Jury awards $120M in GRU crash that left man paralyzed

An Alachua County man was awarded $120 million Thursday by a jury in a lawsuit over a crash involving a Gainesville Regional Utilities employee.

Jacob T. Rodgers won the award against the city of Gainesville for a 2015 crash in which GRU employee William Stormant, driving a city vehicle, ran through a stop sign and slammed into a pickup truck in which Rodgers was a passenger.

Jurors awarded Rodgers more than $16 million for the expenses, loss of income, mental anguish and other factors that he has already incurred and more than $103 million for future expenses and losses, the verdict form shows.

However, the principle of sovereign immunity in holding government agencies liable in lawsuits caps payout at $200,000.

Florida Statute 768.28 also states that a claim for an amount above that can be made through the Florida Legislature.

Morgan & Morgan, the law firm representing Rodgers, claimed Stormant was negligent in causing the crash and presented medical records and testimony from doctors.

The city maintained that Rodgers was not wearing a seat belt and that his injuries would have been less severe if he had.

Also, the city contended that the driver in the car in which Rodgers was a passenger was speeding and that Rodgers’ injuries were caused in part by that negligence.

But the jury in Alachua County Circuit Court attributed 100% of the negligence to Stormant after a four-day trial that ended Thursday night.

Rodgers is paralyzed from the chest down, Morgan & Morgan attorney Jeff Humphries said in an email.

“(Rodgers) can and wants to work. After his injury, he continued his studies at Santa Fe College,” Humphries said. “He has an extensive family and they all attended the trial the whole week.”

City spokeswoman Rossana Passaniti said in an email that the city has money in reserve for settlements and judgments. The sovereign immunity cap of $200,000 is the set limit, she added.

Humphries said he will wait to determine whether to file with the legislature until a deadline has passed for an appeal of the verdict by the city.