$1.43 Million Verdict After a Tarrant County Grain-Truck Sideswipe
Justin Warner and Bradford Hendrickson tried the Pratt family’s case for three days in the 96th District Court of Tarrant County. The jury awarded $1,206,562.16. Punitive damages added $220,000 against the farming company that put the driver on the road. The whole recovery came to about $1.43 million, close to ten times the first number the defense had offered.
A commercial grain truck changed lanes into the Pratts and sideswiped the car. It spun across more than one lane of highway in Tarrant County. Treatment ran past 16 months: physical therapy, lumbar injections, and counseling for the Pratts’ child, who was afraid to get back in a car. The medical bills were over $150,000.
The farm exemption did not cover the lane change
The company spent the case hiding behind the farm-vehicle exceptions in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. Those rules let certain farm operations skip reporting and oversight that other carriers have to live with. They do not make a bad lane change legal. What we found in the file was a company with no meaningful driver training, no real supervision, and no safety program worth the name. The Texas Department of Transportation had already audited it and written it up.
This was not a mystery crash. A reconstruction expert walked the jury through the photographs and the police report so the lane change was on the table in plain view. The treating doctors, a board-certified pain management physician and a board-certified orthopedic surgeon, explained the injuries, including a surgery one of the Pratts still had ahead of them. Every doctor agreed the family was hurt, and that included the doctor the defense hired. The company and the insurer went after the treatment and the bills anyway. A billing specialist put a number on the care and showed why it was necessary. The testimony landed hard enough that the defense lawyer asked the jury to adopt that specialist’s figures as the value of the medical care.
What they offered, and what the jury did
Mediation produced $52,500 from the defendants. A neutral mediator proposed $375,000. The defense called that too much for a case like this. The week before trial, the best they would do was $265,000.
“Insurance companies count on families settling for less out of fear of trial,” says attorney Bradford Hendrickson. “We don’t operate that way. When they offered $265,000 the week before trial, we knew our clients were entitled to more — for their pain, for the toll this crash took, and for a family that hasn’t felt safe in a car since. We prepared our clients to take the stand at trial, presented the full weight of the evidence, and put our faith in a Tarrant County jury. They proved us right.”
At trial they blamed Mr. Pratt for driving too close to a tractor-trailer, and they called a retained doctor to say the treatment was unnecessary. The jury rejected both. The company and the driver were held fully responsible: $1,206,562.16 in compensation, and $220,000 in punitive damages meant to make this kind of driving expensive the next time someone thinks about it on a Texas highway.
If a truck hit you or somebody in your family, call 1-888-839-5444. The consultation is free. You don’t pay a fee unless we recover.