Essex County Jury Awards $55 Million to a 22-Year-Old Who Lost Both Legs When a Jackknifing Tractor Trailer Crushed Her Against a Guardrail

Angel May Rider was 22, working as a barista at a Peet's Coffee inside a Maryland rest stop, and commuting there from her mother's home in New Jersey. She left the house around 3 a.m. on December 21, 2018. The roads were wet from rain.

The crash that took her legs was the third of three collisions in quick succession on Interstate 95. A hit-and-run driver had sideswiped a white Kia, leaving it disabled and sitting sideways across a travel lane. Rider, merging onto the highway, skidded on the wet pavement and struck it. She got out, called 911, and stood against the guardrail. About a minute later a tractor trailer owned by Jersey City Transfer and Alert Motor Freight came down the same lane. Its driver, Paul DePass, braked and swerved right to avoid her disabled car. The unloaded truck jackknifed and crushed her against the guardrail, nearly severing both legs on impact. She was left a double amputee, facing a lifetime of surgeries, physical therapy, and home care.

Emeka Igwe of The Igwe Law Firm brought the case in Essex County Superior Court and called in Kevin O'Brien of Stampone O'Brien Dilsheimer Holloway as trial counsel. The defense fought first over which state's law applied. Maryland follows contributory negligence, which can erase a claim entirely, and caps noneconomic damages. The court applied New Jersey law instead.

At the April 2024 trial before Judge Thomas Vena, Rider testified and presented seven experts and four lay witnesses. Her accident reconstruction expert told jurors that DePass, driving an unloaded rig at 58 miles per hour on a wet road with low visibility, should have been going about 44. The defense called one witness and argued Rider had put herself in a position of peril by hitting the Kia and standing near the roadway. Jurors rejected that. On April 11, 2024, they unanimously found the defendants negligent and, by a 7 to 1 vote, found Rider not negligent at all.

The verdict broke down as $559,413 in stipulated past medical expenses, $2.5 million in past and future lost wages, $25 million for future medical care, $3 million for past pain and suffering, and $23,940,587 for future pain and suffering: $55 million in total, reported as the largest verdict in Essex County history. The trial court molded the judgment to roughly $54.5 million and added $4.8 million in prejudgment interest, for a total just over $59.3 million. Post-trial motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, a new trial, or remittitur were all denied.

The defendants appealed on six grounds, from the choice of New Jersey law to a claim that the future medical award was grossly excessive. On May 18, 2026, the New Jersey Appellate Division affirmed in full under docket A-3943-23, finding no miscarriage of justice in the liability findings or the size of the award. Rider, unable to return to work, uses prosthetic legs and needs daily assistance; the jury's $25 million future care award is meant to cover the rest of her life.