A surveillance video showing a college student playing competitive soccer following a car crash didn’t prevent a Florida jury from awarding her more than $2.8 million for neck and back injuries.
Chantelle Alexander, 23, sued after the Honda Civic she was riding in as a passenger was hit by Ariecel Rojas in 2019.
“It really depends on how much she was playing,” said Emanuel Galimidi, a personal injury attorney with Galimidi Law in Miami. “If she played five to 10 minutes in the opening game of the season, and then just kind of bowed out, then I can see why the jury wouldn't give too much credence to that as an argument.”
Prior to becoming a trial attorney defending plaintiffs, Galimidi was hired by insurance companies to defend the insured for nearly 20 years.
“This surveillance post-accident is a common insurance carrier strategy where they'll go out and try and film you to see if you're doing things that you say you can't, which of course makes sense,” Galimidi told the Florida Record.
The former ASA College soccer player alleged that the rear-end car accident left her with lifelong pain that she is in treatment for with chiropractic and pain management services.
As previously reported, at the time of the accident, Rojas was driving a pickup truck and Alexander was 19 years old.
“Jurors are still taking a hard line when it comes to verdicts and those numbers continue to go up,” Galimidi said in an interview. “The ultimate desire of insurers, I would assume, is to drive down settlements and drive down verdicts when those cases go to trial but I don't see that happening at the verdict level. At the settlement level, we’ll see.”
In addition to Rojas, the defendants named in the litigation included the truck’s owner, Antonio Perez, and US Fire Systems, Inc., which employed both Rojas and Perez. All admitted fault, according to Courtroom View Network.
The trial, which took place in the 11th Judicial Circuit state court, focused on damages from the crash.
Defense attorney Thomas McCausland accused Alexander of recovering six weeks after the crash and referenced the video during his closing argument.
"You can look at that surveillance… and see her running around, heading [the ball], doing what she’s doing on the soccer field,” he reportedly said. “The simple fact is they didn’t prove their case. They didn't meet their burden of proof.”
Morgan & Morgan’s Keith Mitnik, who represented Alexander, argued that his client cannot play soccer in the same capacity she did before the accident without experiencing pain.
“Can she still go out on the soccer field? Is it worthwhile, is the question, for the price she pays for it,” Mitnik reportedly said during his final argument. “And the answer, we know, is no, or she’d be out there doing it today.”