$215,500 Settlement

Attorney Julie Burkett

Passenger recovers $215,500 for injuries

Driver killed while trying to avoid wood spilled on highway

A passenger injured in a car accident that killed the driver has reached a global settlement of $215,500 in her St. Louis County case against the driver’s family and two other motorists involved in the collision.

Sarah Masterson, 15, was a passenger in a 1999 Isuzu Trooper traveling northbound on Interstate 55 in Scott County on April 19, 2003. Her 18-year-old friend Daniel Ryan Jr. was driving the sport utility vehicle.

Mary Summers was operating a red Ford pickup truck pulling a trailer ahead of Ryan’s vehicle on northbound I-55. Summers and her companion, William Grodner, had loaded the trailer with wood. The wood on the trailer was not properly secured, plaintiff said, and it fell onto the highway in the path of Ryan’s SUV.

Masterson alleged Ryan was driving too fast and lost control of his vehicle while attempting to avoid the wood in the road. Ryan’s vehicle flipped, spun in circles, left the driving lane of northbound I-55 and traveled across the median into the southbound lanes.

Masterson and Ryan were ejected from the SUV into oncoming traffic. Ryan died at the scene when he was struck by a vehicle traveling southbound on I-55. Masterson lost consciousness and suffered wrist and rib fractures, a closed-head injury, spinal and abdominal trauma, multiple abrasions and other injuries.

After the collision, Summers and Grodner did not stop at the scene and continued northbound on I-55. The Missouri State Highway Patrol located Summers and Grodner based on witness statements. The patrol collected samples of the wood that fell from the trailer at the accident scene, and they used forensic experts to match it to wood found on Summers’ trailer.

Masterson ultimately reached settlements of $100,000 with Summers, $82,500 with Ryan’s father, $18,000 with Grodner, and $15,000 in medical payments coverage.

St. Louis attorneys Robert J. Danis and Sean Flaherty, who represented Ryan and Summers, said their clients settled in October 2004. The final settlement with Grodner, negotiated through in-house counsel at Nationwide Mutual Insurance, was reached in September 2007.