After re-examining an earlier ruling, the Louisiana Supreme Court has reinstated most of a $19 million judgment to a truck driver injured in a crash.
Frank Cushenberry filed his lawsuit after he was injured in a 2018 accident on Interstate 10 when the box truck he was driving for Capitol City Produce flipped when a pickup truck driven by a contractor for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development veered into his lane and caused him to lose control of the truck.
Cushenberry sustained injuries to his face, neck, shoulder and spine. He also suffered a traumatic brain injury. He had several corrective surgeries and remains slightly disabled from the crash.
An East Baton Rouge jury found contractor Barber Brothers Contracting Company solely at fault in a 2020 ruling and said Cushenberry should be awarded $10.75 million in general damages. It also awarded him another $2.7 million for medical expenses and lost wages, and it awarded his wife $2.5 million in consortium and their two minor children $1.5 million each.
Barber Brothers appealed that ruling to the state Supreme Court. In a June opinion, the court ruled the verdict was excessive. The court reduced damages to $5 million and cut the awards to the wife and children to a total of $600,000.
The court reheard the arguments based on a 2023 ruling in Pete v. Boland Marine and Manufacturing Company that determined appellate courts had to review general damages awarded in past cases with similar injuries to ensure juries don’t abuse their discretion.
This time, the court ruled 4-3 that cutting Cushenberry’s award was incorrect. It restored his general damages to the $10.75 million while awarding the wife and children a combined $2 million for loss of consortium.
The majority said the earlier Supreme Court ruling didn’t give the proper weight to the effects Cushenberry’s injuries had on him, noting he had been an active 37-year-old with a physically demanding job who coached youth sports and played sports himself. Now, Cushenberry wears hoodies and hats to cover facial scars that resulted from the accident.
Expert testimony showed Cushenberry has an increased risk for developing neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease because of his brain injury and that he has residual problems with anxiety, depression and insomnia.
In his dissent, Justice John Weimer, said the restored award “is so high in proportion to Mr. Cushenberry’s injuries that it shocks the conscience.”
“Unlike the majority on rehearing, I believe that the jury’s general damage award was ‘the result of passion or prejudice,’” Weimer wrote. “I believe that the amounts originally set by this court in Barber I (the first ruling) for loss of consortium ‘sufficiently account for the negative impact Mr. Cushenberry’s extensive injuries have had and will have on his family.’”
Attorneys who represented Cushenberry said the ruling is the largest individual damages amount for a person the state Supreme Court ever has upheld.
“It gives a lot of credibility to our jury system,” attorney Peyton Murphy told The Advocate.