Denver Jury Returns $2.25 Million Verdict Against Drunk Driver Who Fled a Fatal Motorcycle Crash

On the night of June 26, 2011, Abdul Alhilo was riding his motorcycle on a Denver street near Federal Boulevard and Virginia Avenue. A white Jeep Cherokee driven by Daniel Kliem pulled out of a car wash and into traffic, directly into Alhilo's path. A surveillance camera caught the motorcycle skidding an instant before it struck the Jeep. Alhilo, 25, did not survive. Kliem parked the vehicle, left two passengers inside, and ran.

Alhilo had come to Colorado as a refugee from Iraq, and his family said he hoped to work as a computer engineer. Police arrested Kliem two days after the crash on hit-and-run charges. Kliem, then 26, already had prior convictions for driving while impaired.

Naema Alhilo, the rider's mother, brought a wrongful-death suit, represented by Kurt Zaner and Marc Harden of the firm now known as Zaner Law. The case was not an easy one. Alhilo had been riding well above the 35 mph limit, and the defense leaned hard on his speed. The plaintiff's team argued that Kliem's choices, drinking, pulling into traffic, and then fleeing, drove the collision and the death, and they asked the jury for exemplary damages, the kind the law reserves for conduct that goes past ordinary negligence.

The jury split the blame. It assigned 55 percent of the fault to Kliem and 45 percent to Alhilo for his speed. It awarded $750,000 in noneconomic damages and $1,500,000 in exemplary damages, a $2.25 million verdict that drew coverage in the Denver Post.

Because the jury placed 45 percent of the fault on Alhilo, the trial court reduced the compensatory part of the judgment to match. It apportioned $412,500 of the noneconomic award to Kliem, an amount below Colorado's wrongful-death cap, so no further cap reduction applied.

Kliem appealed. He argued, among other points, that the jury should have heard about Alhilo's own driving history. In Alhilo v. Kliem, 2016 COA 142, the Colorado Court of Appeals disagreed and affirmed the judgment. The court held that the decedent's prior driving record was properly excluded, and that the circumstantial evidence, the alcohol containers in Kliem's vehicle, his flight from the scene, and his failure to seek medical help or turn himself in, was enough to support the exemplary damages.