$1,275,000: Wallace v. Do Valle, et. al.

On January 3, 2017, Ms. Wallace was a 29-year old single mother of two and thriving nurse at USC Keck. While driving on the freeway she encountered a woman from Brazil, Ms. Do Valle. Ms. Do Valle had rented a car for the first time and driving from Beverly Hills to San Diego. This was Ms. Do Valle's first time ever driving in the U.S. and first time on the 405 freeway. Ms. Do Valle lost control of her vehicle, collided into the center median and overcorrected to her right into Ms. Wallace's vehicle causing both vehicles to spin out of control. Fortunately, neither vehicle was struck by any other freeway traffic. Ms. Wallace had immediate numbness, weakness and tingling from nerve damage in her cervical spine following this collision. In December 2017, after never having cervical spine issues in her life, Ms. Wallace had a cervical spine fusion procedure. Four years after that, Ms. Wallace's nerve damage was now permanent in nature in what's referred to as "neuropathic pain," To treat this permanent nerve damage, Ms. Wallace underwent a spinal cord stimulator trial in 2022. Ms. Wallace said it was the first time she was pain free since the collision in 2017. The rental car company offered 17% of the client's medical expenses and claimed that (1) her surgery was unrelated to the collision, (2) the spinal cord stimulator was caused by an "unnecessary" surgery, and (3) Ms. Wallace required zero future medical care because her social media images suggested she was 100% pain free. This was a bench trial in Santa Monica, California. After two-weeks, the judge awarded $1,275,000.