Nurse Rear-Ended by Tractor-Trailer Wins $931,218 Federal Jury Judgment Against Rush Trucking
After trial: The Second Circuit (211 F.3d 185, 2000) vacated the judgment unless Rounds accepted a $350,000 remittitur of the separate emotional distress awards, leaving $581,218 plus interest, or took a new trial on damages only. The opinions we reviewed do not say which she chose, so the ranked amount is the figure the appeals court allowed to stand.
Won by Ballow, Braisted, O'Brien & Rusin, P.C. and William Mattar Law Offices.
A registered nurse whose pickup was rear-ended by a Rush Trucking tractor-trailer in 1994 won a federal jury award, entered as a $931,218 judgment in January 1999 in the Western District of New York. The Second Circuit held that the separate emotional distress awards duplicated pain and suffering and allowed $581,218 to stand on remittitur. Rush Trucking had admitted its driver caused the crash and contested only the cause and extent of her injuries.
What happened
On January 21, 1994, Adrianne Rounds, a registered nurse who worked at a hospital in Warren, Pennsylvania, was stopped in her pickup truck before the intersection of Route 62 and Jackson Run Road in Conewago, Pennsylvania. A tractor-trailer owned by Rush Trucking Corporation struck the pickup from behind and pushed it through the intersection for roughly 180 feet. The damage to her vehicle was lighter than the force of the impact suggested, and Rounds drove on to the hospital and reported for work.
Over the following months and years her symptoms grew. She slept for nearly four days after the crash. Back at work she had numbness and tingling in her limbs, nausea, and pain in her lower back, arm, leg and head. Her treating chiropractor diagnosed herniated and bulging discs in the neck and lower back and a reversal of the normal curve of her cervical spine, and a dentist described jaw dysfunction with significant facial pain. Rounds also described sudden drop attacks, in which she fell to the ground, along with migraines, blurred vision and sensitivity to light. A rehabilitation physician testified that the whiplash and a blow to her head against the rear window had caused a minor brain injury. Doctors told the jury that many of the symptoms were permanent.
Rush Trucking admitted that its driver caused the collision. The fight at trial was over cause and extent: the company disputed that the crash produced her condition and challenged how severe it was. Rounds sued in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York in 1995, and the parties consented to trial before Magistrate Judge Leslie G. Foschio. F. David Rusin of Ballow, Braisted, O'Brien & Rusin, P.C., in Williamsville, New York, represented her, with Lisa Solomon on the appellate brief. Rusin now practices with William Mattar. Jury selection began on November 2, 1998, and testimony started the next day. Rounds had not been able to return to nursing, had to interrupt her art and illustration studies because of her health, and needed help with housework and finances.
The jury itemized its award: $18,500 in past medical expenses, $160,000 in past lost earnings, $250,000 for past pain and suffering, $250,000 for past emotional distress, $20,000 in future medical expenses, $160,000 in future lost earnings, $100,000 for future pain and suffering, and $100,000 for future emotional distress. After a recalculation under New York's CPLR 7511, judgment was entered on January 28, 1999, for $931,218 plus interest. The magistrate judge refused to set it aside.
Rush Trucking appealed. On April 27, 2000, the Second Circuit upheld the finding that the award was not excessive under New York law. It held, however, that New York does not allow a jury to award emotional distress separately from pain and suffering, because the two overlap. The court vacated the judgment and sent the case back for a new trial on damages unless Rounds accepted a reduction of $350,000, the full amount of the separate emotional distress awards, which would leave $581,218 plus interest. Rounds could instead choose a new trial limited to damages, with the finding that Rush Trucking's negligence caused her injuries left in place.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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