Hoyt & Blewett PLLC Legacy Case: $27M Settlement for Quadriplegic Man

Hoyt & Blewett PLLC is one of Montana’s most trusted law firms for many reasons, including our long history of record-breaking case results. Some of our Legacy Cases made national headlines and continue to set the bar for personal injury litigation in Montana —like the case we brought against the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (NAMB) in 2015. We represented a man who was rendered a quadriplegic in a vehicle accident, resulting in a $27 million insurance settlement.

The NAMB Accident

Jeremy Vangsnes was only 21 when he was participating in a 10-week summer mission program of the National American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (NAMB) in West Yellowstone, Montana, just outside Yellowstone National Park. The missionaries lived at the First Baptist Church of West Yellowstone and maintained secular employment in the community and engaged in recreational ministry activities including driving throughout Montana and Wyoming to go on worship hikes and other outdoor activities while spreading the gospel for NAMB. While traveling through Belgrade (approximately 90 miles away from West Yellowstone) after a side trip in Glacier National Park (375 miles away from West Yellowstone), the SUV that Vangsnes was riding in crashed and rolled over. The violent accident caused Vangsnes to suffer a traumatic brain injury that left him with quadriplegia paralysis. The other three people in the vehicle were seriously injured, but were not left with injuries as catastrophic as Jeremy’s.

Fighting to Prove Liability

Vangsnes filed suit against NAMB, arguing that the driver, a fellow volunteer missionary, was acting on behalf of NAMB while driving the vehicle, so NAMB was liable for his conduct.

NAMB denied liability for the accident and Vangsnes’ injuries contending that the missionaries were on a vacation to attend a family reunion at the time of the crash and were not acting as missionaries at the time of the crash, so Vangsnes should not be able to seek compensation under its multimillion-dollar liability insurance policy.

With the help of our catastrophic injury attorneys at Hoyt & Blewett PLLC, Vangsnes and his family were able to successfully litigate against NAMB(who was insured by National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, PA which is a member company of the American International Group (AIG)) in the pursuit of justice and fair compensation. After conducting extensive discovery and taking numerous depositions, we were able to prove that the volunteer driver was acting in the course and scope for NAMB, even though he was not an employee of NAMB and even though the wreck occurred around 90 miles away from West Yellowstone, Montana.

We moved for summary judgment citing the deposition of former NAMB employee Van Simmons, who NAMB’s corporate representative identified as the “most knowledgeable” person about NAMB’s summer mission program. Hence, we argued that because Simmons admitted that the driver was acting within his role in the program at the time of the accident, his testimony bound NAMB. The court agreed and granted our motion for summary judgment ruling the driver was acting in the course and scope for NAMB.

$27 Million Secured for Vangsnes

A jury trial date was set for September 21, 2015, in Bozeman, Montana. However, not long after the court’s summary judgment order was issued, NAMB and its insurers, Continental Casualty and AIG, agreed to pay the full $26,000,000 liability policy limits to avoid a trial. This settlement along with the $1,000,000 policy limit settlement obtained against the First Baptist Church in West Yellowstone in 2013 brought the total settlement to $27,000,000.

Want to know more about Hoyt & Blewett PLLC and the newsworthy case results we have achieved for our clients throughout our decades of practice? You can browse our case results, visit our blog often, or contact our Montana personal injury law firm for more information. If you ever need to file a personal injury claim or need representation for a lawsuit that is headed to trial, please call (406) 233-1302 to connect with our team right away.