Mardirossian Akaragian LLP has been featured in Courtroom View Network’s Top 10 Most Impressive Plaintiff Verdicts of 2021.
Our victory in Smith v. MV Transportation Inc. resulted in a $21,600,000.00 jury verdict to the parents of a 14-year-old girl who was killed by a metro bus, beating the best settlement offer and proving that the young girl was not responsible for her tragic and untimely death.
Courtroom View Network’s Top 10 Most Impressive Plaintiff Verdicts of 2021
A California state court jury awarded $21.6 million in November to the parents of a teenager struck and killed on her bike in a crosswalk by a metro bus.
Plaintiffs Barry and Rose Smith sued transportation services contractor MV Transportation Inc. in 2017 following the death of their daughter Ciara, blaming the bus driver’s and company’s supposed negligence for the fatal collision.
The jury found MV Transportation 75 percent negligent, while assigning 10 percent liability to the California Department of Transportation and 15 percent to the City of Redondo Beach, both of whom settled out of the case before the trial.
While that apportionment reduces the Smith’s percentage of the verdict to $16.2 million, their attorney Garo Mardirossian told Courtroom View Network after the trial that settlements of $4.9 million each with the state and city plus interest and costs will push the total actual award to $32.1 million.
Mardirossian also told CVN the jury’s award surpasses MV Transportation’s highest settlement offer of $4.9 million.
— Source: Courtroom View Network