Hurt Driver to Receive Damages

Toni Heinzl, Star-Telegram

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the government to pay $9.9 million to a 24-year-old Missouri woman who suffered permanent brain damage in a 1998 head-on collision with a vehicle driven by a census worker in Denton County.

U.S. District Judge David Folsom in Texarkana handed down the verdict after a trial without a jury. Folsom also awarded $700,000 to the woman's mother and $50,000 to her father.

Fort Worth attorney Scotty MacLean filed the lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act because the accident involved a government employee.

Jamie Reagan, of Columbia, Mo., was working as a summer intern at a horse farm in Pilot Point when she and a friend were heading for lunch, driving northbound on U.S. 377 about noon Aug. 10, 1998.

The crash occurred when the southbound vehicle of census worker Mikel Kennedy of Sherman crossed the center line and slammed into Reagan's pickup, MacLean said.

Kennedy was killed instantly. Reagan suffered permanent brain damage that left her dependent on custodial care for the rest of her life, MacLean said.

"She's never going to be able to complete college or hold a job," MacLean said.

Reagan's friend was ejected from the truck but suffered a minor concussion, MacLean said.

Although Kennedy was driving his private vehicle, the government conceded that the accident occurred in the course of his employment because he was headed to a census worker meeting in Denton, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Gibson of Tyler, who represented the government.

Gibson said an accident reconstructionist for the government testified that Reagan swerved across the center line and then back into her lane, forcing Kennedy to cross into the oncoming lane in an evasive maneuver. But testimony from several eyewitnesses swayed the judge, Gibson said.

The plaintiffs had asked for $41 million in damages - $36 million for Reagan and $2.5 million each for her parents, Gibson said.

Copyright 2001 Star-Telegram, Inc.
Record Number: 11043828