$30 Million Settlement for Teen Left With Brain Injury in Paulding County School-Zone Crash

On the afternoon of January 11, 2022, school had just been dismissed at North Paulding High School in Paulding County. A ninth-grade student, 14 years old, was walking through a marked crosswalk on campus toward football practice when a 17-year-old driver sped through the parking lot at 25 mph in a posted 15 mph zone and struck her. The force of the collision sent her onto the asphalt.

The injuries were catastrophic. The teen suffered a fractured skull and severe traumatic brain injury requiring two emergency surgeries. She spent roughly three months at Children's Scottish Rite Hospital. Doctors initially warned her family she might never walk or speak again. Her hospital bills alone exceeded $3 million.

Jeb Butler and Matt Kahn of Butler Kahn filed suit on her behalf. The defense initially denied liability, arguing the driver could not have stopped in time because the victim was jogging, and offered $250,000 to settle the case. Butler Kahn rejected the offer and built the plaintiff's case around eyewitness testimony, expert accident reconstruction, and a frame-by-frame animation showing the driver's sightline and the gap between the posted speed limit and the speed the driver was traveling. The animation put the jury in the driver's seat and illustrated exactly how much time and distance the driver had to slow down before the crosswalk.

After more than two years of litigation, the case resolved at mediation for $30 million. The settlement will fund lifetime care for the teen, whose recovery has continued against the original medical prognosis: she has regained the ability to walk with assistance and to speak, and she participates in her community.

The result was reported by the Law.com Daily Report in March 2024 as one of the larger pedestrian-TBI settlements in Georgia in recent years.