$65 Million Verdict for Child's Prenatal Brain Injury After UPS Truck Struck Pregnant Mother's Car

On May 8, 2018, Jodi Pannell was driving through a residential neighborhood in Gladstone, Missouri, just north of Kansas City. She was 13 weeks pregnant. A UPS delivery truck driven by Steven Miller was speeding down the middle of the road and failed to stop at an intersection. The truck slammed into her car. Both vehicles were totaled.

Pannell survived the collision. The question was what it had done to her unborn son. The child was born that October with hypotonia, a condition of low muscle tone throughout the body. Doctors later diagnosed schizencephaly, a permanent brain condition that left him with severe neurological impairments. Conditions like his cannot be detected during pregnancy, which meant the full extent of the harm only became clear after his birth. At trial, UPS argued the brain injury came from genetics or unknown causes rather than the crash.

The family's suit went beyond a simple negligence claim. It alleged that Miller had used crack cocaine for a decade and had failed at rehab twice. UPS had fired him in February 2018 after he went three days without showing up or calling, then reinstated him when he entered a voluntary drug rehabilitation program. The crash came three months later. Because the family brought negligent entrustment and punitive damages claims alongside the negligence count, the trial court allowed jurors to hear that history.

Louis Accurso, Burton Haigh, and Matt Larsen of The Accurso Law Firm tried the case in Clay County Circuit Court before Judge David Chamberlain. Before trial, the family had demanded $39.5 million and UPS had offered $20 million. On March 6, 2023, the jury returned a verdict of $65 million in compensatory damages for the child. Jurors found that Miller's drug history played no role in the crash itself and awarded nothing on the punitive claim, so the entire award was compensation for the child's injury. Because the verdict exceeded the pretrial demand, Missouri law added about $10.3 million in prejudgment interest, bringing the total judgment to roughly $75.3 million.

UPS appealed. Its central argument was that the cocaine evidence should never have reached the jury, since the company had already accepted responsibility for its driver's conduct and there was no credible evidence Miller was under the influence at the time of the wreck. On May 20, 2025, the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District rejected that argument and affirmed the judgment in full. The panel held that the drug history was logically and legally relevant to the negligent entrustment and punitive claims, which fall within a recognized exception to the general rule of McHaffie v. Bunch that bars such evidence once vicarious liability is admitted.

The appellate decision, issued under the caption Midwest Trust Co. as Conservator for K.P. v. United Parcel Service, Inc., case numbers WD86697 and WD87624, left the verdict and interest intact. The underlying trial court case was number 20CY-CV06976 in the Circuit Court of Clay County.