In what many believe to be the largest personal injury verdict in state history, a Chittenden County jury has awarded more than $43 million to an Essex Junction woman who became a quadriplegic as the result of a car accident.
Dzemila Heco and her two sons, Kenan and Emir Heco, won the suit against Johnson Controls Inc., of Milwaukee. Johnson designs, manufactures and sells seats for cars as part of its automotive wing.
It was a Johnson seat that failed in Heco’s 1999 Dodge Neon in August 2007 when her car was struck from behind by another vehicle. Heco had been waiting at a traffic light near the Essex Price Chopper grocery store. Heco was wearing a seat belt at the time, but she became “unrestrained” when her seat collapsed backward, according to court documents.
The accident “should have been survivable without serious injuries,” the case alleged. The jury agreed. Johnson is evaluating its option to appeal.
“We believe that the seat was not at fault,” the company said in a prepared statement. “Its design significantly exceeded all government and industry safety standards, as well as Chrysler’s own specifications. Johnson Controls stands behind the safety of all of its products.”
Heco and her sons were awarded more than $43.1 million for past medical bills and health care ($621,171.33), future medical bills and health care ($26,522,032), past loss of income ($355,024), future loss of income ($1,247,935), and past and future pain and suffering ($14,373,000).
“I’d say it surprised me,” said attorney Paul Perkins of Plante & Hanley P.C., in White River Junction. Perkins chairs the Insurance Law division of the Vermont Bar Association; he had only heard about the verdict from a colleague and didn’t follow the case.
Civil trial lawyer Sam Hoar, of Burlington-based Dinse, Knapp and McAndrew P.C., typically represents defendants in personal injury cases. He said the trial bar is “sitting up and paying attention” to the verdict in the Heco case.
But Perkins has observed in his practice that Vermont juries traditionally have not issued the kind of high awards seen “in places like Washington, D.C., or even Boston,” he said.
“A large jury verdict like that in Vermont would certainly act as an incentive for manufacturers to ensure their products are safe for consumers,” Perkins said.
Whether it will catalyze any traction for tort reform advocates is another matter.
Civil trial lawyer Sam Hoar, of Burlington-based Dinse, Knapp and McAndrew, P.C., typically represents defendants in personal injury cases. He said the trial bar is “sitting up and paying attention” to the verdict in the Heco case.
“I think we are all trying to figure out (what it means), and we won’t know for some time what impact it will truly have on the legal landscape,” Hoar said.
He added that not only lawyers and parties will have to evaluate the case’s bearings on their own proceedings; future jurors also may incorporate this precedent into their evaluations.
Perkins said that, because jury verdicts haven’t tended to be high in Vermont, “there’s never really been an impetus for legislating tort reform.” The topic remains among the Vermont Chamber of Commerce’s stated goals.
“Vermont still adheres to strict products liability, and other states have adopted more stringent requirements in order for the plaintiff to recover damages,” Perkins said.
“Strict products liability,” as the legal doctrine is called, requires the plaintiff only to prove that there was a manufacturing or design defect that made a product dangerous for ordinary consumers.
More stringent requirements may, for example, require the plaintiff to prove that there is a reasonable alternative design that would have eliminated the foreseeable risk of harm — greatly increasing the plaintiff’s burden of proof.
Product liability is not the only arena of consumer law in which Vermont has mostly resisted tort reform. In medical malpractice, state courts do not require pre-suit mediation or panel findings, Perkins said. New Hampshire and Massachusetts, on the other hand, both have adopted those commonly sought-after mechanisms for tort reform.
The Heco family was represented in the case by Robin Curtiss of the New Hampshire firm Van Dorn & Curtiss.
This article was updated by Hilary Niles on Thursday, July 4, 2013.
