Jury Verdict for UCLA Student Motorcyclist After Insurer Refused to Pay Its $2 Million Policy
Adamson Ahdoot LLP trial attorneys Douglas D. Shaffer and Keith Stone secured a $7,529,479 jury verdict on behalf of our client, Christian, a 21-year-old UCLA student who was seriously injured when a commercial SUV turned left across his path. The verdict is nearly four times the $2 million insurance policy the carrier declined to pay, and more than four times its final settlement offer.
A Left Turn on Wilshire Boulevard
On November 27, 2024, the day before Thanksgiving, Christian was riding his motorcycle on Wilshire Boulevard at La Cienega in Beverly Hills. He had transferred to UCLA after earning strong grades at El Camino College, and his family would later testify that the months before that day were the happiest of his life.
As he approached the intersection, a driver for Towing and Transport Express, Inc., operating a company SUV on the job, made an unsafe left turn directly across his lane. The turn was captured on video. Christian had no time to react and struck the front of the SUV.
Three Dislocated Joints, Six Surgeries, 18 Days in the Hospital
The force of the collision dislocated three of Christian’s joints at once: his left hip, his right knee, and his left wrist. It also fractured both bones in his left forearm and ruptured his left testicle.
Over the next five days he underwent four surgeries. Surgeons plated and screwed his forearm fractures, reconstructed the torn ligaments in his right knee, removed the ruptured testicle, and performed a combined carpal tunnel release, ligament repair, and external fixation of his wrist. He left the hospital and inpatient rehabilitation after 18 days with an external fixator still protruding from his forearm.
Recovery was slow. A fifth surgery in May 2025 reconstructed his ACL, followed by 49 physical therapy sessions. Asked at trial about those early months, Christian said simply that his thoughts were dark, and that he was in pain everywhere he had been hurt. By the time the case reached a jury, he had accumulated 93 days of medical care and 119 separate medical services, including 25 imaging studies. And his treatment is not finished: both sides agreed he will need a total right knee replacement and a wrist fusion. Our orthopedic expert testified that the hip dislocation will also lead to a hip replacement, and that because Christian is so young, his knee replacement will eventually wear out and need to be redone.
He was only 23 years old at this point.
When the Insurer Refuses to Pay the Policy: Why This Case Went to Trial
Most personal injury cases settle. Insurers count on it. This one did not, and the reason is worth understanding if you or a family member has been seriously hurt.
Towing and Transport Express was insured under a $2 million policy with National Fire and Marine Insurance Company. Liability was never seriously in question: the turn was on video, and the driver ultimately admitted before trial that he was negligent and caused the crash. Given the severity of Christian’s injuries, we gave the carrier an opportunity in December 2025 to resolve the case for its full policy limit.
The carrier declined.
Under California law, when an insurer unreasonably refuses to settle a claim within its policy limits, it can be held responsible for the full amount of any judgment, not just the amount of the policy. Attorneys call this “opening the policy.” Once National Fire and Marine passed on the chance to protect its insured for $2 million, we withdrew the limits opportunity and prepared the case for trial. The carrier then intervened in the lawsuit as a party.
For the next seven months, the defense made no further effort to settle. Then, 25 days before trial, the driver and the insurer jointly served a statutory offer of $1.6 million, less than the policy limit they had already refused to pay. We rejected it.
Trying a Damages Case: Four Days of Jury Selection, One Expert, and Cross-Examination
Because liability was admitted, the trial before the Hon. Susan Bryant-Deason at the Santa Monica Courthouse was about a single question: what is the full measure of what Christian lost?
Jury selection alone took four days. Over the roughly two weeks that followed, we called one retained expert, orthopedic surgeon, along with Christian’s treating urologist, Christian himself, and his older brother, Omar. The defense called three retained experts.
We made a deliberate choice to try the case with a single retained expert. Our expert explained to the jury that dislocating the hip of a young, muscular man requires tearing through the muscle and bone that hold the joint in place, and that Christian dislocated two more joints in the same instant. That mechanism, he testified, is what makes future arthritis and joint replacements a matter of when, not if.
The defense experts disputed the hip replacement, the knee revision, and the extent of the wrist fusion, arriving at a future medical figure roughly half of ours. On cross-examination, however, each conceded points that supported our case, including the violence of the mechanism and the need for the knee replacement and wrist fusion. By closing, we were able to argue to the jury that the defense’s own witnesses had reinforced what our expert told them, and to frame the expert dispute with a single question: which explanation fits the injuries you saw?
Valuing 54 Years: How the Jury Measured Pain and Suffering
The largest part of this verdict, $7 million of the $7.5 million, was awarded for non-economic damages: pain, mental suffering, disfigurement, humiliation, and loss of enjoyment of life. Understanding why matters, because many injured people assume their case is worth some multiple of their medical bills.
It is not. As we told the jury, pain and suffering is not just multiplying the bills. Christian’s past medical bills were $217,000. His injuries will be with him for a life expectancy of 54 more years, and 54 years is a lifetime, not a moment.
Rather than simply ask the jury for a number, we organized California’s recognized categories of harm into four parts of a life: the body, the mind, identity, and the life lost. Christian testified about the scars on his forearm, wrist, and knee, and about how the loss of his testicle has affected his willingness to date, saying he was not ready to bring that upon a partner. Omar described caring for his brother through recovery and told the jury that Christian had lost a piece of himself.
To help jurors grasp 54 years, we asked them to look back the same distance, to 1972.
The Verdict
After one full day of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of $7,529,479.32:
- $217,000 in past medical expenses
- $312,479.32 in future medical expenses, adopting our future-care figure in full, including the disputed hip replacement and knee revision
- $2,000,000 in past non-economic damages
- $5,000,000 in future non-economic damages
The verdict exceeds the $2 million policy by more than $5.5 million, and we anticipate roughly $1 million in additional costs and interest. Several jurors told us afterward they had argued for more.
What This Means for Injured Motorcyclists and Their Families
“They admitted fault” does not mean the case is easy. Here, fault was admitted and the defense still valued the case at $1.6 million. The fight was entirely over what a young man’s future is worth.
An insurer’s refusal to pay its policy limit can be its own mistake. When a carrier declines a reasonable opportunity to settle within limits, California law may hold it responsible for the entire judgment. But that leverage only exists if your attorneys are prepared and willing to try the case.
Future care matters as much as past bills. Jurors awarded every dollar of the future surgeries our expert identified. Thorough medical documentation and the right expert, not simply the most experts, made that possible.
Choose a firm that goes to trial. Insurers know which firms settle and which firms pick juries. The late, below-limits offer in this case reflected an assumption that we would not go the distance. We did.
About Adamson Ahdoot LLP
Adamson Ahdoot LLP is a personal injury law firm based in Los Angeles, serving clients throughout California. Our trial attorneys handle motorcycle and motor vehicle collision cases, commercial vehicle accidents, and serious injury matters requiring expert medical testimony and a willingness to take cases to verdict when insurers refuse to pay what a claim is worth.
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