Run-Off-the-Road Crash — Largest Butler County Verdict in a Decade

On Friday, June 30, 2023, a Butler County jury returned a verdict for $375,000.00 in favor of a Broseley, Missouri man. The case was defended by an in-house Nationwide staff attorney who had, before trial, offered to settle for $75,000.00. A total of 10 witnesses testified in this day and-a-half trial, including live medical testimony from a local doctor. The client had been run off the road by a local businessman and then, after running our client off the road, proceeded to go west to escape. An off-duty trooper just happened to be coming from the opposite direction and recorded the whole crash on video and then went back to stop the businessman and bring him back to the crash scene.

Steve Walsh was assisted by his long-time collaborator, Shaun Hanschen of the Blanton Law Firm in Sikeston. They routinely team-up to try federal civil rights cases, but in this event, teamed-up for the trial to insure the evidence went in smoothly and to confront any last minute problems (of which there weren’t any). Our client had the quote of the day when he was being harassed by the insurance defense attorney on why he would do a heavy physical job, such as building a concrete sidewalk from house to pond for his wife and his response was: “Sometimes you just have to do the right thing”. That is what attorney Walsh requested the jury to do and after deliberating an hour and forty-five minutes, they came back with a very nice verdict of $375,000.00, which is the largest verdict in Butler County in the last ten years. This case took 5 years from crash to verdict and the clients became very good friends with Mr. Walsh and his staff.