On May 18, 2013, on South Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 25-year-old Chris Moreno-Vega got behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated and negligently drove into the back of a scooter operated by 49-year-old Timothy Blaikie. Auto America, a Fort Lauderdale-based used car dealer, owned the vehicle and negligently entrusted it to Moreno-Vega.
Mr. Blaikie was catapulted from his scooter and into the windshield of the car. His spine fractured on impact, killing him instantly.
Timothy Blaikie left behind his adoring wife, Suzanne, and her 18-year-old son, Joey, whom Tim had adopted a decade earlier. Just nine days before the crash, Joey had deployed with his U.S. Marine Corps platoon to Afghanistan.
Suzanne hired attorneys from another law firm who, in turn, teamed up with David Brill and Joseph Rinaldi, Jr. of BRILL & RINALDI, The Law Firm. Together, the attorneys brought a wrongful death lawsuit against Moreno-Vega and the auto dealership on behalf of Tim Blaikie’s family.
The attorneys hoped to secure a monetary recovery for Suzanne and Joey that, at minimum, would compensate the family for the substantial financial loss of Tim’s significant yearly earnings. However, records indicated that the intoxicated driver did not have insurance or appreciable assets, and neither did the auto dealer.
Furthermore, neither the driver nor the auto dealer responded to the lawsuit. As a result, the court entered default judgments against both defendants, and the allegations in the lawsuit were deemed admitted.
Because the lawsuit requested a jury trial, however, a trial was still necessary to determine the amount of damages to which the family was entitled. Trying the case would require the attorneys to invest additional resources even though any compensation awarded through a verdict might ultimately never be paid.
The attorneys never hesitated to move forward.
For them, the purpose of the trial went beyond the possibility of financial recovery. It was about giving Suzanne and Joey the opportunity to have a jury recognize, through its verdict, the depth of their loss and send a message to the defendants who did not participate in the process or apologize for causing Tim’s death. A jury of Suzanne’s and Joey’s peers had the power to provide that validation and, with it, a measure of closure.
Largest Verdict in the Nation
At the 2015 trial, Suzanne testified about the extraordinary love she and Tim shared. She described the profound loneliness she experienced after his death, how she often felt she had lost her purpose, and how the pain remained even two years after police arrived at her door to tell her Tim was gone.
Joey’s story was equally powerful.
Nine days before Tim’s death, when Joey deployed to Afghanistan, he wrote a letter to his father. In it, Joey called Tim his hero for being the husband, role model, and father who helped make Joey the man he had become.
Joey had been a National Honor Society student and two-sport athlete at a prominent Catholic high school. He turned down a full academic scholarship to Florida State University to join the United States Marine Corps. Yet, to Joey, the man who had adopted and raised him was the hero.
Suzanne’s testimony and Joey’s letter resonated deeply with the jury. After approximately 25 minutes of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict awarding the family $844,566,000. The verdict was approximately four times the amount David Brill of BRILL & RINALDI, The Law Firm had asked the jury to consider awarding during closing argument.
The size of the verdict was extraordinary, but what happened afterward captured what the trial had truly been about.
The four women and two men who served on the jury left the jury box and approached the table where the attorneys and the Blaikie family had gathered. Many of the jurors had tears in their eyes as they embraced the attorneys and members of the family, who were also in tears.
Each juror then offered the words the Blaikie family had waited more than two years to hear:
“I’m so sorry.”