$40 million drunk driving verdict upheld in what judges call biggest in NC history

A massive $40 million verdict in a drunk driving case — likely the biggest such verdict ever handed down in state history — wasn't improperly decided and can stand, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.

2024-08-06

The case is over a Franklin County wreck in September, 2020, that claimed the life of Susan Renee Chappell.

Notably, the jury ordered most of the verdict to be paid not by the driver who killed Chappell, Shemaro Deann Webb — but by her friend and passenger, LaDorothy Breanna Foreman. Foreman owned the car and let Webb drive it, despite knowing Webb was heavily intoxicated, the jury found.

At trial, a lawyer for Chappell's family urged the jury to order Foreman to pay major damages even though she wasn't driving the car. It would send a message, the lawyer argued, to other people in similar situations in the future: If you knowingly let your friends drive drunk, you can be held accountable for what they do behind the wheel.

Webb and Foreman appealed, arguing they received an unfair trial and that the damages were too high.

The ruling Tuesday shoots down that appeal, setting a precedent for future cases. The decision was unanimous by the panel of judges that included two Republicans and one Democrat.

Of the $40 million total in compensatory and punitive damages, Webb owes $5 million and Foreman owes $20 million. The other $15 million is owed by both women together.

"The size of your verdict is the volume with which you speak," Tuesday's ruling quotes the unnamed lawyer for Chappell's family as saying during the trial. "A million dollars? That won’t carry out those doors back there. A few million dollars might be heard at the town limits, but if you want your voices to be heard in Raleigh, and Durham, and Oxford, and Smithfield, or across the state, or across the nation, you’re going to have to speak louder."

The Court of Appeals ruled that juries have every right to do just that.

"This statement did not cross the line," their ruling says. "The jury is entitled to 'speak loud' with its punitive damages award by sending a message of deterrence to people who consider drunk driving or negligently entrusting a vehicle to a drunk driver."

The judges also noted that higher damages for Foreman could be appropriate since she was never sentenced criminally in the case. Webb, the driver, is currently in prison serving a 13 to 16 year sentence.