Iowa Jury Awards $13.6 Million to Man Paralyzed by Off-Duty Officer Running Red Light at 61 MPH

Shortly after midnight on December 31, 2008, Jarvis Lee Boggs, 22, was driving through an intersection in Waterloo, Iowa, when a Waterloo Police Department squad car driven by Officer Dustin Yates struck his vehicle. Yates was responding to a call but had activated neither emergency lights nor siren. According to evidence presented at trial, Yates crossed the Cedar River and accelerated to at least 61 mph in a 35 mph zone before entering the intersection and running a red light. The collision left Boggs paralyzed, requiring lifelong medical care and permanent assistance with the activities of daily living.

Both Boggs and Yates claimed they had a green light. The city of Waterloo defended the officer and contested fault throughout the litigation, which stretched nearly five years before reaching trial in Black Hawk County District Court. The case turned on whether the officer's decision to race through a busy intersection at nearly double the speed limit, without any warning to other drivers, amounted to the kind of unreasonable conduct that made the city liable.

The Spence Law Firm partners Mel C. Orchard III and G. Bryan Ulmer III of Jackson, Wyoming, tried the case alongside Waterloo co-counsel Thomas P. Frerichs and John J. Rausch. Over 11 days of testimony, the plaintiff's team presented evidence on Yates' speed, the sight lines at the intersection, and the crushing medical costs Boggs faced for the rest of his life. A plaintiff's expert placed the lifetime medical bill between $8 million and $12 million.

On March 5, 2013, after one day of deliberation, the jury returned a $13.6 million gross verdict. The award included $12.1 million for future medical expenses, $554,313 for past medical expenses, and $250,000 each for past pain and suffering, future pain and suffering, past loss of full mind and body, and future loss of full mind and body. The jury apportioned 25 percent of the fault to Boggs, reducing the net recovery to $10.2 million.

No appeal or remittitur was identified in court records or press coverage following the verdict.