Trucking Firm Forced to Pay $15.3 Million to Injured Man
By Andrew Weatherford
Published on December 24, 2008
In one of the largest personal injury settlements in Kansas state history, a federal jury awarded Terry Frederick $15. 3 million dollars for injuries he sustained in a 2006 late-night tractor-trailer crash.
Frederick, an employee of Yellow Transportation, was in the sleeping berth of his tractor-trailer at the time of the crash. His co-driver, Dennis Bottorff, was operating the rig when it rear-ended a Swift Transportation tractor-trailer driven by Robyn Getchel.
Bottorff was killed instantly and Frederick suffered severe spinal-cord injuries that left him disabled.
Frederick's attorneys, Lynn Johnson and Scott Nutter of Shamberg Johnson & Bergman, argued that Getchel and Swift Transportation were to blame for the accident. An accident reconstruction expert analyzed the angle of the Swift tractor-trailer to the highway and determined that Getchel had failed to negotiate the turn into the rest stop that she claimed she was making at the time of the crash. Two towing company employees who drove Getchel after the accident testified that she confessed to them that she missed the turn and was backing out on onto the highway when her rig was struck.
In addition, the attorneys showed that Swift Transportation was negligent in their hiring of Getchel, who had failed her commercial licensing exam several times and had a history of drug use. In a drug test conducted after the accident, she tested positive for methamphetamine.
Bottorff's widow has also retained the services of Johnson and Nutter and is suing Swift Transportation in a case that is expected to go to trial sometime next year.
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