UAB nurse Shawn Henson
When we last reported on Sherry Carroll Rollins, she was struggling to regain her senses after being rear-ended on Highway 280 in a crash that totaled her vehicle and left her passenger with a detached retina.Rollins emerged from the wreck with no visible injuries, but she has reported periodic pain in different areas that range pretty much from head to toe. Her situation is complicated by two factors: (1) The vehicle was not in her name but in the name of her ex husband, Campus Crest Communities CEO Ted Rollins; (2) She has no health insurance, thanks largely to the cheat job she received in the Rollins v. Rollins divorce case, over which Shelby County Circuit Judge D. Al Crowson unlawfully presided.
How is Sherry Rollins doing now, almost 11 weeks after the wreck happened on May 24? Well, she probably is not doing nearly as well as Shawn Taylor Henson, the 23-year-old UAB nurse who hit her. In a May 28 post on his Facebook page, Henson features a picture of a red truck that he is driving while his Acura is being repaired from crashing into the rear of Sherry Rollins' Subaru.
Meanwhile, Ms. Rollins has no vehicle. She has no way to drive her daughter, Emma, to school when it starts in a few days. They recently had to take a taxi cab for Emma to get shots and a checkup for the school year. Also, Sherry Rollins still has not received a thorough medical checkup, and she has no idea about the kind of physical toll the wreck might have taken on her. She did visit St. Vincent's emergency room, but received only a limited exam when she reported being uninsured.
And get this: Ted Rollins reportedly received about $9,000 in insurance money for the Subaru, but he has chosen to pocket it rather than apply it toward a new vehicle for his daughter and ex wife. This from a man who, at last report, owns three private jets and is CEO of a company that has received about $800 million in Wall Street support since late 2010.
As for the wreck itself, there is no question about who was at fault. This is from a May 28 post on Shawn Henson's Facebook page:
For those of you who are unaware, I was in an accident Friday night. I've always been a safe driver, and this experience has definitely shown me that even looking down for a SECOND can be too long. So, this red truck shall be my ride until the Acura is fixed. Very thankful that the car was all that was damaged.
A friend wrote, "AGAIN?!?! Didn't you just get hit back a few days ago?" Henson responded with this:
Yes. Last time, someone else hit me in the parking lot. This one was on me.
Shawn Henson admits he was at fault, but he apparently is fine and has had a vehicle to drive all this time. Sherry Rollins has not even had a genuine medical exam to determine if she is fine, and she has been without a vehicle for almost 11 weeks--plus, she has no way to get her 15-year-old daughter to school in a few days.
Is that a just outcome?
The alert reader might ask, "Can't Sherry Rollins get a lawyer to help her?" Well, she's been to at least three--James Beaird in Jasper, David Wininger in downtown Birmingham, and Gusty Yearout in Mountain Brook. All three have more or less shrugged their shoulders and indicated they couldn't do much. None of them offered a strategy for addressing Ms. Rollins' two most immediate needs--getting a thorough medical checkup and obtaining a replacement vehicle.
Shouldn't Shawn Henson's insurer be responsible for filling those needs, not to mention paying any damages that might be proven with an investigation of the crash? I don't pretend to be an expert on personal-injury law, but I would think that a semi competent lawyer in these circumstances should be able to ensure that (1) Sherry Rollins gets seen by a doctor; (2) She gets a replacement vehicle in a prompt fashion; (3) The crash is investigated to determine what (or who) might have contributed to Shawn Henson's reckless driving.
Beaird, Wininger, and Yearout are experienced personal-injury lawyers, well known in the profession. But not one of them even hinted to Sherry Rollins that they could help her with any of the three issues noted above.
Ted Rollins already has demonstrated that, with the apparent help of his corporate law firm (Birmingham's Bradley Arant), he can manipulate a divorce case in Shelby County, Alabama. Are the same forces powerful enough to ensure that the area legal tribe turns its back on Sherry Rollins in a personal-injury matter? A reasonable person might ask that question.
In our June 10 post on the wreck, we noted several oddities, based on information in the accident report and from Sherry Rollins. (See accident report at the end of this post.)
* Was the UAB nurse driving without lights at 8:05 p.m.?
* How could the UAB nurse have caught up to a vehicle driving 45 mph and inflicted that much damage while driving 50 mph?
* How do you accidentally hit a vehicle that hard when it is moving in front of you, when it has not braked? Did the nurse's air bags deploy before impact or upon impact?
* Why did the St. Vincent's ER physician say it sounded like possibly the strangest wreck he had ever heard about?
That last question might be the most interesting one of all. This came from Dr. John Ammon, a veteran ER doc who probably has treated thousands of wreck victims. The story Sherry Rollins told him--that she was driving about 45 mph and still got mashed in the rear by a vehicle supposedly driving 50--reportedly left him baffled.
Wouldn't it be interesting to interview Dr. Ammon? Wouldn't it be enlightening to look into Shawn Henson's background, at his phone and e-mail records, at his trip to Atlanta just before the crash, and his apparent taste for sporty, luxury cars (per his Facebook page, which by the way, no longer includes posts about the Atlanta trip; they seem to have vanished.) Who was Shawn Henson visiting in the tony Buckhead section of Atlanta, anyway?
Is it possible that someone with much deeper pockets than Shawn Henson's orchestrated this crash and should be held accountable? Is it possible that person has connections to Atlanta, home to Orkin Pest Control and its umbrella company, Rollins Inc.?
Shouldn't a semi-motivated personal-injury lawyer be willing to ask such questions, especially with a possible major payday hanging in the balance? Why do Birmingham lawyers, so far, show not the slightest inquisitiveness about the crash that has upended Sherry Rollins' life?
Sherry Rollins Accident Report by Roger Shuler
