Houston trial lawyer Randy Sorrels said he’s confident that a $352 million jury verdict he won last week on behalf of a service worker injured at George Bush Intercontinental Airport will stand up on appeal because, if anything, his client deserved even more.
Given the horrific nature of his client’s injuries, Sorrels said, the seemingly astronomical verdict is anything but.
“He was hospitalized then in rehab for 13 months,” Sorrels said. “He’s paralyzed from the chest down. While he was hospitalized, he suffered a stroke as a direct result of his injuries. He’s going to need 24-hour-a-day care for the rest of his life.”
The jury verdict came in a lawsuit filed in Harris County by Ulysses Cruz and his family against Allied Aviation Fueling and one of its drivers.
In the fall of 2019, Cruz was a member of the United Airlines ground crew at Bush Intercontinental Airport. He was walking behind the wing of an aircraft when, according to court records, an Allied Aviation van ran into the airplane, throwing Cruz through the air and to the tarmac.
Also representing the Cruz family is Alexandra Farias-Sorrels, Randy Sorrels’ wife and a fellow personal-injury lawyer.
Rusty Hardin is lead counsel for Allied Aviation Fueling. In addition to Joe Roden, Ryan Higgins and Daniel R. Dutko of Hardin’s firm, he is working with Jackson Walker lawyers Stuart B. Brown Jr., Brett Kutnick, Justin V. Lee and Joseph A. Fischer III.
Hardin said after the jury verdict was rendered last Monday that he plans to appeal. Not only were the damages on their face excessive, Hardin said, a portion of the fault ought to have been assigned to Cruz who, Hardin argued at trial, walked into the path of the van.
The Texas Supreme Court has a history of rejecting huge jury verdicts in favor of plaintiffs, but Sorrels said there’s no basis to do so in Cruz’s case. None of the $352 million assessed by the jury was punitive damages; the entire award was compensatory, including $2 million for past medical costs and $30 million for future medical costs.
As Sorrels told the jury, Cruz, who was 48 at the time of his injury, is unable to perform the most basic bodily functions without assistance. His wife is his primary day-to-day caregiver. He has two children, a son who was 18 and a daughter who was 14 at the time of he was struck by the Allied Aviation vehicle.
“This award is for his real physical pain and anguish,” Sorrels said. “And, frankly, given the extent of his injuries, it could have been more.
“There are cases where the Supreme Court has overturned punitive damages and, in wrongful death cases, where the court has overturned damages for conscious pain and suffering. But I cannot find a single case where the court said a jury awarded a surviving plaintiff too much for physical pain and anguish.”
In June, Hardin petitioned the Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus because the trial judge at the time, state District Judge Dedra Davis, had ordered that the trial be held virtually because of the health risks posed by the pandemic. Hardin argued unsuccessfully that a virtual trial deprived his clients of their constitutional right to due process and a fair trial.
The case eventually was transferred from Davis’s court to that of District Judge Ravi Sandill, who presided over an in-person, two-week trial.