Delaware County Jury Awards $3.64 Million to a Federal Employee Forced Into Disability Retirement by a Spinal Cyst From an I-95 Rear-End Crash

Joyce Ferguson was 49 and driving on Interstate 95 in December 2019 when Gregory Benton-Logan hit her from behind. She went to the hospital complaining of neck and back pain and tingling down her back. X-rays showed no fractures and she was released.

In early January 2020 she saw her primary care physician with the same complaints and started physical therapy. About a month in, she suffered a stroke that was not believed to be related to the collision, and it kept her out of therapy for several months. When she was finally imaged again in July 2020, an MRI showed a syrinx, a fluid-filled cyst, in her cervical spinal cord. The neurosurgeon who treated her attributed the syrinx to the crash and recommended a laminectomy and placement of a shunt. Ferguson sought a second opinion. That surgeon also recommended a laminectomy, found the syrinx was traumatically induced, and concluded the crash had aggravated her degenerative disc disease. She treated with injections instead, and told the jury she would eventually need the surgery. She continued to suffer headaches and neck and back pain.

Ferguson had spent her career with the federal government, held a security clearance, and was earning more than $100,000 a year with health coverage and a pension when the crash happened. She kept working in person until her office closed during the pandemic and continued working until she was required to return to the office, but in March 2022 she retired as disabled, 13 years early. Her vocational and economic experts testified she could no longer engage in any gainful employment.

Benton-Logan's defense, handled by Jonathan Auth of the Law Offices of Francis D. Mackin, called the collision a minor rear-end accident. Defense experts said the MRI showed no injury, that Ferguson had complained of head pain before the crash, and that her expert witnesses had never accounted for the stroke's effect on her ability to work. The pretrial memo suggested she was malingering. According to her own memo the defendant had $3.3 million in coverage available, and the final offer before trial was $150,000.

J.B. Dilsheimer of Stampone O'Brien Dilsheimer Law was lead trial counsel, with Tyler Stampone. Dilsheimer's approach was to let the evidence, which he described as uncontroverted, and the plaintiff carry the case: Ferguson answered questions directly and without defensiveness, and he said the defense had taken for granted that her account would come across as embellished.

The case was tried over three days before Judge Spiros Angelos in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas. On September 29, 2023, the jury returned a verdict of $3,639,125: $1.48 million for pain and suffering, nearly $1.2 million for future medical expenses, nearly $730,000 for lost future earnings, and more than $228,000 for past lost earnings. The award exceeded the available coverage and came in at more than 24 times the last offer. Dilsheimer and his partner Kevin O'Brien both pointed to the verdict as part of a trend of suburban Pennsylvania juries, long thought of as conservative, returning awards closer to what plaintiffs believe their cases are worth. We found no appeal to the Pennsylvania Superior Court.