A man who suffered a severe brain injury after a pallet of grass sod fell off a trailer and caused a multi-car crash has confidentially settled a lawsuit for $6.05 million, his attorney reports.
In 2014, the 68-year-old man was driving on Interstate 26 near Orangeburg when a swaying flatbed trailer carrying a 4,000-pound load of sod dropped a pallet of the grass onto the highway, said William Applegate of Yarborough Applegate in Charleston, who represented the plaintiff.
After a lane was closed off and traffic slowed, the plaintiff was rear-ended by a car that was traveling at 80 mph. He suffered traumatic brain injuries including a diffuse axonal injury, subarachnoid hemorrhage, shearing injury, encephalopathy and extended amnesia, and orthopedic injuries.
A sod dealer packaged and loaded the sod onto the flatbed trailer, and the driver of the pickup failed to take any additional measures to tie down the sod on his trailer, Applegate said. The plaintiff alleged that the driver who rear-ended him was negligent, the sod hauler was negligent and not properly trained by his employer, and the sod loader was negligent in its methods of wrapping and loading the sod. (The names of all of the parties were withheld pursuant to a confidentiality agreement.)
The plaintiff filed a lawsuit against both drivers and the company that loaded the sod. Both the hauler and the loader moved for summary judgment. A trial court held that the loader of the sod had neither a statutory duty nor a common law duty to the public to the public, and the South Carolina Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s decision.
“While we were happy to be able to get some results for the client, we did not feel it was a full measure of damages,” Applegate said. “Traumatic brain injury is a disease process that causes lifelong problems. While invisible, when an individual suffers one and is required to relearn everything from swallowing to talking over a period of weeks or months, the effects are astounding. Beyond the memory loss and general reduction of brain function, people with such traumatic brain injuries experience personality changes that are very challenging for them, their families and friends. These are some of the things that have stayed with him. The brain can only can regenerate so much so the impacts are pretty significant.”
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SETTLEMENT REPORT — MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENT
Amount: $6.05 million
Injuries: Traumatic brain injuries including a diffuse axonal injury, subarachnoid hemorrhage, shearing injury, encephalopathy and extended amnesia, and orthopedic injuries
Case name: Confidential
Case number: Withheld
Court: Orangeburg County Circuit Court
Date of settlement: June 28
Most helpful experts: Dr. Gregory O’Shanick in North Chesterfield, Virginia (neurology), and Mike Sutton in Cary, North Carolina (accident reconstruction)
Insurance carriers: United Services Automobile Association, Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance Company, and Government Employees Insurance Co.
Attorney for the plaintiff: William E. Applegate IV of Yarborough Applegate in Charleston
Attorney for defendants: Withheld
The post Soddy crash results in $6.05M settlement 
first appeared on South Carolina Lawyers Weekly.