A Robertson County, Texas jury, ordered a Texas A&M U. student to pay $21.825 million in damages in a civil suit. The jury on Wednesday decided Jason Reed Vestal was texting while driving and it caused the deadly wreck in which he was involved in November 2007.
“My phone records indicated that there was text messaging and there was phone calls during my drive, but it was really hard to prove whether it was text messaging that caused it,” said Vestal, a graduate student in finance and real estate. “I don’t remember anything from the wreck.”
Phone records indicated Vestal sent and received 15 text messages and made seven calls prior to the accident. The victim was Megan Small of Houston, a 21-year-old senior at Baylor University, who was driving on Texas Highway 6 to Waco when Vestal’s truck collided head-on with her vehicle. Small’s friend, Laura Gleffe, was following her. Gleffe’s car rolled in the accident.
The family of the victim and Gleffe will share the damages in what lawyer Hunter Craft calls a landmark case.
“It’s a landmark case for several reasons,” Craft said. “No. 1 it’s the first time a Texas jury has spoken out and spoken loudly about their thoughts with regard to texting and driving. It was also the largest wrongful death verdict ever to come out of Robertson County. I think that’s probably synonymous with the egregious nature of Reed Vestal’s conduct in the case.”
Vestal filed for bankruptcy before the civil case, so he will not be expected to pay in full.
“I’m a grad student. I’ve got $35,000 in school debt, so I have no money,” Vestal said. “I had to file for bankruptcy at the age of 22. It came to so much because they were trying to send a message. They were trying to send a message saying that text messaging and driving is bad, and it is. It’s dangerous. I’m very sorry for what had happened. It was an accident, but it was a terrible accident.”
Craft said the verdict was not about the amount of money but about the message that it sent.
“I think the number is purely indicative of what 12 people from Robertson County thought about Jason Reed Vestal’s conduct,” Craft said. “We’re very pleased with the message it sent, and our expectations are that it grabs headlines. The message will be sent that this kind of conduct is not acceptable in Texas.”
Craft and the family of the victim are expecting the verdict to bring attention to the dangers of text messaging and are hoping to influence the Texas Legislature.
“The civil lawsuit was only the first stepping stone,” Craft said. “We’ve already been in contact over the weekend and last week with state legislators, and we will use the civil verdict and parlay that into hopefully what will be a statewide law banning texting while driving.”