C’ville jury gives $10.5M in wrongful death case

A Charlottesville jury has awarded more than $10.5 million to family members of a woman fatally injured when a concrete mixer truck fell on her car in 2007. The award ranks among the largest in Virginia arising from a death case.

The case went to trial after two failed attempts at mediation and a pitched battle over access to photographs posted on the surviving husband’s Facebook page. The courthouse clash led to an award of sanctions against the husband’s lawyer who accused a defense lawyer of “hacking” the husband’s Facebook account.

The jury award included $8.227 million for the wrongful death of 25-year-old nurse Jessica Lester and $2.35 million for the personal injury claim of her husband, Isaiah Lester. Defendants William Sprouse and his employer, Allied Concrete Co., had earlier offered $3 million in the case. The plaintiffs had demanded $4.45 million.

Isaiah Lester was represented by Matthew B. Murray of Charlottesville and Malcolm P. McConnell of Richmond. The parents of Jessica Lester were represented by Joseph A. Sanzone of Lynchburg.
The defendants were represented by John W. Zunka of Charlottesville and David M. Tafuri of Washington.

Including interest, the verdict is worth more than $12 million, Murray said. The apparent individual record for a wrongful death verdict in Virginia is a $10.4-million Newport News award based on maritime law for a shipyard worker diagnosed with mesothelioma from exposure to asbestos.

Sprouse was at the wheel of an Allied concrete mixer truck on the morning of June 21, 2007, carrying 36,000 pounds of concrete for a project in Palmyra. He chose a route that took him over a curvy mountain road that runs near Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home.

The plaintiffs claimed Sprouse drove too fast. According to Murray, witnesses testified some of the concrete truck’s wheels were off the ground when Sprouse encountered the Lesters’ Honda on the tight turns of State Route 53. Sprouse claimed he swerved to avoid a pickup truck.

Sprouse’s truck overturned, crushing the Lesters’ car. Jessica’s skull was fractured. She died eight days later. Isaiah faced more than $27,000 in medical bills.

Charlottesville Circuit Judge Edward L. Hogshire presided over the trial and the jury returned its verdict Dec. 9.

Murray said the size of the verdict was driven by both the defendants’ behavior and sympathy for the victims of the accident. Sprouse had pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2008 and was sentenced to 30 days in jail. At trial, however, he took the stand and tried to explain away his negligence. “That didn’t go over too well,” Murray said.

Murray also said Jessica’s death was heartbreaking for her family. Married for just two years, she was training for a promising career as a nurse coordinator to a U.Va. neurosurgeon. “Jessica Lester was a wonderful woman. I had a neurosurgeon and two orthopedic surgeons come to trial to testify what a great nurse she was,” Murray said. “A dozen lay witnesses talked about how great she was.”

“It was a nice family,” added co-counsel Sanzone. “I think that had a lot to do with the verdict.”

Isaiah, Jessica’s husband, suffered chronic post-traumatic stress syndrome and depression. “Evidence of Mr. Lester’s suffering and the suffering of Jessica’s parents was very strong,” said M. Bryan Slaughter of Charlottesville, who watched closing arguments and reviewed trial transcripts.

Defense lawyers tried to undermine Isaiah’s bereavement claims. Hired by the defense, Arlington psychiatrist Liza Gold, M.D., examined Isaiah and agreed he suffered from PTSD. Gold testified, however, that some pictures posted on Isaiah’s Facebook page were inconsistent with depression, Murray reported. Gold also was critical of Isaiah’s therapists for not sending him for substance abuse treatment.

“The defense focused on irrelevancies,” Murray claimed: “Drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana to quell his PTSD symptoms and rummaging around in his Facebook account. I think that had a negative effect on the jury.”

An initial attempt at mediation was scrubbed when an adjuster for Great American Insurance Co., one of three carriers with coverage in the case, failed to show up at the session. The mediator, retired Judge Paul F. Sheridan, called it a “calculated insult,” according to Murray.

A second mediation with retired Judge William H. Ledbetter Jr. ended with the parties far apart, Murray said.

Slaughter said the makeup of the jury was not significantly different from many other Charlottesville juries. “It was a mix of age, sex and race,” he said. If anything, he said, the jury appeared “a tad more conservative than most.”

Slaughter said the verdict adds to the evidence that the perceived value of wrongful death cases is changing. Previously, he said, the thinking was that so-called “solace cases” had little value. “I think this case and others are changing that perception,” he said.

Sanzone said he agrees the legal climate is changing, pointing to a $5.265-million verdict in Albemarle County last year for the family of a 16-year-old girl killed in a motor vehicle accident.