medical care, and $6 million for past and future pain and suffering, totaling $15.4 million.
No post-trial remittitur or appellate reduction of the verdict has been identified in public records.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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