$150.75 Million Verdict for Girl Orphaned in Fiery Freeway Crash

Before dawn on November 22, 2009, the Asam family left Riverside in their SUV, pulling a utility trailer, headed for Oregon to spend Thanksgiving with relatives. Michael Asam, an electrical lineman for the City of Riverside, was driving with his wife Shannon and their three children. On the Foothill (210) Freeway near Sunland, the SUV hit debris in the roadway, veered onto the shoulder, and slammed into the back of an 18-wheeler that driver Rudolph Ortiz had parked in the darkness in an area posted for emergency stopping only, with no lights on and no reflectors set out. The SUV wedged beneath the trailer and caught fire. The two younger children, a 9-year-old girl and her 11-year-old brother, escaped through a broken rear window and watched the fire take their parents and their eldest brother.

The children's paternal grandfather, David Asam, filed the wrongful death case in Los Angeles County Superior Court in October 2011, and Brian Brandt of Laguna Hills tried it for the surviving daughter. The years between the crash and the trial added their own grief: in June 2013, months before jury selection, her brother who had escaped the wreck with her died by suicide. His sister carried his claim forward as his successor in interest.

The defense argued the blame belonged to the father, but on October 25, 2013, after about three days of deliberations, the jury found Ortiz negligent for parking the rig where and how he did, found that Michael Asam's own conduct was not a substantial factor in his family's deaths, and held Ortiz and his employer, Watsonville-based Bhandal Bros. Trucking, liable. The award came to $150,750,000, including $8.75 million on the deceased brother's claim that passed to his sister, and with interest and costs the total judgment climbed well past $175 million. It was reported at the time as one of the largest personal injury awards in California history.

The verdict did not survive post-trial motions. On February 3, 2014, Judge Marc Marmaro granted the defendants' motion for a new trial and vacated the award, finding the number excessive and writing that it reflected a desire to punish rather than a desire to fairly compensate. That order wiped out the $150.75 million judgment as entered. Rather than retry the case, the parties settled: in April 2014 Brandt filed papers in Los Angeles Superior Court reporting a settlement for his young client, and the terms were kept confidential. So the girl's recovery was real but the amount was never publicly reported, and the headline number belongs to the jury's verdict, not to what was ultimately paid. What endures from the trial itself is the jury's finding on the merits: a professional driver who parked a big rig on a freeway shoulder at night with no lights or reflectors, and a trucking company answerable for the family destroyed by it.