The case against North Woods Freight settled in August.
Thomas Ouellette didn’t have to file a lawsuit in the end. He sent Granite State Mutual a demand letter with the police report, the witness statement, the trooper’s citations, the driver’s cell phone records, which Ouellette got through a preservation letter and a subpoena, and eighty-four pages of medical records. The cell phone records showed the driver had been texting his girlfriend for eleven minutes straight, up until four seconds before the crash.
The driver, a twenty-six-year-old named Tyler Cullen, pleaded guilty in Penobscot County District Court to leaving the scene of an accident involving personal injury and to using a handheld device while operating a commercial vehicle. He lost his commercial driver’s license for five years and was ordered to pay $2,500 in restitution and fines. North Woods Freight fired him.
Granite State Mutual’s original offer was $15,000. The final settlement, approved by a Penobscot County Probate Court judge in a small hearing room in Bangor on a hot afternoon in August, was $975,000. That was nearly the full limit of North Woods Freight’s commercial liability policy.
Under Maine law, the judge had to approve it because Eli was still a minor. She read every page. Then she asked Eli directly whether he understood the settlement.
He was sitting at the table next to Bernadette, leaning on his cane, in a borrowed sport coat that was too big in the shoulders.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Mr. Ouellette explained it.”
The judge looked over her glasses at Ouellette. “Counsel, how is the minor’s portion being protected?”
“Your Honor, after attorney’s fees of thirty-three and a third percent and reimbursement of costs, the net settlement to Elijah is approximately $642,000,” Ouellette said. “We’re placing it in a structured settlement and a court-supervised trust until his twenty-first birthday. Mrs. Thibodeau will be co-trustee with an independent professional trustee from Bangor Savings Bank. Any distribution before age twenty-one, other than for education or medical care, requires court approval.”
“Good,” the judge said. “And what are Elijah’s plans, if he doesn’t mind my asking?”
Eli straightened up in his chair.
“I want to be a nurse, Your Honor,” he said. “An ICU nurse.”
The judge smiled for the first time all afternoon.
“Approved,” she said, and signed the order.
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