Close
Updated:

Jury Awards $3.5 M in Elmore County Traffic Fatality

A jury deliberated less than an hour before award­ing $3.5 million to the family of a man who died when his van was crushed between two logging trucks in a January 2008 acci­dent in Elmore County.

A Chilton County jury ordered Ken Gorum Trucking and Gary Fruge, the driver of the logging truck, to pay $3.5 million to the family of James Sanderson.

Attorneys Benjamin E. Baker and J. Cole Portis entered evi­dence that the Gorum truck was being operated at a high rate of speed and with defective brakes in violation of Alabama law.


The accident occurred in El­more County where Alabama 14 intersects with Alabama 170 going toward Eclectic. A car had stopped to make a left-hand turn, and first a logging truck and then Sanderson’s van had stopped behind it.

The Gorum logging truck, driven by Fruge, failed to stop, and rammed Sanderson’s van, pushing it into the logs on the truck in front of him.

“I don’t want to be too graphic, but his vehicle was sent ca­reening into the logs in the log truck in front of him, the logs went through the front wind­shield of his car, and one of the logs went through his head and killed him,” said Portis, who along with Baker is part of the Beasley Allen law firm in Mont­gomery.

Fruge said the truck was trav­eling about 45mph.

Portis and Baker contended it had to have been going much faster than that.

“If he had been going 45, he had a thousand feet to stop and should have stopped within 360 feet,” Portis said. “Based on the evidence from the accident, our expert said he was going some­where between 65 to 75 miles per hour.”

Beasley Allen represented the Sanderson family, including James Sanderson’s widow, An­nie M. Sanderson, and children, Derek, Josh and Amy Sander­son. The family lives in Clanton.

Before the trial, Progressive Insurance Co., the insurance company for the defendants, re­fused to settle the case, Portis said.

If you or a family member has been injured because of the fault of someone else; by negligence, personal injury, slip and fall, car accident, medical malpractice, trucking accident, drunk driving, bad product, toxic injury etc then please contact the Fort Worth Texas Personal Injury Attorney Dr. Shezad Malik. For a no obligation, free case analysis, please call 817-255-4001 or Contact Me Online.

Contact Us
Start Chat