Jury Holds All My Sons Moving 65% at Fault After Louisville Driver Hits Illegally Parked Truck
After trial: The jury returned $356,893; 35 percent comparative fault reduced the recovery to $231,980.
Won by Winton & Hiestand Law Group PLLC.
A Jefferson County jury returned a $356,893 verdict against All My Sons Moving after one of its drivers left a large box truck stopped on the roadside without adequate warning, causing a collision that fractured the plaintiff's ribs and produced a lasting sacroiliac joint injury.
What happened
On a Louisville roadway, a driver for All My Sons Moving parked a large white box truck on the side of the road in a position that did not comply with applicable traffic laws. The plaintiff, approaching in her vehicle, did not see the stopped truck in time and drove into it. The impact was significant enough to fracture multiple ribs and cause a sacroiliac joint injury that outlasted the bone fractures.
The broken ribs healed within about eight weeks. The SI joint injury did not. That distinction shaped how Chauncey Hiestand and Joseph Longmeyer of Winton and Hiestand presented the damages case: past medical bills of $56,893, a $100,000 claim for future care tied to the persistent joint condition, and $200,000 for pain and suffering, for a total ask of $356,893.
The central dispute at trial was fault allocation. All My Sons Moving conceded some responsibility, but argued the plaintiff bore a significant share of the blame for failing to avoid a vehicle stopped on the side of the road. The jury found the moving company 65 percent at fault and the plaintiff 35 percent at fault.
Judge Jennifer Wilcox presided. Under Kentucky's comparative-fault rules, the jury's full award of $356,893 was reduced by the plaintiff's 35 percent share, yielding a net recovery of $231,980. Barry A. Rudell II of Markesbery and Richardson in Cincinnati defended All My Sons Moving.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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