Total Injury

A California jury recently awarded a $667,000 personal injury verdict to an elderly Turlock woman who was involved in a 2005 head-on collision caused by a teenager. 73-year-old Nell Mathis Fortner required two surgeries on her leg after a car driven by then-17-year-old John Henry Kamps Schollenberg turned right, veered into an oncoming lane and hit her car. While Fortner and her California personal injury attorney Frank Zumwalt made a $400,000 settlement offer to State Farm, which held the auto insurance policy for Schollenberg, the company declined and decided to go to trial. This proved  to be a bad move for State Farm as the jury awarded Fortner an additional $267,000 at the end of the six-day trial.

The car accident occurred on January 13, 2005. At the time, Fortner was an in-home maid and on her way to care for a chemotherapy patient. Fortner was driving north of Modesto when Schollenberg, coming from the opposite direction, made a sharp right turn, veered into her lane and struck her vehicle head-on. Authorities estimated a 50-mph impact as Fortner was going 20 mph and Schollenberg was traveling 30 mph. While cited for traveling in the oncoming lane, Schollenberg was not prosecuted since officers did not do an accident reconstruction to prove he was recklessly speeding.

According to Zumwalt in an online story from the Modesto Bee, Fortner suffered a leg injury that has left her crippled, handicapped and impaired, and that the accident ultimately relegated her life to having a good meal and “hobbling around to doctors’ appointments.” He added that his client could no longer straighten her leg and now walks with a limp because of the accident. Schollenberg’s attorney, George Arata , could not be reached for comment but Zumwalt said in the story how his opposition tried to argue that some of Fortner’s injuries were from a pre-existing condition. 

I'd like to point out the fact that in the original story posted in the Modesto Bee; that neither myself, nor my lawyer was notified of this article. Nell Mathis Fortner had many preexisting injuries and health problems including: a poorly controlled case of Adult Onset Diabetes, degenerative arthritis, high blood pressure...and much more. I'll have you know that i was at that trial, sitting in my chair listening to her lie about doctor's records, and listen to her friends give, quite seemingly, the same story. All but one that is. One "witness" asked Zumwalt, and I quote, "How did i do?" after her testimony. Not to mention that in the jury-room my lawyer was told that one juror was pressing the others to award Mrs. Fortner with more money than most of them thought this case was worth. Is that cause for a mistrial? Welcome to California.