$7.25 Million Verdict for Family of DOT Supervisor Killed on Route 8 Shoulder

On the morning of March 22, 2012, Daniel DiNardi was doing what he had done for more than two decades as a Connecticut Department of Transportation supervisor: clearing debris from a highway shoulder. He pulled his orange DOT pickup truck onto the right shoulder of Route 8 northbound near the Waterbury-Naugatuck line, activated its emergency and strobe lights, and stepped out. The truck was visible. The lights were on. He stood well to the right of the fog line.

Gina Davies, driving a tractor-trailer for PTX Services LLC, drifted from the northbound travel lane onto that shoulder and struck DiNardi. He suffered multiple blunt-force trauma injuries and died shortly after reaching the hospital. He was 41 years old, the father of two children.

The criminal case moved first. Davies pleaded guilty to misconduct with a motor vehicle and received a five-year sentence, two years to serve. The civil case followed in Hartford Superior Court, where attorney John Houlihan Jr. of RisCassi and Davis represented DiNardi's estate.

At trial, Houlihan introduced evidence that Davies had falsified her driver logbooks for the two days before the crash, concealing the hours she had actually spent behind the wheel. Davies' defense attributed the drift onto the shoulder to a phantom vehicle that cut her off, but the jury rejected that account entirely. The jury found Davies 100 percent at fault.

In October 2014, the jury awarded $7.25 million: $1,249,970 in economic damages for DiNardi's lost earning capacity and $6 million in noneconomic damages for loss of enjoyment of life. With prejudgment interest applied because the defendants had declined an earlier offer of compromise, the total judgment exceeded $8.4 million. Post-verdict motions to set aside the verdict and for remittitur were filed by the defense; no appellate reduction of the award has been reported in the public record.