Car Accident

Our firm obtained a $5,000,000.00 judgment against the United States. The case was tried over four days at the end of last year before Judge Mehta. Arren Waldrep was the lead trial attorney and she was assisted in pre-trial preparation and with motions work by John Yannone. Hunter Rahn, one of our great litigation paralegals, also did an incredible job with prep and throughout the trial. The U.S. was defended by Stephanie Johnson and Anna Walker.

The case arose when Plaintiff was driving his vehicle on Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park and a large tree fell onto his vehicle trapping him inside. It was a miracle that he survived. A number of officers and about 20 good samaritans were able to lift the tree off the vehicle. He was transported for emergency treatment with life-threatening injuries to his head and spinal cord. Plaintiff spent a significant amount of time at in-patient rehabilitation at NRH and then had extensive out-patient care. While Plaintiff is a long way from where he was in the immediate aftermath of the incident, he will never be the same as he was prior to the incident. Expert testimony was presented as to the permanency of Plaintiff’s incident-related injuries and symptoms, his need for future incident-related treatment, and his inability to work for the rest of his life. Ironically, Plaintiff worked on trees prior to the incident. Judge Mehta awarded all of the requested economic damages and an additional $4,000,000.00 in non-economic damages.

On the liability side, the basic argument was that the National Park Service should have identified the subject tree as hazardous and taken action to abate the hazard. There was evidence that Park Service employees did a drive-by inspection in the area of the subject tree in the weeks before the incident, but did not identify the tree as hazardous. Arren, with the help of Plaintiff’s liability expert, Lew Bloch, was able to establish that there was visible evidence that the subject tree was decaying before the incident. This was tricky as the only pre-incident photos of the tree were from Google Maps. Given that there was visible evidence of decay, Mr. Bloch testified that: NPS should have seen the decay; a higher level of inspection should have been triggered; that higher level of inspection would have confirmed the tree was dying; and, at that point, action should have been taken to remove the tree since it was in a high-risk area next to Beach Drive.