Man awarded $7.5 million after penis shortening accident

A former Navy man was awarded $7.5 million by an El Cajon jury in a lawsuit stemming from a motorcycle crash with an auto dealer’s courtesy shuttle that left him with a penis permanently shortened by more than an inch. The Superior Court verdict against Group 1 Automotive and Rancho Auto Group of San Diego centered on events that occurred on Aug. 30, 2007, in San Diego’s Midway District. That is when the motorcycle Matthew Wall was riding collided with a shuttle van from Rancho Auto Group.

At the time, Wall was 23 and an active duty noncommissioned officer assigned to a nuclear submarine in San Diego at the time. A spokesman for Group 1 Automotive, the main defendant, said Friday the company is appealing the verdict and declined to comment further. Lawyers for Wall alleged the van made a left turn from Saint Charles Street onto Lytton Street without looking for oncoming traffic.



The van turned in front of Wall, who was riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle to work. Wall struck the van and was thrown forward on to the motorcycle’s handlebars, suffering a fracture of his pubic ramus bone. He also suffered a crushing injury to his penis, as well as nerve and artery damage, said his trial lawyer Nicholas Rowley. Reconstructive surgery was successful but it resulted in a loss of 1.5 inches in the length of his penis.

Rowley said that the van’s driver, Pedro Flores Miramontes, was a non-U.S. citizen who had an expired driver’s licence and had never been trained as a shuttle driver. Wall is no longer in the Navy and lives in South Carolina, said Rowley. He had recently married at the time of the crash. The couple has since divorced. Rowley said it was uncertain if Wall would be able to have children because of the injury. “It’s going to affect his relationships and his self-esteem in the future,” Rowley said.