At 6:00 a.m. in the pre-dawn darkness, a Mr. Bults garbage truck struck a construction barrier on I-65 in Merriville, Indiana, and came to rest with a foot of truck sticking out onto the road. Fifteen minutes later, Roger D.'s truck grazed the stopped truck and sprayed Roger with diesel fuel, partially incinerating him. He lived for 12-hours.
After extensive discovery, James Newman tried this case to a Cook County jury, and achieved a verdict of $19,967,582 for the widow and children of Roger D. It was one of the largest verdicts for a single person ever awarded in Cook County, Illinois.
It was twenty times the offer by the insurance company that indemnified the trucking company. Through meticulous reconstruction, expert testimony and clear legal argument, Mr. Newman was able to prove that the defendant trucking company had created a terrible road hazard which seriously injured and killed Roger D.
