Jury Awards $1.7 Million to Four Children of 83-Year-Old Pedestrian Killed by Moving Van in Chicago
After trial: The jury's $1,725,000 award was reduced by 1 percent for Clarke's comparative negligence to $1,707,750. Defendants appealed on damages, a jury instruction and closing argument, and the Illinois Appellate Court, First District, affirmed in full on March 7, 2008.
Won by Power Rogers LLP.
George Clarke Jr., 83, was struck by a Medley Moving and Storage van while crossing Michigan Avenue at 95th Street in Chicago in May 2002 and died of his injuries. A Cook County jury awarded his four adult children $1,725,000 on the wrongful death and survival claims, reduced by 1 percent for his own negligence to $1,707,750. The First District affirmed in March 2008.
What happened
On a May day in 2002, George Clarke Jr., 83, was crossing Michigan Avenue at 95th Street on Chicago's South Side when a 26-foot moving van turned left into him. The van belonged to Medley Moving and Storage, Inc. and was driven by Gregory Griffin. Clarke was taken to the hospital as a level one trauma patient and died of his injuries shortly afterward.
Garcia Clarke, his son, sued as executor of the estate in 2003 under the Illinois Wrongful Death Act and Survival Act, on behalf of Clarke's four surviving children. Larry R. Rogers, Jr. of Power Rogers & Smith tried the case for the family.
The defense account was that Griffin never saw Clarke until a second before impact, that the van was heading straight south, and that Clarke was outside the crosswalk. Two women waiting at the light in the first car in the left-turn lane told the jury otherwise. They said Clarke was walking inside the crosswalk on the green signal when the van hit him, and that he looked at one of them and tried to ask for help. The trauma surgeon who treated him described a basilar skull fracture, rib fractures, an open ankle fracture, a scalp laceration and a large hemothorax. He conceded that Clarke's Glasgow coma score of three on arrival made conscious suffering unlikely, but said that if the bystanders' account was accurate there was potentially a period of pain and suffering. One of the women knelt beside Clarke for 10 to 15 minutes before the ambulance arrived.
Three of the children described a father who was healthy and independent at 83. He still drove a school bus, fished, gardened, did repairs at his church, and had been helping one son get a house ready for sale; the two had planned to travel together to go deep sea fishing and visit family in Europe. A daughter who had survived a stroke in 1996 credited his insistence that she keep walking for her recovery.
The jury returned $1,725,000: $275,000 for Clarke's pain and suffering, $250,000 for the loss of gifts, benefits, goods and services, and $1,200,000 for the loss of his society. It found Clarke 1 percent at fault, which brought the judgment to $1,707,750.
Defendants appealed, arguing that the evidence did not support the pain and suffering or the gifts-and-services awards, that the jury instruction should have said 'conscious' pain and suffering, that closing argument was prejudicial, and that the awards called for remittitur. On March 7, 2008, the First District rejected each point and affirmed. The court noted that Illinois law presumes a pecuniary loss when adult children lose a parent, and that the testimony about Clarke's health, work and closeness with his children supported the verdict.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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