Update: The jury has awarded Ashley Zauflik more than $13 million. Check back for an update.
The Bucks County jury has begun its deliberations in the civil trial of a 21-year-old Falls woman who suffered severe injuries after a Pennsbury school bus ran over her while she waited outside Pennsbury High School's east campus in 2007.
Deliberations in the case against the Pennsbury School District started shortly before 1 p.m. Monday, following more than two hours of closing statements. The jury will not only determine economic damages, such as the past and future accident-related medical expenses, but non-economic damages such as pain and suffering and disfigurement.
The jury will meet until at least 6 p.m., unless a decision is made before then. If the jury isn't close to a decision, deliberations would resume Tuesday.
None of the eight women and four men deciding the case are Pennsbury taxpayers, according to Tom Kline, the attorney for Ashley Zauflik. He added that residents who live within school district boundaries were excluded during jury selection.
In his instructions to the jury, Judge Robert Mellon said they must treat the school district like any other business entity in deliberations, despite a 35-year-old state law that limits the district's liability to $500,000. The jury was not told about the liability limit during the trial.
Pennsbury has accepted legal responsibility for the bus accident, saying driver error was the cause. The district offered $500,000 to settle the Zauflik suit and seven other bus-accident claims. Zauflik's attorneys say Ashley's past and future medical bills alone will amount to at least $3 million.
In closing statements, Pennsbury attorney David Cohen told the jury that none of Zauflik's expert witnesses included the doctors who treated her then or now. "You didn't get an opportunity to hear from them," he said.
He also stated that the case isn't about punishing the school district, but how the district can reasonably compensate Ashley for her injuries.
"We are all sympathetic for the family, but that has to be put aside when considering compensation," he said.
When considering her pain and suffering, Cohen reminded the jury that Zauflik was in a medically induced coma to relieve her pain for five and a half of the six weeks she was hospitalized following the January 2007 accident.
He also questioned some items contained in the life plan created for Zauflik that estimated her accident-related medical costs at $2.5 million to $2.6 million if Ashley lives to age 78.
Among the items Cohen questions are $13,000 for annual maintenance of a prosthetic leg, a figure that a prosthetic expert for Pennsbury estimated at $800 a year, and $97,000 in lifetime housekeeping services included in the original report but removed during the three-day trial.
"It's a big difference," Cohen said. "It may seem petty to point out these things. ... Those things add up, those are real dollars."
The school district's lone expert witness, Richard Riley of Prosthetic Consulting Technologies in Reno, Nev. testified Friday that the lifetime costs for Ashley's prosthetic care will amount to $1.5 million.
The estimate reflected a $60,000 leg with a computer-chip operated knee, a backup limb and one that can withstand water exposure, as well as related maintenance, leg replacement costs and supplies.
Riley's estimate didn't include costs for supportive devices such as wheelchairs, crutches or electric scooters, which were included in the life plan that Zauflik's attorney prepared for the case. The Zauflik life plan included the same model of prosthetic leg at a cost of about $65,000, or $1.9 million over a lifetime.
In his 90-minute closing Monday, Kline told the jury his outside medical experts reviewed Ashley's extensive medical records as a way to save time.
"Nothing evil. Nothing malicious. Nothing out of the ordinary frankly," Kline added.
Kline railed against Cohen's argument that because Ashley was in a coma for most of her initial hospitalization, the jury should disregard her pain, stating that medical records show she experienced breakthrough pain in the coma.
Much of Kline's closing focused on the non-economic damages. He reminded the jury to consider Ashley's age at the time of the accident (she was 17), her health (witnesses testified she was healthy) and the severity and permanency of her injuries and the duration of her past, and future, medical treatment and mental anguish.
He reminded the court that Ashley not only suffered injuries that resulted in an above-the-knee amputation, but also a crushed pelvis, which has resulted in ongoing physical and mental pain.
"Ashley told you, there hasn't been a day she hasn't had pain. She has had pain since the moment of this accident," he said. "You have to look behind the pretty smile and see what's there."
Since 2007, Ashley has relied mostly on wheelchairs and crutches to get around, after a failed attempt at using what was described as a training prosthesis that she found uncomfortable and hard to use. In February, Ashley started the process of being evaluated for a new high-tech prosthetic. She has yet to be fitted for the new leg.
Ashley remains self-conscious about the loss of her leg, Kline reminded jurors. On the witness stand Friday, Ashley described herself as disfigured.
"How it must feel to look at her body every day. To wonder what a stranger thinks. To wonder what her boyfriend thinks. To wonder what her husband will think," Kline told the jury. "Ashley has no more choice to be vain."
As part of its deliberations, the jury will examine eight photos of Ashley's scars admitted into evidence Friday, the day they were taken. The photos, which were not shown in court, show how her scars appear today, including a tracheotomy and an extensive abdominal scar.
Kline also spent considerable time in his closing breaking down the $2.5 million life plan into daily dollars and cents. He claimed that over the next 56 years, her lifetime accident-related medical costs amount to $5.82 a day, her medication costs 85 cents a day, and her medical equipment costs $3.15 a day.
He ended by showing the jury four photos of Ashley that were displayed during the trial: one of her unconscious in the hospital; two taken during her recovery when she attended Pennsbury's annual Sports Night; and last, a picture taken before the accident where she is wearing shorts.
"I can tell you, we haven't come in, nor would we, looking for sympathy," Kline said. "We are telling you this is a young woman who will walk, and work and live as normal a life as she can."
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