Jury awards $2.8 million in fatal Florida motorcycle accident case
June 09, 2015On behalf of Terence Gross of Gross & Schuster, P.A. posted in Motorcycle Accidents on Friday, April 1, 2011.
The family of a 23-year-old Palm Coast man who was killed in a motorcycle accident on May 30, 2007, will receive a total of $2.8 million in damages for the young father’s wrongful death. Tragically, as is so common in motorcycle accidents, the man was killed when the driver of a car failed to yield the right of way.
After a Volusia County judge determined that the defendant was liable for the fatal accident, the jury awarded $1 million to the young man’s 5-year-old daughter and $500,000 to his parents. The balance of the jury award, $798,000, went to pay the family’s financial costs resulting from the accident, including funeral expenses.
“I am very satisfied that the jury awarded this child double what we had asked for,” said the family’s personal injury lawyer.
The fatal motorcycle wreck took place on Clyde Morris Boulevard in Daytona Beach. The young man, a manager at Walmart, was riding his motorcycle near Halifax Health Medical Center when a man driving a Ford Mustang failed to notice the biker and slammed into him. He later died from his injuries.
Although no amount of money can bring back what was lost by the defendant’s careless driving, the family’s attorney expressed some degree of satisfaction at the large jury award.
The young man had moved to Central Florida from Georgia in 2005. According to his family, besides motorcycling, he enjoyed skateboarding and spending time outdoors, and was a member of the Tomoka Christian Church in Ormond Beach.
Source: Daytona Beach News Journal, “Jury awards $2.8 million to biker’s family,” Jay Stapleton, March 30, 2011
