Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath get an Improbable Win
In a significant legal development at the end of 2025, an Indiana appellate court overturned a $60.7 million jury verdict that had been entered against Tesla Inc. and one of its employees in a catastrophic motorcycle crash case. The Court of Appeals of Indiana held that the trial court’s improper private communication with jurors during deliberations tainted the verdict and mandated a new trial on damages, marking a major procedural victory for Tesla.
The case stems from a 2017 collision in Indianapolis when Tesla service technician Kyle Kaszuba made a left turn with a company vehicle into the path of motorcyclist Christopher Dugan, resulting in life-altering brain injuries and a partial foot amputation. In March 2024, a Marion County jury found Kaszuba 70 % at fault and Dugan 30 % at fault, awarding total damages of roughly $60.7 million, later reduced to about $42.2 million after comparative-fault adjustments.
Tesla’s defense teams — including Daniel E. Pulliam, Brian J. Paul, and Andrea Roberts Pierson of Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, along with Ellyde R. Thompson, Chelsea Sincox, and others from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP — pressed their appeal forcefully, arguing that the ex parte contact between the trial judge and jurors unfairly influenced deliberations.
The appellate panel, led by Judge Tavitas with Judges May and Vaidik concurring, agreed. The court found that the trial court’s off-the-record discussion with jurors, after indicating it would declare a mistrial and then rescinding that decision, created a presumption of error that the plaintiff failed to rebut. As a result, the panel reversed the damages award and remanded the case for a new damages trial, vindicating Tesla’s insistence on procedural fairness.
While the reversal does not erase the underlying crash, it underscores a core legal principle: a fair and transparent jury process is paramount. For Tesla and its counsel — and more broadly for defendants in complex personal-injury litigation — the decision is a clear reminder that procedural errors, even when unintentional, can unravel large verdicts.
Taft Stettinius & Hollister Expose a Major Mistake
In a striking appellate decision in March 2025, the Appellate Court of Illinois, First District reversed a $43.8 million jury verdict in favor of plaintiffs Cynthia and Mark Kroft, underscoring the bedrock legal principle that a fair and impartial trial must be free from undue outside influence. The ruling vacated the trial court judgment and remanded the case for yet another trial after finding that procedural errors related to plaintiffs’ counsel’s conduct undermined the fairness of the second trial.
The underlying case stems from a devastating 2016 rear-end collision in which a tractor-trailer driven by Predrag Radisavljevic, leased to Viper Trans, Inc., struck Cynthia Kroft’s vehicle, leaving her with catastrophic spinal injuries and permanent physical limitations. Liability was not disputed; the main issue at trial was the amount of damages to award.
After an earlier trial was ordered retried due to separate issues, a second jury again returned a roughly $43.8 million verdict for the Krofts. But appellate judges concluded that plaintiffs’ attorneys’ mid-trial blog and social-media posts — including one titled “What Jurors Should Know But Don’t” that discussed case history and mischaracterized reasons for the retrial — created a real risk of influencing jurors with extraneous information.
Representing Viper Trans, Inc. on appeal were J. Timothy Eaton, Jonathan B. Amarilio, and Adam W. Decker of Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP in Chicago, who forcefully argued that the trial court’s denial of a mistrial and its flawed inquiry into juror exposure were abuses of discretion.
On the other side, Kenneth J. Allen, Otto J. Shragal, Robert D. Brown, and Sarah M. Cafiero of Allen Law Group, LLC in Chesterton, Indiana, represented the Krofts.
The appellate panel, led by Presiding Justice Fitzgerald Smith, concluded that because the trial court’s handling of the potential jury influence was improper, the verdict could not stand. The court vacated the judgment and remanded for a new trial, reinforcing that procedural fairness — not just verdict size — is essential to justice.
