Personal Injury

An Okaloosa County man was recently awarded a $320,219 verdict after he sued an. insurance company following an injury he blamed on a traffic accident.

An Okaloosa Circuit Court jury found in favor of Michael L. Phillips, a self-employed partner in a local heating and cooling firm, after his underinsured motorist claim against his State Farm policy was denied.

Phillips, said spokesmen for the Pensacola-based law firm Kerrigan, Estess, Rankin & McLeod, was injured in a June 10, 1997, car accident and suffered a herniated disk in his lower back as a result.

The jury’s June 14 verdict, they said, came despite testimony from a State Farm witness, a doctor who told jurors that it was “impossible to have sustained a herniated disk in the low back from a car accident if you had your seatbelt fastened.”

Phillips was represented by Marcus J. Michles III of the Kerrigan, Estess, Rankin & McLeod firm.