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Jury awards Anamosa family $35M in case against Cedar Rapids trucking company
Judge lowers award to $26.1M; company seeks new trial on crash accusations
Jul. 2, 2024 5:30 am, Updated: Jul. 2, 2024 7:57 am
A Linn County jury has ordered a Cedar Rapids trucking company and a semitractor-trailer driver to pay over $35.7 million to the family of teen severely injured when a semi turned in front of her car in heavy fog in 2020 in Anamosa.
Margaret McQuillen, 18 at the time, suffered life-threatening injuries to her skull and brain and received severe facial and jaw injuries as a result of the crash on March 19, 2020, on Highway 151, near Circle Drive, in Anamosa, according to a lawsuit filed by her parents, Matthew and Elizabeth McQuillen, in 2022.
She suffered traumatic brain injury and underwent numerous surgeries at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, including an over 16-hour surgery to begin facial reconstruction and weeks of rehabilitation at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago, said Matt Novak, a lawyer with Pickens Barnes and Abernathy in Cedar Rapids.
“It’s amazing she survived,” Novak said Monday. “She had 100 fractures in her face. She coded at the scene and was given lifesaving measures by first responders. She’s an amazing young woman.”
Margaret McQuillen graduated this year from the UI with a bachelor’s degree in exercise science. She is now a personal trainer, Novak said.
The jury award may be one of largest personal injury verdicts in Iowa, Novak said. The two-week trial started June 11 in Linn County District Court.
The jury’s award was reduced following the verdict because jurors found Margaret McQuillen shared some of the fault. Westside Transport and semi driver Clifford Charles Takes were 73 percent at fault and Margaret McQuillen was 27 percent at fault, according to the judge’s order.
Sixth Judicial District Judge Justin Lightfoot reduced the total damages awarded to the McQuillens by the 27 percent, which makes the award over $26.1 million.
Lightfoot granted a temporary suspension of the verdict award until post-trial motions are filed, as requested by Westside Transport. The trucking company plans to file a motion seeking a new trial. The suspension will be lifted after the court rules on the motions, according to the order.
According to the lawsuit, Margaret McQuillen’s vehicle was headed south on Highway 151 when Takes, the driver of a Freightliner for Westside Transport, crossed in front of her but had limited visibility because of fog. The semi didn’t clear the intersection before McQuillen collided with it, and her vehicle upon impact went underneath the trailer, shearing off its top.
“He proceeded to make one of the most dangerous maneuvers a trucker can make, an unprotected left-hand turn where the speed of the cross-traffic was 65 mph,” Rodriquez & Associates, a California firm that Novak partnered with on the case, said in a statement. “The trucking company had no fog delay policy in place.”
“Our client is an exceptionally brave and resilient young woman who deserves every opportunity in life,” Joel Andreesen, senior partner with Rodriguez & Associates, said in the statement.
The firm, in its statement, said Andreesen, who grew up in Anamosa, is a childhood friend of Margaret’s father, Matthew McQuillen and they were also roommates at the UI College of Law. Matthew McQuillen is a lawyer in Anamosa.
Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com
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