Jury sides with teacher in hit-and-run crash

A Jefferson County jury has awarded more than $1.7 million in compensatory and punitive damages to a 44-year-old Hillsboro teacher injured in a hit-and-run collision.

Stacy A. Lowery sued Skyler J. Bent, 26, also of Hillsboro, as well as Bent’s mother Catina Johnson, the car’s owner.

Lowery was driving a 2012 Chevrolet Traverse on southbound Missouri Highway B when she was hit by Bent, whose northbound 2008 Chevy HHR had crossed the center line, according to a Missouri State Highway Patrol accident report. Bent, who was then 22, fled the scene, leaving behind his passengers —his twin 9-year-old brothers. The collision occurred on April 28, 2014, shortly after 5 p.m.

Plaintiff’s attorney Todd Nissenholtz said that “despite the severity of the impact, [Lowery] emerged from the accident largely uninjured,” except for pain in her left arm. She was diagnosed with an impingement of her radial nerve and underwent surgery to release the nerve. The pain returned several months later, and it persists, Nissenholtz said.

The sides went to trial in late August. After a three-day trial, the jury deliberated for more than five hours before agreeing that Lowery was entitled to $930,000 in compensatory damages and $775,000 in punitive damages due to the actions of Bent, who at the time of the accident lacked a valid driver’s license.

The jury found in favor of Johnson, who was sued for negligent entrustment, likely basing their determination on the fact that “her failing health prohibited her from knowing her son’s condition at the time she gave Bent her keys,” Nissenholtz surmised.

“The major issue in the case was the extent of the plaintiff’s injury,” he said. “The defense challenged the extent of the injury very aggressively — walking through every single doctor’s visit [my client] had over four years to establish that Stacy had not received much medical attention for her injury.”

Nissenholtz said the testimony of Lowery, her family members and the principal at the school where she works as “instrumental in establishing that she suffered from regular pain, and was limited in the manner in which she could use her arm on a regular basis.”

Defense attorney Robert Wulff declined to comment.

Court records show that Bent pleaded guilty to three felonies: leaving the scene of an accident causing injury; second-degree assault, driving a vehicle while intoxicated and causing injury; and resisting arrest.