A Cook County jury has awarded nearly $80 million to the the family of a 10-year-old girl who was killed in a car crash caused by a police pursuit.
The city has admitted responsibility for the fatal crash in Auburn Gresham that killed Da’Karia Spicer on Sept. 2, 2020. Also in the car was her father, Kevin Spicer, and her little brother, Dhaamir Spicer. They suffered injuries but survived.
Lawyers representing the Spicer family had asked the jury to award them more than $140 million. The city’s attorneys requested a figure of between $12 million and $15 million.
Jurors heard the attorneys’ closing arguments Wednesday and deliberated for several hours before arriving at a verdict calling for the city to pay Spicer's family $79.85 million.
The trial, which is in Cook County Judge Preston Jones Jr.'s courtroom, started Dec 5. Jurors heard hours of testimony from Da’Karia’s parents, mental health professionals and doctors.
“This case is about some of the deepest depths of pain and loss,” said Patrick Salvi, one of the attorneys representing Da’Karia’s estate, Dhaamir, their father and their mother, Darnesha Johnson.
“The bright shining star of the family was killed,” said Salvi, who described the family as an inseparable unit. “That was their life, and the city took it, they took it away.”
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The day after the crash, the city denied responsibility. Then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the “very brief” police chase was not the cause of the fatal crash.
But last month, a week before the family’s lawsuit was set to go to trial, the city admitted liability and is only contesting the amount of damages.
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Emily Schnidt, one of the lawyers representing the city, said that although the two sides agree the city was to blame for the crash, they “fundamentally disagreed on what a fair and reasonable” dollar amount should be.
“That is a nine-figure amount. ... It’s a shockingly excessive amount untethered to the facts in this case,” Schnidt told the jurors, referring to the family’s request. “Those dollar amounts were plucked out of thin air.”
Schnidt, with the firm Borkan & Scahill, acknowledged that everyone has sympathy for the Spicer family and recognizes the grief and sorrow they carried when Da’Karia was killed.
“You are tasked with one very important job and that is to put your human emotions and sympathy for the Spicer family aside,” Schnidt told jurors. “You have to solely look at what is fair and reasonable under the law.”
The two parties agree on how much should be awarded for past medical costs and future therapy bills, which total nearly $1 million. But they disagreed wildly on the amounts for past and future loss to society, grief, sorrow and mental suffering. The city recommended $11.6 million, and the Spicer’s attorneys suggested more than $117 million.
“They said those numbers are huge; you betcha they’re huge,” Salvi, of the law firm Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard, told jurors. “This is about as huge as a tragedy that could be visited upon a family.”
