The attorney for the defendant in a multi-vehicle crash was able to reduce the verdict for the plaintiff from $500,000 to just $10,000.
The plaintiff in the case, Benjamin Behel, was towing a gooseneck trailer on I-55 near Cape Girardeau when his trailer was rear-ended by a Heritage truck driven by the defendant, Berney Wescott. The resulting accident involved three tractor-trailers, according to Wescott’s attorney Stephen L. Beimdiek of Lashly & Baer.
“When Wescott hit plaintiff’s trailer the trailer separated from plaintiff’s truck and the tanker trailer attached to Wescott’s truck jack-knifed,” according to Beimdiek. “Plaintiff lost control of his truck and slid into the median. A third truck behind Wescott then hit Wescott’s tanker and slid off the highway into the median where it hit plaintiff’s truck.”
The driver of the third truck was granted summary judgment.
Behel claimed Wescott was a distracted driver who should have seen and avoided his tractor/trailer as seen in the dashcam video from Wescott’s truck, according to Beimdiek. Behel said Wescott was watching a college football game on his cell phone while driving while Wescott claimed that he was only listening to the game through the Bluetooth on his cell phone.
A few days prior to the crash, two tires on Behel’s trailer blew out and he left the trailer in Cape Girardeau to later take the tires off and raise the axel. Behel was in the process of driving this trailer to a location in Sikeston when another trailer blew off. Behel did not stop when this happened and continued driving at an alleged 40 miles per hour on the highway.
Both Behel and Wescott had accident reconstruction experts testify at the trial. Wescott’s experts argued this was a looming case where Behel was actually driving 22 to 25 miles down the highway and Wescott could not understand exactly how slow he was driving until there was nothing he could do to avoid the crash.
“My arguments were that this was an unavoidable accident because my driver (Wescott) could not have reasonably anticipated or perceived how slowly plaintiff was driving down a highway such that by the time he actually realized how slowly he was driving he didn’t have enough time to avoid the accident,” Beimdiek told Missouri Lawyers Media. “I argued that plaintiff’s accident reconstruction expert simply relied on plaintiff’s testimony that he was driving 40 mph on the highway and didn’t otherwise try to calculate or verify his speed whereas the defense experts were able to calculate and opine from the dash cam video and other evidence that plaintiff was driving 22 to 25 mph.”
The resulting allocation of fault was 92% to Behel and 8% fault to Wescott.
The original verdict was $500,000 but this was later reduced to $40,000 per assessment of fault and further reduced to $10,000 after applying set-off from a settlement with the co-defendant.
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Amount of verdict, judgment or settlement: $10,000
Type of action: Motor Vehicle Collison
Allocation of Fault: 92% fault to Plaintiff 8% fault to Defendants
Breakdown: Verdict for Plaintiff for $500,000.00 but reduced to $40,000.00 per assessment of fault and further reduced to $10,000.00 after applying set-off from settlement with co-defendant.
Venue: U.S. District Court for Eastern District of Missouri
Case Number/Date: 1:21-cv-00035-SNLJ / 5/15/2024
Judge: Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr.
Plaintiffs’ Experts: William Hampton W.E. Hampton & Associates, Inc. — Accident reconstruction.
Defendants’ Experts: Fred Semke, Semke Forensic — Accident reconstruction.
Injuries: Head, brain, neck, back, spine shoulder, arm, elbow, wrist, hand, chest, abdomen, hip, pelvis, leg, knee, ankle, foot, eye reproductive, urinary, dermatological (burns, cuts, other external), cardiovascular, pulmonary, respiratory. emotional, psychological
Special Damages: Billed medicals: $576,883 Paid medicals: $96,941
Last Pretrial Demand: $4,100,000.00
Last Pretrial Offer: $2,250,000.0
Insurer: AXA/XL
Caption: Benjamin Behel v. Berney Wescott and Heritage Transport, LLC
Plaintiffs’ Attorneys: Matthew D. Richardson, Little, Schellhammer, Richardson & Knowlen & Jay H. Aughtman Aughtman Law Firm, LLC (Montgomery, Alabama)
Defendants’ Attorneys: Stephen L. Beimdiek, Lashly & Baer
