Corpus Christi Jury Awards $24 Million After Coca-Cola Driver on Hands-Free Call Blindsided a Woman at Downtown Intersection

In August 2010, Vanice Chatman-Wilson, then 37, was driving through a downtown Corpus Christi intersection on her way to work when a Coca-Cola Refreshments delivery vehicle hit her car on the driver's side. The Coca-Cola driver, Araceli Venessa Cabral, was on a hands-free business call at the time. According to testimony at trial, Cabral mistook the signal, believed she had a green turn arrow, and turned left into oncoming traffic. The impact crushed the driver's side of Chatman-Wilson's Ford Fusion.

Chatman-Wilson suffered a serious spinal injury that required lumbar surgery. After the operation she was left with 25 percent permanent disability and ongoing nerve damage in her back. The crash upended her ability to work and left her with long-term medical costs.

Thomas J. Henry and co-counsel Robert Hilliard sued Cabral individually for negligence and sued Coca-Cola Refreshments on a respondeat superior theory, arguing Cabral was acting in her capacity as a company agent at the time of the crash. A central theme at trial was Coca-Cola's distracted-driving policy. The plaintiffs argued the policy was vague and poorly enforced, and that the company had withheld it from Cabral herself. Cabral testified during the trial that she was unaware of the risks of driving while on a cell phone.

The Nueces County jury, a panel of six with five signing the verdict, returned a total award of $24 million on May 4, 2012. That figure included roughly $14 million in compensatory damages covering Chatman-Wilson's lost wages, medical expenses, and pain and suffering, plus $10 million in punitive damages directed at Coca-Cola. (Reporting across outlets cited totals of $21 million, $22 million, and $24 million, reflecting different breakdowns of the compensatory and punitive components; the Insurance Journal reported the total at $24 million.)

Coca-Cola announced plans to appeal the verdict, contending the damages bore 'no connection to her injuries' and that Cabral had followed company policy by using a hands-free device. No public record of a final appellate reduction has been identified in the sources reviewed for this story. Henry told reporters at the time that the verdict sent a message to corporate fleets about the real cost of distracted-driving policies that exist on paper but go unenforced.