A Nevada state court jury awarded over $2.7 million in damages to a mother and her four children who sustained injuries after their minivan was struck by a drunk driver, along with $200,000 in punitive damages, and the full trial was recorded gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Network.
The Clark County jury returned its verdict on January 22 following a six-day trial. The trial focused solely on damages for plaintiff Autumn Carver and her children, with the jury’s eventual award falling closer to the amount that attorneys for defendant Daniel Terrazas-Lozano suggested than to the roughly $90 million sought by the plaintiffs.
Carver’s attorneys argued she and her children suffered a range of injuries, including a claimed severe traumatic brain injury, after Terrazas-Lozano sent his Ford F-150 truck over a median while speeding and intoxicated on alcohol and cannabis. Terrazas-Lozano served a prison term for the crash, and the trial addressed damages only after the presiding judge struck his affrimative claiming Carver had any liability for the accident.
Defense attorney Jonathan Hansen argued the injuries described by Carver and her children aren’t as severe as claimed, and much of the trial involved dueling expert witness testimony on the nuances of traumatic brain injuries. Along with their physical injuries, the trial also involved testimony on the allegedly subjective nature of the psychological impact of the crash on Carver’s four children.
The verdict breakdown exceeded some of the amounts Hansen suggested in his closing arguments but otherwise mostly matched the totals he laid out for the jury, though he argued against any award of punitive damages.
The case is captioned Autumn Carver et al. v. Daniel Terrazas-Lozano, docket number A-24-885966-C in Nevada’s Eighth Judicial District Court in Clark County.
