Large verdict returned in Joplin teen texting-and-driving lawsuit
A jury of nine women and three men returned a unanimous verdict Thursday in favor of the plaintiffs,
Jurors found that Schnaedter was 84 percent at fault and assigned
Schnaedter was 18 and a senior at
The plaintiffs -- represented by
Schnaedter, who was represented by
Cellphone records introduced as evidence by the plaintiffs showed 205 text messages sent by Schnaedter
"Olivia had a traumatic brain injury as a result of this," Sticklen said of his client.
He said she does not recall what happened to her, but her vehicle's airbag is known to have deployed and her head may have been struck by the bag and snapped backward into the driver's seat headrest. Her mother arrived at the scene and initially took the girl to a pediatrician, where she could not recall her birth date or phone number and displayed reduced emotional expressiveness associated with brain injury, Sticklen said.
She was taken from the pediatrician's office to
She missed a semester of school with persistent impairments of her memory and thinking and related medical issues, such as migraines, mood changes, anxiety and sleep disorder, and slipped from being a student who got As to one who tended to get Cs when she did return to school the following fall, according to her attorney. She still suffers some of those issues today, almost two and half years later, he said.
Espinosa referred questions to a senior member of his law firm when contacted Friday by the Globe. The other attorney did not respond to a message left on her answering machine.
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