Veteran awarded $18 million after motorcycle accident leaves him disabled

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - Three years after a U.S. Army war veteran was left disabled in a motorcycle accident, a Jefferson County jury awarded him $18 million dollars.

The accident happened a few years after he returned home from service duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. That war veteran, Zac Lucas, who was working as a motorcycle repairman to make ends meet since returning home, waited a long time for the settlement.

On the night of November 16, 2015, Lucas took one of the bikes that he was working on for a test drive. That’s when he was struck by a car driven by Michael Cannon. Cannon’s insurance company proposed a settlement of $12,000, saying that Lucas deliberately parked the motorcycle on the road. But his lawyers felt that everything that he has been through, including serving his country for two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, that the suggestion was ethically wrong, and that he deserved much more for his injuries.

“Here’s this guy that sacrificed his life for our county, dodging bullets in Afghanistan and trying to avoid IED’s. And the suggestion that he would park a motorcycle on an interstate lane of travel, we viewed that as being ridiculous,” his attorney Brandon Bishop said.

Although he had a helmet on, Lucas suffered multiple permanent injuries in the accident.

There is no word as to whether the man’s insurance company will appeal the verdict.

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