On November 21, 2012, Emmanuel Olawale of The Olawale Law Firm won a $2.5 million judgment for the estate of a two-year-old girl who was killed by a reckless driver. The accident occurred in October 2009 in Columbus, Ohio when the Defendant, who was driving without a valid driver’s license failed to stop at a stop sign and struck the toddler’s mother’s vehicle. The impact tipped the vehicle over and ejected the two-year-old from the car. She died at the scene of the crash.
In his closing argument, Attorney Olawale argued, “There is no amount of money that would compensate for the life of this two-year-old that was snuffed out prematurely. What dollar value can you put on the life of a girl who because of death would never go to preschool, would never go to elementary school, would never learn to play the piano or ever hug her parents? I am sure that if one asked her mother a day before the accident for permission to run her daughter down with a car, killing her in exchange for five million dollars, she would say no. Yet, here she is without her daughter, but with the haunting memory of her loss, a loss that can never be filled, one that is forever etched in her life forever. This court should send a message to this driver, who was not only driving without a drivers’ license but was reckless to run a stop sign and kill this innocent girl. I ask this court to return a verdict of nothing less than a million dollars.”
The Court agreed and awarded a total verdict of $2.5 million.
