Justin Terry Wrongful Death Settlement: $9M Floor, a $25M High-Low and a 'Secret Deal' Fight

The Justin Terry wrongful death settlement closed on Monday, October 19, 2026, when Clark County District Judge Kathleen Delaney told the courtroom, midway through jury selection, that the widow and two sons of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department detective had settled with all three companies they blamed for the 2022 falling-beam crash on U.S. 95. The final terms are sealed, but pretrial filings had already locked in more than $9 million for the family, including a high-low agreement with trucking defendant Western States Contracting that set a $5 million floor and a $25 million ceiling, a structure that general contractor Las Vegas Paving had attacked as a "secret" deal in a petition to the Nevada Supreme Court.

For trial lawyers, the case is less about the sealed number than about how it was reached. A partial settlement with one defendant, a high-low with a second defendant that stayed in the case, and a third defendant left to face a jury alone is a common endgame in multi-defendant catastrophic injury litigation. The Terry case shows each pressure point that structure creates under Nevada law, from good-faith settlement review to several liability to workers' compensation liens, and it shows why the last defendant standing so often settles once a jury panel is in the box.

How much did Justin Terry's family get in the wrongful death settlement?

The total is confidential. What is public is the floor: court records reported by KLAS 8 News Now and KTNV before trial showed the family was guaranteed more than $9 million, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the October 19 announcement was a global settlement covering every defendant. Any amount Las Vegas Paving agreed to pay, and any final figure owed by Western States under or in place of its high-low, has not been disclosed.

Defendant	Role in the project	Reported deal	Status at trial
D.H. Charles Engineering	Designed the early-warning beam for Las Vegas Paving	Slightly more than $4.5 million, paid from an insurance policy (court filing dated September 14, 2026, per the Review-Journal); its lawyer said "there's nothing left" in coverage, per 8 News Now	Settled out before jury selection
Western States Contracting	Owned the truck and oversize load that struck the beam	High-low agreement: at least $5 million, up to $25 million depending on the verdict (per 8 News Now)	Remained a defendant; part of the October 19 global settlement
Las Vegas Paving Corporation	General contractor on the NDOT Centennial Bowl project	Undisclosed	Sought Nevada Supreme Court writ on September 29; part of the October 19 global settlement
Guaranteed before trial		More than $9 million (D.H. Charles plus the Western States floor)

Two points follow from the arithmetic. First, the $9 million figure is a minimum, not a valuation: it is the sum of the D.H. Charles payment and the Western States floor, and it excludes whatever Las Vegas Paving paid and whatever Western States owed above its floor. Second, the $25 million ceiling is the clearest public signal of how the parties valued the case: a trucking defendant agreed it might owe up to five times its guaranteed payment if the jury came back high.

Who did the Terry family sue over the falling beam?

Detective Justin Terry, 45, had served with Metro since 2001. On June 10, 2022, he was driving an unmarked police vehicle on southbound U.S. 95 near Centennial Parkway when a semitrailer towing an excavator struck an early-warning beam installed for the Nevada Department of Transportation's Centennial Bowl interchange project. The beam, which the complaint described as weighing more than 7,000 pounds according to FOX5, came loose and landed on his car.

Eight months later, his widow and their two sons filed suit in the Eighth Judicial District Court in Clark County against three companies:

• Las Vegas Paving Corporation, the general contractor that built the Centennial Bowl project, accused of failing to provide adequate warnings to motorists and of negligence in the fabrication and placement of the beam.
• D.H. Charles Engineering, which Las Vegas Paving hired to design the beam.
• Western States Contracting, whose driver and trailer struck it; the complaint alleged an overloaded, oversize trailer more than 15 feet tall traveling at "freeway speeds" and unsafe operation by the driver.

The family was represented by Brian Panish of Panish Shea Ravipudi, who called the death "100 percent preventable."

Why did the Justin Terry case settle during jury selection?

The case settled when the risk for the last non-settling defendant was at its highest. By the time jury selection began on October 12, Las Vegas Paving faced a plaintiff who had already banked more than $9 million, a co-defendant (Western States) whose own exposure was capped at $25 million no matter what the jury did, and a beam designer that had exhausted its coverage and left the case. Every incentive in the courtroom pointed blame at Las Vegas Paving.

The defense had pressed two themes. According to 8 News Now's reporting on pretrial filings, Las Vegas Paving argued that Terry was driving about 80 mph before the collision and could have avoided the impact at the speed limit; the family responded that speed had nothing to do with why the beam fell, and the court ruled the jury could weigh the argument. One engineer reportedly testified that "the speed was not a consideration" in the beam's design. Las Vegas Paving's second theme was procedural: that the Western States agreement had changed the adversarial alignment of the trial. With the writ pending and a jury about to be seated, the parties reached a global resolution, and Judge Delaney announced it on the record.

What is a high-low agreement in a wrongful death case?

A high-low agreement is a contract in which a defendant guarantees the plaintiff a minimum recovery (the "low") in exchange for the plaintiff accepting a maximum (the "high"), whatever the jury decides. If the verdict lands between the two figures, the verdict controls; a defense verdict still pays the floor, and a runaway verdict is cut to the ceiling. Parties usually waive appeals as part of the bargain, and courts interpret the agreements as ordinary settlement contracts.

In a single-defendant case, a high-low is a pure risk-management tool. In a multi-defendant case where the signing defendant stays at the counsel table, it changes the trial. Western States' reported deal shows why:

• The plaintiff loses nothing by going easy on the signer. With $5 million guaranteed and $25 million the most Western States could owe, the family's financial interest in proving Western States' fault was bounded.
• The signer gains from shifting blame. Western States' payment depended on the verdict against it, so every percentage point of fault the jury assigned to Las Vegas Paving instead of Western States lowered its bill.
• The non-signer faces two adversaries. Las Vegas Paving's complaint, as described by 8 News Now, was that Western States had "switched sides." Reporting on the pretrial filings also said Western States had admitted fault, agreed not to blame Terry, and capped its exposure.

That alignment is why many courts treat a high-low with a remaining defendant as functionally similar to a Mary Carter agreement, the term for a secret deal in which a settling defendant stays in the trial with a financial stake in the plaintiff's success against the others. Most jurisdictions that have addressed the issue require disclosure of such agreements to the court and the non-settling defendants, and many allow some disclosure to the jury so that it can evaluate the signer's testimony for bias. The Florida Bar Journal has noted that courts' treatment of high-low admissibility in multi-defendant trials is still evolving.

Why did Las Vegas Paving challenge the Western States settlement?

On September 29, 2026, Las Vegas Paving's lawyers filed a writ petition with the Nevada Supreme Court asking it to delay the trial, then set to open with jury selection on October 12. According to 8 News Now, the company argued that the Western States settlement "was created secretly" and should be thrown out, and it had separately asked the trial judge to dismiss the case over the deal. No ruling on the writ was reported before the October 19 settlement mooted it.

The legal frame for that fight is NRS 17.245, Nevada's contribution-protection statute. When a release is given "in good faith" to one of several tortfeasors, it reduces the plaintiff's claim against the others by the amount paid and discharges the settling tortfeasor from liability for contribution. A good-faith determination therefore matters most to the non-settling defendant, which loses its contribution rights against the settler.

The Nevada Supreme Court in Velsicol Chemical Corp. v. Davidson, 107 Nev. 356 (1991), declined to adopt California's mandatory hearing-and-factors procedure and left the good-faith question to the trial court's discretion, reviewable only for abuse. Courts applying Velsicol look to the amount paid, the allocation of proceeds, the settling defendant's policy limits and finances, and, most relevant here, "the existence of collusion, fraud or tortious conduct." A secretly negotiated high-low with a defendant who stays at trial is the kind of arrangement a non-settler argues fails that last factor. Writ relief in Nevada is discretionary and turns on whether the petitioner has an adequate remedy by appeal, which helps explain why a non-settling defendant would rather settle than try the case and appeal afterward.

Nevada law that shaped the Justin Terry wrongful death settlement

Three statutes explain why the Justin Terry wrongful death settlement looked the way it did.

Several liability (NRS 41.141). In a negligence case with multiple defendants, Nevada makes each defendant severally liable only for its own percentage of fault, and a plaintiff's comparative negligence does not bar recovery unless it exceeds the defendants' combined negligence. Joint and several liability survives only in listed exceptions, including strict liability, intentional torts, toxic or hazardous emissions, concerted acts and injuries from certain products. In an ordinary negligence trial, the jury's allocation of fault is therefore the whole game, which is why Las Vegas Paving pressed the speed argument (to put fault on Terry) and why the Western States high-low worried it (to keep fault off Western States).

Wrongful death damages (NRS 41.085). Each heir may recover pecuniary damages for grief or sorrow, loss of probable support, and loss of companionship, society, comfort and consortium, and the estate may recover medical and funeral expenses and any penalties, including punitive damages, the decedent could have recovered. Nevada has no general cap on noneconomic damages outside medical malpractice, so a widow and two sons of a 21-year police veteran presented substantial uncapped exposure.

Punitive damages (NRS 42.005). Where compensatory damages are $100,000 or more, punitive damages are capped at three times compensatory, and the jury is not told about the cap. There is no public indication that punitive claims survived to trial, but the cap sets the outer limit on any exposure a non-settling defendant would weigh.

Rule	What it does	Why it mattered here
NRS 17.245	Good-faith settlement reduces the claim against others and bars contribution against the settler	Basis for attacking the Western States deal
Velsicol (1991)	Good faith left to trial court discretion; collusion is a factor	Set the standard the writ had to overcome
NRS 41.141	Several liability by percentage of fault; comparative negligence	Made fault allocation decisive; framed the 80-mph defense
NRS 41.085	Heirs' grief, support, companionship damages	Uncapped noneconomic exposure for three heirs
NRS 42.005	Punitive cap of 3x compensatory (if $100,000 or more)	Outer bound on any punitive exposure
NRS 616C.215(5)	Workers' compensation insurer lien on third-party recovery	Likely reduces the family's net (see below)

Does a workers' compensation lien apply to the Terry settlement?

Very likely, in some amount. Terry was on duty when he was killed, so death benefits for his dependents would ordinarily flow through Nevada's workers' compensation system, and NRS 616C.215(5) gives the insurer or self-insured employer that paid those benefits a lien against a third-party recovery. In AmTrust v. Vasquez (Nev. 2024), the Nevada Supreme Court held that the lien reaches the total proceeds of the recovery, including amounts allocated to noneconomic damages, overruled the Breen formula that had required insurers to share in the worker's attorney fees and costs, and overruled Poremba's limit on noneconomic recoveries. The insurer need not intervene in the tort case to enforce the lien.

The public record does not show who administers Metro's workers' compensation claims, what benefits have been paid, or whether the lien was negotiated as part of the global settlement. For practitioners the point is general: after Vasquez, a Nevada wrongful death settlement for an on-duty decedent is gross of a lien that can attach to grief and companionship damages, and any allocation among heirs or between economic and noneconomic categories will not, by itself, shield proceeds from the carrier.

What happened to the truck driver who hit the beam?

The driver, Glen Kenison (also identified in court records as Glen Joseph Lewis), was charged on May 24, 2023, in Las Vegas Municipal Court with vehicular manslaughter under a complaint alleging he caused Terry's death "through an act or omission that constitutes simple negligence." Vehicular manslaughter based on simple negligence is a misdemeanor in Nevada. The disposition of that case was not reported in the coverage reviewed for this article. The driver was not a named defendant in the civil suit; his employer, Western States, was.

Timeline of the Terry case

Date	Event
June 10, 2022	Beam struck by an oversize excavator load falls on Detective Terry's unmarked vehicle on southbound U.S. 95
February 2023	Widow and two sons file wrongful death suit against Las Vegas Paving, D.H. Charles Engineering and Western States Contracting
May 24, 2023	Driver charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter in Las Vegas Municipal Court
September 14, 2026	Court filing reflects D.H. Charles settlement of slightly more than $4.5 million from insurance
September 24, 2026	Hearing in Clark County District Court airs the settlement terms, including the Western States high-low
September 29, 2026	Las Vegas Paving files writ petition with the Nevada Supreme Court seeking to delay trial
October 12, 2026	Jury selection scheduled to begin before Judge Kathleen Delaney
October 19, 2026	Judge Delaney announces a global, confidential settlement during jury selection

What it means for plaintiffs' firms and defense counsel

For plaintiffs' firms, the Terry sequence is a template for building leverage in a multi-defendant case: take the coverage-limited defendant's policy early, convert a second defendant into a high-low signer with a meaningful floor and a ceiling high enough to stay credible, and try the case against the deepest pocket left. The cost is a predictable collateral fight. Counsel who use the structure should expect a good-faith challenge under NRS 17.245 and a disclosure motion, and should document arm's-length negotiation from the start, because collusion is the Velsicol factor a non-settler will press. A high-low signer's testimony is also exposed to bias cross-examination if the court allows disclosure to the jury.

For defense counsel representing the non-settling defendant, the case illustrates the narrowing of options. Several liability under NRS 41.141 means fault allocation decides the verdict, and a co-defendant with a capped, verdict-linked payment has every reason to point at the remaining defendant. Early motions to compel disclosure, a timely request for a good-faith hearing, and a jury instruction or disclosure ruling on the agreement are the realistic remedies; a pretrial writ is a long shot.

For the settling defendant, a high-low that stays in the trial can lower expected cost but may not buy contribution protection unless the court finds it in good faith, and it can lose the protection entirely if the court treats it as collusive.

For lien holders and claims professionals, Vasquez means a workers' compensation lien attaches to the total recovery, so the gross figure reported in the press overstates what an on-duty decedent's family nets.

FAQ

How much was the Justin Terry wrongful death settlement?

The final amount is sealed. Court records reported before trial showed the family was guaranteed more than $9 million, made up of about $4.5 million from D.H. Charles Engineering's insurer and a $5 million minimum from Western States Contracting under a high-low that could have reached $25 million.

When did the Justin Terry case settle?

Judge Kathleen Delaney announced the global settlement on Monday, October 19, 2026, while jury selection was underway in Clark County District Court. Jury selection had been scheduled to begin on October 12.

What is a high-low agreement?

It is a settlement contract in which a defendant guarantees a minimum payment and the plaintiff accepts a maximum, whatever the verdict. Western States' reported agreement with the Terry family had a $5 million floor and a $25 million ceiling.

Why did Las Vegas Paving go to the Nevada Supreme Court?

It filed a writ petition on September 29, 2026, asking to delay trial and arguing that the Western States settlement had been made in secret and should be thrown out. The global settlement on October 19 ended the case before any reported ruling.

Who represented the Terry family?

Brian Panish of Panish Shea Ravipudi represented Detective Terry's widow and the couple's two sons.

Was anyone criminally charged over Detective Terry's death?

Yes. The truck driver was charged on May 24, 2023, with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter based on simple negligence in Las Vegas Municipal Court.