$800,000 for Trucking Accident
Brett Murphy client Amar Dosanjh was killed while on the job, and the defendant, Baljit Bhatti, who was killed in the same accident, was Mr. Dosanjh’s employee, hired as a co-driver in his long haul trucking company. Bhatti negligently drove off the road, rolled the truck and killed both himself and Dosanjh.
The case was tried in Kittitas County where no prior verdict exceeded $100,000. His economic losses had to be based on an earnings history averaging less than $10,000 (Canadian) per year.
Kittitas County has a well-deserved reputation for an anti-plaintiff jury pool. The largest reported personal injury verdict was a 1992 verdict of $100,000 for the death of a long haul truck driver. So when Brett Murphy attorney Dean Brett entered Kittitas County Superior Court representing a long haul truck driver who had the ill fortune of being killed on Interstate 90 while traveling through Ellensburg, Washington State, especially representing an East Indian widow who had been part of an arranged marriage, he knew he had jury selection problems.
The 39 potentials who showed up for jury duty quickly expressed their feelings that “money won’t bring him back” and “both drivers died so why should one family take advantage and profit from the other family” and “life is tough, but the widow has to learn to survive on her own”. Realizing that the panel was very conservative, Brett allowed the more vocal jurors to express their anger at outlandish plaintiffs’ verdicts, allowed other jurors to agree with the viewpoints expressed by the vocal conservatives, and then induced 20 of the 39 jurors to agree with the idea that decedent’s widow was doing something “immoral” by bringing a claim on behalf of herself and her children for the death of her husband. Having thus pre-judged the case, all 20 potential jurors were dismissed for cause, leaving the 19 who had expressed no such prejudicial belief, even though given a clear opportunity to do so, as a reduced and more receptive jury pool.
The initial challenge had been to get a jury at all. Defendants claimed that the bar of the British Columbia Worker’s Compensation Act prevented Dosanjh from bringing suit against his co-worker. Trial court judge Michael Cooper agreed, granting dismissal of all plaintiffs’ claims. The Court of Appeals reversed that decision, holding that under British Columbia’s Worker’s Compensation Act, a worker killed by a co-worker in a foreign jurisdiction can elect to have the claim adjudicated under the law of the foreign jurisdiction in lieu of worker’s compensation benefits. The Supreme Court refused to grant review, clearing the way for the case to go to trial.
Plaintiffs’ counsel Dean Brett and defense counsel Thomas J. Collins of Merrick, Hofstedt & Lindsey engaged the services of an experienced mediator. Unfortunately, CIGNA of Canada appeared at the mediation with a negotiator who was unwilling to offer more than $25,000 for this wrongful death claim. The low offer closed all further negotiations.
Plaintiff sought the classic emotional losses for the decedent’s widow. The difficulty was that the marriage had been arranged. In fact, Malkiat Dosanjh was sent to Vancouver to marry Amar Dosanjh by her parents, and she had not met her husband-to-be until she walked down the aisle. A straightforward confrontation of the issue was found to be the best approach. Numerous witnesses described the tradition of arranged marriages in Sikh culture, marriages which work out at a statistically better rate than America’s so-called “love marriages.” In a trial highlight, Malkiat Dosanjh then narrated a slide show in the darkened courtroom showing their growing family as through the years she fell in love with her husband. Her testimony, together with the testimony of numerous members of the Vancouver Sikh community, demonstrated the deep and abiding love between the parties. At the end of the trial, the judge and jury both expressed appreciation for their education about the rich tradition of Sikh arranged marriages.
Damages were also sought for pain and suffering in anticipation of death. When the truck overturned and slid down Interstate 90, it caught on fire. A following driver ran up to the truck and saw the driver inside, flailing and shouting, “Help me, help me.” Despite her best efforts, she was unable to rescue the driver, but testified that she could not see into the sleeper compartment of the truck to determine whether Dosanjh was conscious following the crash. Therefore, jurors were left with very little evidence regarding whether Dosanjh had survived the fire in a conscious state, but a lot of evidence that if he did survive, he met a horrible fate– being trapped inside the burning sleeping compartment of an overturned truck. Plaintiffs filled the gap with the expert assistance of Duane MacInnis, PE, of MacInnis Engineers of Richmond, British Columbia who concluded that the degree and location of crash deformation provided a pocket of survivability for any passenger in the sleeping compartment. Based on this expert analysis, the jury awarded $75,000 for pain and suffering in anticipation of death.
Finally, the plaintiffs’ attorneys confronted a difficulty establishing the economic loss because the long-haul truck driver’s income tax records indicated he had made $8,000-$12,000 per year (Canadian) in his best years. They called an economist who projected a loss of earning capacity based on the average long-haul truck driver in British Columbia. Since Dosanjh was in a start-up phase of his business, if he succeeded, he would earn at least the average long-haul wage. The economist calculated an economic loss of between $417,000 and $477,000. The jury awarded $500,000 in economic loss.
The verdict totaled $800,000: $75,000 each to the widow, the son and the daughter, $75,000 in pain and suffering in anticipation of death, and $500,000 in lost earning capacity. The verdict was thus several-fold greater than the largest personal injury or wrongful death verdict ever before recovered in Kittitas County.
Dosanjh v. Bhatti, Kittitas County Cause No. 94 2 00258 1, was tried by WSTLA Eagle Member Dean Brett of Brett Murphy.
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For more information on wrongful death claims, please see our Wrongful Death page.
