A civil jury in Rapides Parish has awarded more than $76 million to a Bunkie man who was left paralyzed in a vehicle crash. The case traces back to a 2021 wreck that happened not in Louisiana, but in Montgomery, Alabama.
The eye-popping verdict was reported by WVLT, which confirmed the jury's award topped $76 million and that the case stemmed from the 2021 crash in Montgomery. The station's report does not identify the man, the defendants, or the attorneys involved in the case, and it does not lay out how the jury arrived at its figure.
What We Still Don't Know
Key details about the case remain unclear. It is not known what caused the crash, how the man's injuries occurred, or what evidence was presented to the jury during the trial. The report also does not specify a court, a case number, a verdict date, or whether the judgment could still face an appeal.
WVLT's headline describes the award as a record, but the underlying report does not spell out what jurisdiction that record claim refers to, whether it's specific to Rapides Parish, the state of Louisiana, or something broader.
How This Verdict Stacks Up
Massive personal injury verdicts tied to paralysis cases aren't unheard of elsewhere. A report from the Pintas & Mullins Law Firm described a $43 million jury award to a woman paralyzed by a defective car seat, which the firm said was believed to be the largest jury verdict in Vermont history at the time. That case offers a sense of scale for how significant paralysis-related verdicts can get, even when the dollar figures fall well short of the $76 million awarded in the Bunkie man's case.
Louisiana has its own history of headline-making jury verdicts on a smaller scale. According to an attorney biography from Gaar Law, attorney Joseph F. Gaar Jr. secured a $4.2 million jury verdict in Assumption Parish back in 1996, which was described at the time as the largest jury verdict for that parish. The gap between that figure and the more than $76 million awarded in Rapides Parish underscores just how substantial this latest verdict is by comparison.
For now, the full story behind the Bunkie man's case, including who was found liable and what led to the crash in Montgomery, Alabama, has not been made public.
