CVN screenshot of plaintiff attorney Spencer Lucas delivering his closing argument
Tacoma, WA - A Washington State court jury has awarded $12.74 million to a father and son who suffered serious injuries after being rear-ended by a lawn care company truck, and the full trial was recorded gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Network.
The Pierce County jury’s September 25th verdict far surpasses a $2 million settlement offer from defendant TruGreen LLC according to attorney Spencer Lucas of Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP, who represents plaintiffs Bradley Shepherd and his son Colton.
TruGreen conceded liability for the 2023 crash, but the parties clashed during the seven-day trial over what would be reasonable compensation for Shepherd and his son.
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Lucas asked jurors to award over $27.5 million, arguing the accident caused a serious spinal fracture that required Shepherd, then 42, to undergo an invasive fusion surgery in addition to badly aggravating the PTSD he acquired during multiple tours of duty as an Army Ranger. Colton, 12 at the time, suffered a fractured leg in the accident, which occurred when the TruGreen driver made an illegal left turn at an intersection.
TruGreen maintained Shepherd achieved steady progress recovering after his surgery, and that both the extent of his injuries and his claimed future wage loss were inflated by the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses.
Lucas told CVN after the trial the case went forward without a high/low agreement in place. He said the defense made a $2 million offer to resolve the case, which they withdrew when the jury announced it reached a verdict.
He said the plaintiffs made their final demand of $15 million before trial but no further settlement discussions took place until the day of the verdict, adding that recoverable costs are estimated at $300k in addition to statutory interest, bringing the total amount of recovery to more than $13 million.
Attorneys for TruGreen did not respond to a request for comment from CVN.
The trial mostly came down to a clash of expert witnesses, and Lucas told CVN he feels his cross-examination of the defense’s neurosurgery, psychiatry, vocational/life care planning experts played a key role in the outcome.
“While they all tried to change their testimony at trial, we impeached them with cross-examination video clips from their depositions,” he said, emphasizing that they were forced to confirm the severity of the spinal cord injury and the PTSD exacerbated by the crash.
Lucas said he faced the challenge of the defense placing his client under pre-trial surveillance, and he had to contextualize both Shepherd’s medicinal marijuana use and his vacations out of the country after the crash.
Lucas explained that although a successful motion-in-limine kept the actual surveillance footage of Shepherd smoking marijuana out of the trial, that it was still well-known he used cannabis for therapeutic purposes.
“We addressed this up front in jury selection,” Lucas said. “We did not hide from it and contextualized that responsible marijuana use is safer than opioids for pain management.”
Regarding Shepherd’s travel to Peru, Lucas clarified it was an event specifically for veterans with PTSD, and that Shepherd was still extremely limited in terms of what he could do.
“He was not even able to go on the most basic hike due to his injuries,” Lucas explained.
The case marked the first trial in Washington State for Lucas, who despite living and working in California for the last 25 years was born and raised near Tacoma, giving his parents and some college friends a chance to see him argue a case in-person.
“It was a special experience for me trying a case in the Pacific Northwest where I have such fond memories of my childhood.”
The plaintiffs are also represented at trial by Bobby Reagan of Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP.
TruGreen is represented by David Richards and David Creagh of Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP as well as by Galen L. Ryan of Gardner Trabolsi & Associates PLLC.
Email David Siegel at dsiegel@cvn.com