Trial Lawyers And Insurance Industry Watch Pre-Impact Fear Case

Lee Coleman

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The Kentucky Supreme Court is looking to see if it will uphold the verdict in a case where there was 'pre-impact fear'. In 2002 a tractor-trailer lost a 30,000 pound steel coil that crushed Melissa Congleton's truck. A rescue worker stated that her 'face was fixed in a scream'. A jury awarded $100,000 for the fear she experienced just before her death.

"Critics of damages for pre-impact fright say they abandon a long line of precedent that prohibits awarding damages for what happened before contact in an incident. Without pre-impact fear, Congleton's estate would not have received any damages for pain and suffering in Kentucky because she died on impact, her lawyers said.
Compensation for pain and suffering is awarded only if the victim dies after impact -- in a fire, for example -- said Lexington lawyer Joe Savage, who wrote a friend of the court brief for the Kentucky Academy of Trial Attorneys.
'Why would you let the wrongdoer off the hook?' said Savage, who is also representing Comair crash victims.
Shannon Ragland, publisher of the Kentucky Trial Court Review, said it's tough to tell which way the Supreme Court will rule on the issue."