Cook County Jury Awards $4.75 Million to Estate of 84-Year-Old Killed in Chicago Police Van Crash
After trial: We found no report of an appeal or post-trial reduction. Collection details were not public.
Won by Romanucci & Blandin.
Verona Gunn, 84, a retired teacher, died on May 25, 2019 after a speeding Chicago police van ran a red light and a police SUV was driven into her car. The city conceded liability, and a Cook County jury in March 2023 awarded her estate $4.75 million. Three other occupants of the car shared a further $180,000.
What happened
On May 25, 2019, Verona Gunn, an 84-year-old retired elementary school teacher, was riding in a Nissan through the Austin neighborhood on Chicago's West Side. She was being driven home from a family cookout. At the intersection of West Division Street and North Laramie Avenue, a Chicago Police Department van traveling west at high speed ran a red light and struck a police SUV heading north. The impact sent the SUV into the front of the Nissan.
Mrs. Gunn suffered traumatic injuries and died at the hospital several hours later, after surgery. Her daughter, a family friend and the friend's 9-year-old grandchild were also in the car and were hurt. Ten police officers were injured in the crash as well.
Because the city admitted fault, the questions left for the jury were narrow. It had to place a value on the life of a woman in her mid-eighties who had spent a career teaching children, and on the injuries and emotional harm suffered by the people who were with her when she was struck.
The family's estate and the other occupants sued the City of Chicago in the Circuit Court of Cook County, represented by Antonio Romanucci and civil rights attorney Andrew Stroth.
The case went to trial at the Daley Center in March 2023. The city conceded liability, so the two-day trial concerned damages only: what Mrs. Gunn's death meant to her family and what the other passengers had suffered. The jury deliberated for about four hours over a Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning.
On March 29, 2023, jurors returned a judgment of $4.93 million against the city. Of that, $4.75 million went to Mrs. Gunn's estate. The remaining $180,000 was divided among the three other people in the car for their physical injuries and emotional suffering. Reports at the time described the award as one of the highest in Illinois for the death of a person in her eighties.
The city's Law Department declined to comment on the verdict. Stroth said the jury had honored its oath and held the City of Chicago accountable for Mrs. Gunn's death. We found no report of an appeal or a post-trial reduction.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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