Rear-ender causes ongoing neck pain, carrier offers half-million. $2.6 million. Sacramento County.

Facts and Background

• Facts and Background:

  On March 3, 2014, plaintiff , a 45 year-old male, was stopped on southbound Highway 680 when an employee of Davis Development Company, Inc., driving a Chevy work truck, struck the rear of plaintiff's vehicle. The impact caused a chain reaction, which propelled plaintiff forward into the vehicle in front of him. Plaintiff claimed he sustained injuries to his neck, producing pain as well as headaches and occasional radiating symptoms in his left arm. Plaintiff sued Davis Development Company, Inc., alleging negligence and claiming damages for past/future medical expenses, past/future loss of household services and past/future non-economic damages. He did not make a lost income claim.

  The defendant admitted course and scope as well as liability for the collision, and the matter proceeded to a trial on causation and damages only.

• Plaintiff's Contentions:

  That defendant's negligence caused ongoing pain and discomfort for plaintiff as a result of the rear-end crash.

• Defendant's Contentions:

  The Defense claimed that while plaintiff did sustain soft tissue cervical strain in the incident, his acute cervical strain healed after physical therapy approximately six weeks after the collision and before he left for a trip to Greece.

  Defendant's experts in orthopedic surgery and neurosurgery opined that plaintiff’s symptoms and treatment after his return from Greece were the result of a longstanding pre-existing condition that stemmed back to medieval martial arts injuries that plaintiff sustained in 2003 and 2008. Both doctors noted plaintiff’s 150 plus chiropractic visits in the three years prior to the collision as a basis for their opinions. They also based this on the fact that plaintiff reported doing better after physical therapy, citing 1/10 “negligible pain” and then traveling to Europe approximately three months after the collision occurred.

  Defense counsel also highlighted that plaintiff took seven trips to Europe in total in the four years after the collision in an effort to suggest that the non-economic damage portion of the claim was being exaggerated. The defense radiologist testified that the results of plaintiff’s MRI imaging studies revealed longstanding, age-related degeneration and did not reveal any evidence of a single traumatic event producing injury. All of defendant’s medical experts were of the opinion his prognosis was from degeneration and prior complaints and problems he had before the collision.