Chalk up another nuclear verdict: More than $21M in Los Angeles case

The latest nuclear verdict against trucking came in a Los Angeles Superior Court, where a jury has handed down an award of more than $21 million, far higher than a settlement offer the defendants had rejected.

The crash involving Leila Miyamoto-Workman and her son Jack Miyamoto took place in Los Angeles in July 2016. 

The Courtroom View Network covered the trial live. In a report, it quoted the Feb. 11 jury verdict as $21.3 million.

Its report quoted Nick Rowley of Trial Lawyers For Justice, who tried the case along with Keith Bruno, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, as saying his team had tried to settle the case for a seven-figure amount. In April 2023, an offer to settle for just under $7 million was made by the plaintiffs, CVN said, quoting Rowley, but it was rejected.

He also told CVN that with interest, the $21 million verdict now is equivalent to $35 million.

Bruno, who joined the case late in the process, told FreightWaves in an interview that it was his understanding that there was an offer by attorneys for the plaintiffs, though it was made before he joined the plaintiffs’ legal team.

Services Group of America was the defendant in the case. It is a privately held firm heavily involved in food distribution. One of its subsidiaries, Food Services of America, was also a defendant.

Miyamoto-Workman’s injuries have been extensive, Bruno said, and have necessitated multiple shoulder and back surgeries. While there was a “hotly disputed” debate over whether she had brain injuries, Bruno said Miyamoto-Workman had “all the hallmarks of a brain injury.”

In his opening remarks, according to CVN, Rowley said of Miyamoto-Workman: “Her bell was rung and it hasn’t stopped ringing.”

Bruno said the plaintiffs’ recap of the crash is that Miyamoto-Workman was waiting to make a left turn into a doctor’s office when the truck driven by driver Daniel Almazon – who was also a defendant but who Bruno said left the company not long after the accident – slammed into her car, “propelling her several feet, smashing out her back windshield and damaging the frame.”

The defense argument, Bruno said, is that Miyamoto-Workman “suddenly slammed on the brakes to make the left turn, but with no turn signal.” Almazon could not stop in time and crashed into Miyamoto-Workman’s car.

Rowley, in the interview with CVN, said the truck did not have a dashcam. 

“I’m partisan because I represented her, but there was no physical evidence she slammed on the brakes,” Bruno said. “The point of impact was well before the intersection, so there was no indication she had missed her turn. The defense argument didn’t make any sense.”

An email that FreightWaves sent to Edward Ward, an attorney for the defendants, had not been responded to by publication time. CVN also reported that defense attorneys had not responded to requests for comment.

Bruno said at the trial that he “never saw a single representative from the company,” which he said was odd. “Typically, they will pick some handsome man or woman and stay in the gallery, but they never did that,” he said.

Some of the most eye-popping nuclear verdicts – defined as anything over $10 million – have been more shocking than realistic, given the very shallow pockets of some of the defendants. A more than $400 million verdict from October 2020 in Florida was seen as nothing more than symbolic and impossible to collect.

But Bruno said given that Services Group is reported to have revenue in the billions, the Miyamoto-Workman verdict will be collectible.

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