Company Pickup Truck Collides with Car -- $5 Million Judgment

Highway V is typical of the roads in rural southwestern Missouri. West of Diamond, the road is one lane in each direction, has no shoulders and, like the surrounding countryside, moves up and down on rolling hills which obscure the view of traffic coming from the opposite direction. Early on the morning of May 16, 1997, Andrea Buening, a teacher at Diamond Middle School, and her nine-year-old son Sam, were eastbound on Highway V, going to school. Jerry McHugh was also on the road early that morning, headed westbound on Highway V in an oversized pickup-type tire truck owned by his employer, Grande Tire Company. As Andrea and Sam approached the crest of a rolling hill, McHugh, coming from the opposite direction,

began passing another vehicle in a no passing zone, marked by solid double yellow lines in both directions. At the hill crest they collided violently, with a closing speed in excess of 100 miles per hour.

When the vehicles finally came to a rest in the roadside ditch, the service truck had destroyed the front of the 1984 Plymouth Reliant, pinning Sam's legs between the collapsed engine compartment and the front seat, and trapping him in the vehicle. Andrea was partially ejected from the car, semi-conscious, laying halfway out of the driver side door. Unable to free Sam from the car, the rescue personnel called in the "Jaws-of-Life" team. After a ninety minute extrication procedure, Sam was freed and transported to a nearby hospital with multiple fractures to his right leg and hip.

Tragically, Andrea Buening will never teach students again. The force of the collision inflicted a severe and permanent head injury, reducing her intelligence and her ability to concentrate and handle the multiple demands of her profession.

Andrea spent one year away from her family in intensive care and then rehabilitation, relearning basics such as how to eat, regain continence, get dressed, cook, read and care for herself. She is now able to live alone in her own home

with the help of a network of friends and family who look after her. A break in the case came when the Missouri Court of Appeals decided Rinehart v. Anderson (see Practice Tips, page 6), expanding the definition of a covered occurrence under a garage liability policy, creating an argument for coverage under a garage liability policy, which was previously thought not to apply to an accident away from the tire store. Although the garage liability insurer denied coverage, the day before trial the full policy limits of $300,000 were tendered. Due to the miraculous ability of a nine-year-old's body to heal, Sam's case was settled for the policy limits of the garage liability policy and another automobile policy which covered the truck.