Client Spotlight: Fighting a $50K Insurance Lawsuit
Eyanna Kittrell was determined to get to the truth of the car accident that led to a $50,000 lawsuit against her. With help from her Legal Aid DC attorney, she told her side of the story and avoided a life-changing debt.
Evelyn Rupert, Communications Director
Eyanna Kittrell

A 2021 car accident left Eyanna Kittrell shaken up but thankful that her young daughter and two little brothers were unhurt. Her car was totaled, and she was devastated to lose the silver 2006 Suzuki that had been passed down to her by her late grandmother. But the biggest shock came three years later, when she received word that the other driver’s insurance company was suing her — for $58,465.  

“I didn’t know what was going on,” Ms. Kittrell said. “I was shocked and scared, because that was a lot of money.”

Ms. Kittrell unexpectedly found herself in the middle of a process called insurance subrogation: When there’s a car accident and one driver is uninsured, the other driver’s insurance will step in to cover costs to their client, like car repairs and medical bills. That insurance company can then take the uninsured driver to court to try to recover some of that money. The lawsuit Ms. Kittrell faced included $8,000 for the other driver’s Toyota and $50,000 in medical costs — an alarming number to her, because as far as she knew, no one in either car needed medical attention at the time of the accident.

Ms. Kittrell also learned that paperwork had been served to an old address, and she had already missed court hearings, putting her at a disadvantage from the start.

“It was so scary,” she said. “I had to really get in the books and advocate for myself until I found Legal Aid.”

Ms. Kittrell, now 26, came across Legal Aid DC while doing research online. She reached out and connected with attorneys Amy Kaplan and Jojo Schmidt. As Amy and Jojo spoke with Ms. Kittrell, reviewed documents and photos, and got an understanding of the accident, it became clear to them that the collision didn’t happen the way the lawsuit claimed.  

“They wanted to get my side of the story,” Ms. Kittrell said of Amy and Jojo. “They wanted to get my truth and what I felt like happened.”

Ms. Kittrell explained to her team that she was on her way home from her neighborhood pool with her 4-year-old daughter and two brothers, ages 11 and 12, when a driver cut in front of her across two lanes, seemingly to make a U-turn around a median. The report that police filed on the scene told a very different story. But by looking at photos and mapping out the accident on Google Earth, Amy and Jojo knew that Ms. Kittrell had a good chance to fight the lawsuit by showing that the other driver was at fault. 

Building a Case

Over the next few months, Amy and Jojo went back and forth with the other driver’s insurance company to get questions answered as part of the discovery process. With a $58,000 debt hanging over Ms. Kittrell's head, the waiting was difficult.

“She’s a single mom trying to hold a lot of things together, and this case was constantly weighing on her,” Jojo said.

The Legal Aid team deposed the other driver.  That deposition, which took place in May 2025, undermined the lawsuit and “allowed us to point to the other driver’s wrongdoing, and it became clear that a lot of the medical issues were manufactured,” Jojo said.  

Eyanna Kittrell

Fighting for a Fair Outcome

After the deposition and all their fact-finding was done, Ms. Kittrell had to decide how to proceed — she could take the fight all the way to a trial or try to reach a settlement agreement.

“Ms. Jojo had made it very clear what the possibilities were,” Ms. Kittrell said. “Coming to an agreement with them and setting up a payment plan was the best option, because if we did fight and lose, I could have to pay all of that money. I had to think about what was better for me.”

It was tough at first, Ms. Kittrell said, to think about having to pay anything when the accident wasn’t her fault. But going to trial was a risk she didn’t want to take.

“We talked a lot about how she wanted to do this, if she wanted to take this to trial,” Jojo said. “For her, it was better to get it done and sorted.”

With that decision made, Ms. Kittrell and her attorneys started preparing for mediation.

“It was very rocky, because I had never been in that situation before,” Ms. Kittrell said. “I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, I have these big lawyers against me,’ and I didn’t feel like they were being totally honest. But I knew I had Ms. Jojo and Ms. Amy on my team, and they gave me great advice.”  

With all the evidence they had gathered, Ms. Kittrell and Legal Aid were in a strong position to negotiate, and the two sides reached an agreement in June 2025 that Ms. Kittrell would pay a total of $5,000 through $50 monthly payments — a much more manageable amount than the original $58,000.

“Ms. Jojo really did fight for me, and she was not playing about them setting up a payment plan that would work for me,” Ms. Kittrell said.  

Since the case wrapped up, Ms. Kittrell has kept up with the payment plan and settled herself and her daughter into their own place next door to her mom. Even though the entire experience was difficult, she’s proud she stood up for herself and reached out to Legal Aid to back her up.  

“I would not have been able to handle this case without Ms. Jojo and Ms. Amy,” she said. “To give some encouraging words to someone in my situation: It’s OK to ask for help. Help is out there, and everything doesn’t have to fall back on your shoulders. Yes, it’s stressful, but you’re going to overcome it.” 

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