Jury Awards $67,000 To Driver Sideswiped By A Semi On Highway 70

On March 9, 1987, Kim Hammond was driving westbound on Highway 70 in St. Louis with her seven-month-old daughter in the car. She was in the far right lane of traffic. A semi-tractor trailer was traveling parallel to her in the lane to her immediate left, and as it came up on the exit for Highway 94, the truck moved over into her lane. Hammond was still there. The truck struck her car.

Hammond sustained injuries to her right hand and her neck. She got as far as one physical therapy visit in the summer of 1988 before the clinic told her an unpaid earlier bill had to be cleared first, and she could not pay it then. She did not see a doctor again for a year and a half. She testified that the outstanding bill was eventually paid. On approximately March 1, 1989, nearly two years after the crash, Hammond filed a negligence suit against R.L. Smith Trucking Company, the truck's owner.

The case went to trial in the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis on June 25, 1991. R.L. Smith Trucking admitted liability for the collision and fought the case on damages alone, arguing that the hand and neck injuries were worth far less than Hammond claimed. After a three-day trial, the jury returned its verdict on June 27, 1991: $67,000 for Hammond, several times what the defense had urged.

R.L. Smith Trucking appealed, arguing that the trial court had wrongly allowed repeated references to Hammond's financial condition. The appellate court found only two brief statements across the three days of trial. One was Hammond's own explanation of why her treatment had stopped, which the court read as an account of the interruption rather than a plea about her finances. The other came in closing argument, where her lawyer addressed why an additional treating physician had not been called to testify. The company's trial counsel had not objected when most of the complained-of statements were made, which waived the point, and the court found no error in what was left.

Judge Gary M. Gaertner wrote the opinion for the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District; Judges Reinhard and Crane sat on the panel. The court affirmed the $67,000 verdict in full on June 9, 1992. R.L. Smith Trucking's motion for rehearing or transfer to the Missouri Supreme Court was denied about a month later, on July 8, 1992, closing out the case at the number the jury had set.

The opinion lists Gretchen Myers of St. Louis as counsel for Hammond, the respondent on appeal. Nothing about the jury's award was reduced or disturbed at any stage.