Wei Wu v. Ryder Truck – $15 Million Judgement

Wei Wu was asleep in the cab of an 18 wheeler hauling cargo cross country. As they crossed the Poplar Street Bridge in downtown St. Louis the driver of the tractor trailer lost control of the vehicle causing it to strike the median and flip over on the highway.  Wei Wu suffered devastating and life changing injuries.  He had hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills and he would never work again. He hired our law firm to represent his interests and we sued the driver as well as the trucking company on his behalf. The trucking company turned over the matter to their insurance company who turned down the claim stating that they did not need to provide coverage for this particular accident.  This was an extremely complicated case as the trucking company and the drivers were based out of Canada.  Further complicating matters was the fact that their tractor broke down and their company rented a replacement tractor cab for them to be able to complete their haul.  We sued the driver of the truck as well as two separate trucking companies. We fought hard on behalf of our client and obtained a judgement in his favor in the amount of $13,803,203.  We got another $1.5 million for his wife for all the damages she suffered as a result of having her husband so horribly injured.  Unfortunately, winning on paper was only the beginning of this battle.  Everything we had done so far would be meaningless if we could not collect.  All of the insurance companies involved denied the claim saying that for one reason or another the accident was not covered under their policy.  We kept pushing and eventually filed a separate garnishment law suit against four insurance companies asking the court to force them to pay our judgment.  Everyone agreed that our client was hurt but no one wanted to pay him as they said the accident was not covered.  We won in the trial court, we won in the Court of Appeals and finally got paid after the Supreme Court of Missouri ruled against the insurance companies.  It was a long hard fought battle but we eventually collected over 15 million dollars for our client.