Record jury award in Sacramento

Read the Sacramento Bee's coverage of the $24.3 million award here. The plaintiff, Diana Loza-Jimenez, 8 years old at the time, was gravely injured when a big rig ran over her in Mount Shasta, California. The huge damages award was broken down like this: "$2.2 million for the girl's past medical expenses, including $1.6 million in costs incurred at Shriner's Children's Hospital, plus $2.1 million for future economic damages, $8 million for past pain and mental suffering and $12 million for such future noneconomic losses."

In addition to the record-setting size of the award, the case is interesting in that the big rig that ran over the plaintiff, who was eight years old at the time of the accident, was driven by her father. She and other family members had accompanied her father, Loza Meijz, on a trip from Oregon to Bakersfield, hauling goods both ways. The defendant that will pay the huge award, however, is Freeway Transport, the company to whom the truck was leased at the time. The news report does not make clear all of the intricacies of agency law that underpinned this decision, but here is one excerpt from the Bee's story that highlights some of the arguments the parties regarding who was legally responsible for the girl's injuries.

[The] defense team argued that Freeway Transport wasn't responsible in the case because the company only brokered her father's truck deal to haul the produce.

They claimed the defendant firm was not the actual long-haul carrier, even though they conceded that the Portland produce company that contracted for Loza Mejia's Bakersfield pickup – United Salad – is owned and operated by the same people who run Freeway Transport.

In a pre-trial brief filed last year, the defense lawyers said Loza-Jimenez was not a member of the general public eligible for protection under interstate transport regulations because her father took her along for the trip without Freeway Transport's knowledge.

"Loza and his wife were responsible for the well-being of their daughter and owed a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect, control and supervise her," the defense papers said. "This sad and unfortunate accident simply did not arise out of any duty owed by Freeway Transport."