Nebraska Personal Injury Verdicts and Settlements

An Omaha jury found Navistar defrauded Nationwide Transportation by concealing known defects in 24 ProStar trucks equipped with MaxxForce 13-liter engines, awarding more than $500,000 in compensatory damages.

Berry Law won a $250,000 verdict against the State of Nebraska for Thomas F. Davis, who spent 13 months in the state penitentiary after a Hall County jury convicted him in 1969 of killing his wife, a verdict the Nebraska Supreme Court reversed the following year after finding the trial was marred by withheld forensic evidence and prosecutorial misconduct.

The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed a $34,000 jury verdict for Terry W. Pitt, an Omaha chef who sustained a 20-to-25-percent permanent impairment to his body as a whole after a Checker Cab struck his vehicle while he was making a left turn near 22nd Street and Chandler Road in Bellevue.

The Nebraska Supreme Court reversed a post-verdict judgment for the defense and reinstated a $25,000 jury award for a patron beaten at an after-hours Ranch Bowl dance, holding that a venue with three fights per night cannot call a restroom attack unforeseeable.

The Nebraska Supreme Court reversed a directed verdict for the defense in Mary Cohan's delayed breast-cancer diagnosis case, ordering a new trial against the radiology and OB/GYN providers responsible for misreading her 2009 mammogram.

The Nebraska Supreme Court upheld a permanent total disability award for a truck driver whose 2009 rollover on an Interstate 680 on-ramp in Omaha combined with pre-existing mental and cognitive impairments left him unable to compete in any regular branch of the labor market.

The Nebraska Supreme Court reversed a trial court ruling and held that when an employer denies a workers' compensation claim, the employee is not bound by the normal chain-of-referral rules for choosing physicians, and the employer must pay for all medical treatment later found to be compensable.

The Nebraska Court of Appeals affirmed a three-judge panel's ruling that Gloria Montoya, a Tyson Foods worker, was permanently and totally disabled as a result of injuries sustained on the job, rejecting the company's appeal in full.

Rensch and Rensch won reversal of summary judgment in a legal malpractice case, establishing that owners of a closely held corporation may personally sue the company's attorneys when their financial interests are inseparable from the entity's.