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Jury awards $15 million to man hit by rig
By eTrucker Staff
A federal jury in Tucson, Ariz., has awarded $15 million to a tow-truck operator who lost his right leg after being hit by a tractor-trailer on Christmas Eve 2002, according to news reports.
Jurors on Nov. 8 ordered Little Bear Transport of Salt Lake City to pay Bruce Austin of Bowie, Ariz., $5 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages after a five-day trial in U.S. District Court, according to news reports.
According to court documents cited by the press, a Little Bear Transport truck was traveling west on Interstate 10 on Dec. 24, 2002, when it swerved into the median and struck several vehicles involved in an earlier fatal crash; the out-of-control rig then hit Austin, the 58-year-old owner of a tow-truck company, who was in the process of loading up one of the disabled vehicles. Austin's right leg and left thumb were severed; he also suffered a broken left shoulder and broken ribs.
Little Bear Transport admitted the big rig's driver, Kenneth Virgil Howard, had falsified his logbook before the crash in hopes of making it home for Christmas, according to court documents cited by the press.
Richard Gonzales, Austin's lawyer, told the Arizona Daily Star he expected the verdict to be appealed.
Large monetary penalties in civil suits often are lessened, sometimes drastically, on appeal.
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