How Indy Lawyers got a big win in Allen Superior Court
- Jamie Duffy
- Mar 25
- 3 min read
FORT WAYNE, Ind. --- For four days, an Allen Superior Court jury heard testimony substantive enough to award a 41-year-old woman $1 million in damages after a city plow truck plowed through a red light and collided with the car in which she was passenger.
There was a buzz in the courthouse after the verdict, according to a local defense attorney, but nothing much has been reported on this case adjudicated Dec. 17 - Dec. 20.
Nick Tuttle and Bryan Tisch, with the Indianapolis law firm of Yosha Law, said the city of Fort Wayne “fought hard,” but in the end didn’t convince the jury that the city driver of an “orange 2016 International SA667,” also known as a “plow truck,” was not at fault when he ran a red light at Rudisill Boulevard and South Fort Wayne Avenue (sic) around 1 a.m. on Jan. 2, 2022.
The city, through its retained attorney Carolyn Trier, attempted to lay blame on the driver of the victim’s car and had there been the least doubt - like 1%, according to Tuttle and Tisch, the case would have been lost.
“The City put up every defense under the sun in an attempt to impune 1% fault on plaintiff per contributory negligence,” the attorneys wrote in an email to The Probable Cause. At the same time, Judge Jennifer DeGroote agreed that the victim and her driver couldn’t be blamed just because they were driving on icy roads.
To support that claim, the defense played the Fort Wayne Police Department's dash cam video of the Fort Wayne office “flying to the crash,” going about 60 mph “that proved the roads were wet, but not icy,” Tisch said in a phone interview.
Because of the accident, the victim’s left ankle is fractured and, so far, there have been two surgeries on it. While billed medical debts are currently $267,000, paid medical debts amount to $109,000. Lost wages are at $27,000.
Tuttle and Tisch asked for damages between $995,000 and $1.2 million, an amount that has already been struck down by the judge because Indiana has a cap on
awards for these lawsuits at $700,000. That amount was confirmed by court documents and was expected by the victim’s attorneys, they said.
Tuttle and Tisch said there was no settlement offer before the trial, but during the trial, the city offered $75,000 and then, $150,000, nowhere near enough to cover attorney fees, lost wages and future medical bills that more than likely will occur with a permanent injury like that.
“She was a wonderful client. She didn’t speak English as her first language and we had to use an interpreter. Nick and I remained pretty resolute and the jury delivered,” Tisch said.
At the time of the accident, the victim was a relatively new hire on a factory line and lost that job because she had to “work on her feet,” Tuttle said. She went back to cleaning hotel rooms where she could work shorter hours because of her injury.
The Probable Cause reached out to Trier for a comment, but we’ve not heard from her. The name of the snow plow driver and victim are not named, because it is the choice of The Probable Cause.