CVN screenshot of plaintiff attorney Christian Morris delivering her opening statement
Las Vegas, NV - A Nevada state court judge declared a mistrial Wednesday the day after opening statements in a lawsuit stemming from a fatal trucking accident, and the full proceedings were recorded gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Network.
Judge Ronald Israel announced his ruling due to a witness supposedly violating the restrictions of a motion in limine and came after a Clark County jury heard they would be asked to award millions of dollars to a woman who sustained severe injuries when a tractor trailer swerved into oncoming traffic and struck the vehicle she was riding in head on.
An attorney for plaintiff Elena Russell argued during opening statements Tuesday that Cook’s Truck & Tractor LLC negligently hired the driver of the truck, Gregory Crawford, and that he could have avoided the collision with better training. However the company’s attorney told jurors the fault of the accident lay with another vehicle Crawford swerved to avoid.
The trial’s full opening statements and initial witness testimony are available for unlimited on-demand viewing with a subscription to CVN’s on-demand trial video library. CVN’s library includes hundreds of trials from throughout the United States featuring many of the country’s best civil trial attorneys practicing today.
Christian Morris of Christian Morris Trial Attorneys told jurors that Russell’s future medical expenses alone would total nearly $2.5 million dollars, and that she was lucky to be alive following the 2019 accident.
Morris told jurors Crawford was speeding at the time of the crash and lacked the proper training to drive a 2015 Freightliner Coronado Tractor with two trailer attachments. She said Russel nearly died after the truck slammed into the 2018 Chevrolet Suburban she was riding in, killing the car’s driver.
Morris showed jurors the truck’s dash cam footage of the accident, which depicted a van driving into oncoming traffic from a side street and attempting to merge into the truck’s lane. The truck attempt to avoid the van by swerving left, sending it careening into the oncoming traffic.
Morris told jurors a driver with better training would have known to swerve right instead, and that the decision not do “fell below the standard of care for a commercial truck driver.”
“This is a case about a truck driver who should have never been behind the wheel,” Morris said.
Representing Cook’s, Josh Aicklen of Lewis Brisbois also relied heavily on the truck’s dash cam but placed the blame for the accident entirely on the van.
CVN screenshot of defense attorney Josh Aicklen delivering his opening statement
Aicklen stressed that no amount of training can overcome human reaction time limits and that Crawford simply didn’t have enough time to avoid the van when it suddenly pulled in front of his truck.
Aicklen emphasized his point by repeatedly saying the number 1,001 out loud.
“1,001. Saying that out loud - that’s how much time my client’s driver had to make a decision,” he said.
A date for a potential retrial has not currently been set.
E-mail David Siegel at dsiegel@cvn.com