$21 Million Settlement for Man Who Lost Both Legs After Hit-and-Run Tractor-Trailer Strike at Georgia Intersection

In 2022, Kirk Allen was walking home from work in Cobb County, Georgia, when a tractor-trailer plowed into him at an intersection, dragged him, and kept moving without stopping. No witnesses captured the truck's markings. Police classified the incident as a hit-and-run and closed out the report without identifying a driver or carrier. Allen survived, but both of his legs required amputation.

With no named defendant and no witness list, the path to any recovery was far from clear, and several attorneys turned the matter down. Attorneys Joseph Fried and Briant Mildenhall of Fried Goldberg LLC took the case alongside co-counsel Richard Samms and launched an investigation. They confirmed that Allen had the proper traffic signal and the legal right of way in the crosswalk at the time of impact. That finding shaped the liability theory, but the team still had to identify who was actually behind the wheel.

Through accident reconstruction and carrier record work, the firm tracked the truck to driver Glenn Scott and the companies he was operating under: Grammer Industries and Grammer Logistics. Great West Casualty Company was the insurer. Once the responsible parties were identified and the evidence assembled, the defendants no longer had a viable defense on liability.

The case settled in early 2023 for $21 million. The title of the Law.com Daily Report story on the settlement, published March 6, 2023, quoted Joseph Fried directly: 'In the end, they did the right thing.' No appeal or post-settlement reduction has been reported.

The result stands as one of the larger pedestrian-versus-truck settlements recorded in Georgia in recent years and illustrates the investigative work required when a carrier flees a catastrophic scene.