Army Ranger veteran and son win $12M verdict after a Pierce County crash
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- An Army Ranger veteran and his son were hurt in a crash with a landscaping truck in 2023.
- The wreck in University Place prompted a lawsuit against TruGreen, a lawn care company.
- A jury awarded the man and his child more than $12 million, according to lawyers for the pair.
An Army Ranger veteran and his son have been awarded more than $12 million from a jury after they were injured in a crash with a landscaping truck in University Place in 2023, a representative for their legal counsel said Friday.
Bradley Shepherd and his 12-year-old son were hurt on April 20, 2023, when a TruGreen lawn-care truck pulled in front of them at the intersection of 27th Street West and Grandview Drive West, according to a lawsuit filed last year against TruGreen in Pierce County Superior Court.
As Shepherd and the boy traveled east in a Ford Escape on 27th Street West, the landscaping truck headed west on the same road, the suit said. Both vehicles approached Grandview Drive West. When the Escape attempted to proceed through the intersection, the truck’s driver tried “an unsafe and dangerous left turn” onto Grandview Drive West and the vehicles collided, according to the complaint.
On Thursday, jurors awarded Shepherd and his son more than $12.7 million stemming from the lawsuit, according to Angela Bailey, a spokesperson for the plaintiff’s law firm, Los Angeles-based Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP. TruGreen admitted liability before the trial, leaving it to jurors to determine damages, the law firm said in announcing the jury’s decision in a news release to The News Tribune.
“We are grateful to the jury for their service and for delivering a just verdict that will enable our clients to move forward with their lives,” attorney Spencer Lucas, who represented the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “This verdict provides the resources they need to rebuild their lives and reflects the seriousness of the harm they endured.”
Messages left for Memphis-based TruGreen Limited Partnership and attorneys representing the company were not immediately returned Friday. Those attorneys also represented the truck’s driver, who was not criminally charged but named as the second defendant in the lawsuit, court records show.
Shepherd suffered multiple injuries in the crash, including to his spinal cord and a vertebra that required major surgery, according to the news release. His son fractured his femur and needed two surgeries and months of rehabilitation, the news release said.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys argued during the trial that their clients would continue to feel the effects of their injuries, including chronic pain, physical limitations and lasting emotional effects, the news release said.
This story was originally published September 26, 2025 at 1:22 PM.
