Cook County Jury Awards $21.06 Million to Woman With Thoracic Spinal Cord Injury From Maywood Crash
After trial: The firm reports the parties settled after the verdict, on April 29, 2022, for $20 million through mediation, to avoid an appeal. We found no independent confirmation of that settlement or its payment, so the jury figure is shown.
Won by Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard P.C..
Kayla Neese, 33, was hurt in a March 2017 collision in Maywood, Illinois that left her with thoracic spine fractures and a spinal cord injury. The court found the other driver negligent before trial, so the jury decided damages only. On December 9, 2021, a Cook County jury awarded $21,059,014.
What happened
On March 24, 2017, Kayla Neese, then 33, was driving westbound on Oak Street near 9th and 10th avenues in Maywood, Illinois, when another vehicle struck her car. The damage was severe enough that responding crews had to cut her out of the vehicle.
Neese suffered fractures of the thoracic spine and a spinal cord injury that required surgery. According to the firm's account of the case, the fractures were at the third and fourth thoracic vertebrae and the surgery was a six-level fusion running from T1 to T6. She kept the use of her legs, but the firm reports she was left with chronic neuropathic pain along with numbness and tingling in her arms and legs. Her doctors said she would live with thoracic pain for the rest of her life and could not lift, pull or push anything heavier than 40 pounds. Before the crash she had been working two jobs and was solely responsible for her young daughter.
Liability was not the contested question at trial. Before the jury was seated, the court had already found the defendant driver negligent. That narrowed the case to damages alone: what the injuries had cost Neese, what they would cost her over the rest of her life, and what compensation was fair. Trial began on November 30, 2021, in the Circuit Court of Cook County, more than four years after the collision.
Neese was represented by Patrick A. Salvi II and Aaron D. Boeder of Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard. On December 9, 2021, after a damages-only trial, it returned an award of $21,059,014.
Her lawyers told FOX 32 that she lost much of the independence she had worked hard to achieve, and that she would need substantial medical and psychiatric care for the rest of her life.
The case, Neese v. Taylor, No. 18 L 6732, was brought against the driver of the other car. The firm later reported that the parties went to mediation before a retired Cook County judge in April 2022 and settled for less than the jury figure. Patrick Salvi II said at the time that the settlement would let Neese move forward and get treatment without going through a lengthy appeal. We could not find a court record or news report confirming the settlement terms, so the page shows the jury's award.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard P.C.
All Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard P.C. proven verdicts →Eric Johnson, a 64-year-old Missouri courier, lost consciousness and later died after carbon dioxide from dry ice-packed strawberries filled his subcompact car in 2016. His widow sued Prairie Farms Dairy for failing to warn or train him. A Madison County jury awarded $49.5 million in compensatory and $191.5 million in punitive damages in February 2026. Prairie Farms later settled with the family after the verdict.
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A Winnebago County jury awarded $52 million to the Krischon family for a 2018 crash caused by an off-tracking Panera Bread semi-truck that killed an 88-year-old man and seriously injured his son, finding the company and its driver 90 percent at fault. The award was part of a $67 million total verdict that also compensated a second family represented by separate counsel.
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