Lazenby issued a press statement last week, saying that a jury from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Gainesville Division, awarded Holland's mother and brother more than $21 million in the verdict.
Lazenby said the jury took less than an hour to return an initial verdict of $15,029,363 against Cypress Insurance Company of Omaha, Nebraska. The jury returned for a second phase of deliberations and added $6 million to the judgment.
"We waited three years to obtain justice for this well-deserving family," Lazenby said. "For three, long years, the insurance company scoffed at our efforts to resolve the matter time and again as we attempted to provide this family with some peace and closure."
According to the law firm, Cypress declined a settlement demand before the lawsuit was filed and four additional demands through the years that followed. The last demand was made on the Monday trial initiated.
"The defense attempted to justify Harper’s actions contending his departure from the road was due to a sudden and incapacitating illness as the result of an Act of God," Lazenby said. "Mr. Harper was a 76-year-old man with a plethora of medical problems and records of falsifying his DOT Medical Exam history on three separate occasions."
The verdict was handed down on Thursday, Feb. 6.
