Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Grandmother Waits Nearly Three Years for a Jury Decision

This news from Lance Cooper:

Ramona Roper was a 77 year old woman grandmother who worked full-time as the City Clerk for the City of Jasper. She worked in this position for 30 years, and lived on her own and had a very active lifestyle before her life changed for the worse.

The case involved a 1994 Dodge Intrepid. It had a defective gear shift assembly which caused it to move out of park when the keys were out of the ignition. Chrysler recalled the Intrepid in 2004. Ramona Roper, the car’s owner, took the car into Jasper Jeep to have the recall work done on three separate occasions between 2004 and 2007. The first two times the recall part was not in. The third time, the Jasper Jeep technician did not perform the recall work properly.

In November 2007, Ramona was dropping off some food for her grandchildren. Her three year old granddaughter reached into the center console of the car to pick up a drink and put her hand on the gear shifter causing it to shift out of park. Ramona=s driver side door knocked her over and the car ran her over. She suffered a fractured pelvis. She was hospitalized for one week and was in a nursing home for approximately 6 weeks for recovery.

She returned to work after the incident, but had to retire at the end of 2008 because she was no longer physically able to do her job.


The case took three and a half days to present. We put our evidence up in a short time. We made the decision not to ask the jury for an amount in opening statement. We presented evidence of approximately $60,000 in medical expenses and we argued that, even though she was 74 at the time of the incident, she would have worked for the foreseeable future and asked for about $100,000 in future lost wages.




For more information, contact:

The Cooper Firm

701 Whitlock Avenue

Suite J-43

Marietta, GA 30064

Telephone: (770) 427-5588

Facsimile: (770) 427-0010

Toll Free: (800) 317-2021

Website: TheCooperFirm.net


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