Oregon Court of Appeals Strikes Down $500K Damages Cap in $20M Wrongful Death Case

On an early January morning in 2021 on U.S. Highway 26, Trevor Nicholas Lee was behind the wheel while under the influence of narcotics and traveling roughly 96 mph when he rear-ended Grant Fisher's truck. The collision knocked the truck off the road and rolled it into a tree with such force that the steering wheel bent around Fisher's body. His truck caught fire. Grant Fisher was 23 years old. He was survived by his wife, Caitlin Fisher, and a daughter who was four months old at the time.

Lee pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter and is serving his sentence at Oregon State Penitentiary, with his earliest release date set for April 2030. The criminal case resolved, but the civil case presented a different legal obstacle.

Caitlin Fisher, acting on behalf of her husband's estate, brought a wrongful death action in Multnomah County Circuit Court. John M. Coletti of Paulson Coletti Trial Attorneys, along with co-counsel Nadia Dahab, represented the family. Lee failed to appear, and at a prima facie hearing the court heard evidence that Fisher remained conscious for about eight minutes, experiencing oxygen starvation, helplessness, and extreme panic before losing consciousness. The trial court awarded $15 million for loss of Fisher's society and companionship and $5 million for his conscious pain and suffering, totaling $20 million.

The trial court then reduced the award to $500,000 under a 1987 Oregon statute that caps noneconomic damages in wrongful death cases. The cap had stood for nearly four decades without significant constitutional challenge.

Coletti and Dahab appealed. In July 2026, the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed the reduction. Writing for the panel, Judge Steven Powers held that the legislature's reason for enacting the cap 'cannot bear the weight of the dramatic reduction in noneconomic damages' in this case. The ruling rested on the Oregon Constitution's guarantee that every person 'shall have remedy by due course of law for injury' done to them. The court found the cap, as applied to Fisher's circumstances, violated that constitutional protection.

The decision is as-applied, not a facial strike of the statute, meaning the case returns to the trial court for reconsideration in light of Fisher's specific facts. The $20 million award remains the measure the court set; whether and how much of it stands is now before the trial court again.