Monday, September 11, 2006
Verdicts & Settlements:
$1 million for injured shoulder in
Columbus
Michelle Tolbert Grimes, a
31-year-old Columbus woman injured in a head-on collision was
awarded $1 million by a Muscogee County
jury for injuries that resulted when Helen G. Calhoun turned her car
in front of Grimes’s at an intersection. The 2002 accident sent
Grimes to the hospital with an injured rotator cuff that eventually
required shoulder surgery.
During a day-and-a-half trial before
Muscogee County Superior Court
Judge John D. Allen, the jury heard testimony that Grimes would
likely need more surgery, said John T. Martin of The Martin Firm,
LLP of Columbus, who represented the plaintiff along with Ben B.
Philips of Philips and Branch.
“She’ll face future problems, more
arthroscopic surgery and possibly a shoulder replacement,” said
Martin. The defense “tried to put on a case of contributory
negligence,” he said, “and the police investigator testified that
that wasn’t the case.”
The plaintiff offered to settle for
$500,000 “several times” during trial, he said, but was rebuffed.
Defense attorney David Walter Wallace of Atlanta’s Clifton Lee &
Associates, hired by Encompass Insurance on Calhoun’s behalf, could
not be reached.
Martin said that the jury was out for
about an hour before awarding $1 million in compensatory damages
plus legal fees.
The case was Michelle Tolbert
Grimes v. Helen G. Calhoun (No. SU04CV3758, Muscogee Sup., Aug.
22, 2006).
223 Twelfth Street