A Dallas County jury has awarded more than $860 million in damages to the estate and family of a woman who was killed after a crane crashed into her apartment building four years ago during a summer wind storm.

In June 2019, 29-year-old Dallas resident Kiersten Smith was at her Elan City Lights complex when a crane crashed into her apartment building following a storm. Smith was pronounced dead upon arriving at the hospital. Following her death, her parents Michele Williams and James Kirkwood filed a lawsuit against the real estate developer, the company that released the crane, the crane’s operator, and over a dozen other defendants. The lawsuit, which was filed in July 2022, accused the crane company Bigge Crane and Rigging, and the crane’s operator, Greystar, of gross negligence.

In response to the lawsuit, the crane operator pushed back saying that the high winds of the storm caused the crash and not the crane’s operator. However, the lawsuit detailed that a nearby crane was not impacted by the wind storm.

The lawsuit accused the crane company of failing to engage in a yearly inspection of the crane. This failure could have led to a loosening of bolts which may have caused the crane to collapse into the apartment building. Additionally, the jury was shown documents that detailed the crane had the ability to be prepared for inclement weather, but the crane's operators did not follow through on appropriate weather protocol. The family argued in their lawsuit that had the crane been properly tended to, it would have been able to “weather vane” or move with the wind as opposed to collapsing completely.

The years-long litigation process ended after a six-hour jury deliberation last week which found the defendants negligent.

During the litigation process, the crane company Bigge argued that because of the agreement it had with the crane operator Greystar, the crane company should not be held liable for the destruction that led to Smith’s death. The jury agreed, returning a verdict that upheld Bigge was not negligent. The jury did find the crane operator Greystar guilty of negligence, however.

The lead attorney for the Bigge crane company, Darrell Barger, shared following the verdict, "It was not caused by anything that Bigge did, and again Bigge, of course, extends its total condolences to the family."

The jury brought back a verdict that awarded Smith's mother $140 million for mental anguish, $50 million for loss of companionship, over $50 million for future mental anguish, and an additional $100 million. Smith's father was also awarded $3 million for loss of companionship, $7 million for mental anguish, $4 million for future mental anguish, and an additional $6 million.

Additionally, $500 million was awarded to the estate of Keirsten Smith.

Following the verdict, one of the family’s attorneys, Jason Itkin of Arnold & Itkin, shared, "It tells you that the jury understood the value of the relationships that Kiersten brought into this world. They understood that she was a really amazing, special person that made the people around her better, and I think the jury got to see how Kiersten’s life mattered and how much she's missed. And so I think that's what they did when they tried to figure the damages."

The deliberation of the case lasted nine days with closing arguments taking over a couple of hours. As part of the closing arguments, the family's lawyer shared, “There's a lot of legal things that need to happen within the court system. And I'm sure there'll be motions and all sorts of things, but for right now, for today, we just want to be thankful for what the jury has done and thankful that at least for today, that Kiersten's life mattered and that we held Greystar accountable."