A jury has awarded West Plains resident Laurie Holesapple and her family $6.7 million in a wrongful-death case brought against the Missouri Highway and Transportation Commission for the death in a traffic accident of her husband Joshua on April 22, 2013.
But the agency is only obligated to pay out $409,000 because of a state statute enacted by the legislature that limits how much money can be collected against a government entity.
The trial started July 6 and ended July 11 in Howell County Circuit Court in West Plains.
The two-vehicle crash was on the U.S. 63 bypass in West Plains while road construction was ongoing. The verdict was more than triple the largest ever entered by a jury in Howell County, according to Holesapple’s attorney, H. Lynn Henry, of West Plains.
A police report filed at the time shows Joshua Holesapple, 32, was northbound in a 1999 Ford Taurus that was hit by a southbound 1994 GMC Sierra pickup truck driven by Preston A. Ary, 19, Mtn. Grove. Holesapple died later that day at Mercy Hospital in Springfield.
Testimony and evidence presented to the court revealed Ary was turning right onto U.S. 63 from Ramseur Farm Road and saw that his lane was blocked off with cones, resulting in his entering the northbound lane and Holesapple’s path.
The judge in the case was 37th Judicial District Circuit Court Judge David Evans, West Plains. The commission was represented by attorney John William Koenig.
Koenig called an expert witness and several employees of the Missouri Department of Transportation to the stand to give testimony Friday. Each asserted they believed it was appropriate to exercise judgment with regard to which signs should be displayed in the work zone.
Of the MoDOT employees called by Koenig, none of the eight maintenance workers or Lindell Huskey, the resident engineer for MoDOT’s Southeast District, were present. Henry said it was acceptable to infer that the absent witnesses would have had testimony that would have been detrimental to the defendant’s case.
Koenig and the commission earlier decided to against settlement offers, including an offer for $409,123 Henry made back in February, and instead elected to see the trial through to its completion.
“We’re disappointed in the verdict,” Koenig said.
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