Disabled, but not brought down, by catastrophic crash

Last weekend, I had the privilege of hearing Katie Rodriguez Bannister speak. Katie is not a lawyer, but she was speaking to a room full of lawyers on a hot summer day at the Lake of the Ozarks. Katie was introduced by her lawyer, John Wallach, a good friend of mine from St. Louis, and for an hour, while others rushed off to the swimming pools and golf courses, Katie commanded the attention of approximately 200 lawyers.

Katie is a quadriplegic, confined to a wheelchair as the result of a single-car accident in 1990, and she spoke to us about her life as a quadriplegic.

All of us in the room knew the name of Katie Rodriguez, her maiden name. Her name is associated with two Missouri Supreme Court decisions arising out of her lawsuit against Suzuki. On two different occasions, her lawyers presented a case for trial in St. Louis against Suzuki because Katie suffered her injuries in a Suzuki Samurai, a sport utility vehicle. Katie had been a passenger in the SUV operated by a friend. The friend lost control of the vehicle and it rolled over, causing crush damage to the roof of the Samurai and as a result, Katie’s neck was broken and she was paralyzed from the chest down.

Katie claimed that the vehicle had a design defect that gave the Samurai a propensity to roll over in emergency driving situations like that encountered by the driver of Katie’s vehicle. Katie was required to prove that the rollover propensity made the Samurai unreasonably dangerous when put to a reasonably anticipated use.

In the first trial, the jury awarded Katie $30 million in actual damages for her injuries and $60 million in punitive damages to punish Suzuki for its conscious disregard for human life. The trial judge reduced both awards to $20 million. Then, in her first trip to the Missouri Supreme Court, the court decided that evidence of the driver’s intoxication and Katie’s prior consumption of alcohol should have been presented to the jury, and reversed the jury verdicts and remanded the case for a new trial.

Suzuki should have been careful what it asked for, because in the second trial, the jury awarded Katie $25 million in compensatory damages and $11.9 million in punitive damages. The trial judge reduced the compensatory damages to $20 million, the same amount from the first trial. This occurred despite evidence that the driver of Katie’s vehicle was intoxicated and that Katie had also been drinking.
Again, Suzuki appealed the verdict to the Missouri Supreme Court and once again the court reversed the jury’s verdict and remanded the case for yet a third trial. The basis for reversal of the second verdict was a determination that the trial judge erred when he failed to admit reports from the National Highway Transportation Safety Commission published six years after Katie’s accident.

NHTSA found that the Samurai’s real-world performance on the nation’s highways was similar to other SUVs and that the vehicle’s rollover propensity was no greater than comparable SUVs. The case was sent back to the trial court for the third trial in 1999. Suzuki decided that it dare not risk a third trial and the case was settled. Thus, approximately 10 years after Katie’s accident, her lawsuit came to an end.

Fortunately, Katie was awarded financial resources to provide lifetime care which included many devices and equipment that made life more tolerable for someone in a wheelchair. She demonstrated many of those devices to us a couple of weeks ago. It was amazing as various braces were placed on her arms that allowed her to eat, write, and even put on makeup.

The theme of her talk was relating to the catastrophically injured client. The amazing thing about Katie is her spirit. I am sure she has many dark days, but everyone could tell that she had decided long ago that she was not going to let her disability get in the way of living. Life had dealt her some lemons, but she made them into some tasty lemonade.

She met her husband while lobbying in Jefferson City for disabled people like herself. Her husband was with her and should be nominated for sainthood. He is not disabled, but he obviously fell in love with Katie because of her optimism and positive spirit. Katie and her husband started their own company, Access-4-All, and she has written a book, “The Personal Care Attendant Guide,” which helps disabled people find the right caretaker. She is motivational speaker and speaks to many groups about disabled people. She frequently talks at schools and has even written a book, “Aunt Katie’s Visit,” an educational book for children about being disabled.

It was an ironic occasion for Katie to be speaking to a room full of lawyers at the Lodge of the Four Seasons at the lake, because prior to her injuries in 1990, Katie was the social director for the same resort. In a sense, she was coming home to help us be better lawyers and counselors for our disabled clients.

We were all inspired by her and as I looked around the room as she spoke, I was not the only one with tears in my eyes. She touched us all.