The widow of a retired California Highway Patrol officer has been awarded $15.8 million by a Placer County jury following her husband’s death in a motorcycle crash involving Sacramento Kings minority owner Phil Oates.
Miranda Flores’s husband, Patrick Seamus Mulderrig, was 59 when he died in the May 2024 collision in Granite Bay.
“I am so thankful to this jury for understanding and recognizing how remarkable my husband Patrick was and the depth of my loss,” Flores told KCRA 3 after the verdict. “Patrick impacted our families and my life every day. I hope Phil Oates now fully understands what his actions have cost our families.”
Flores said she continues to struggle to process her husband’s death, even after the jury’s decision.
“Now I feel like just a piece of a person. I wake up and try my best to breathe and pretend like I am living, because I know he would want me to be okay. I didn’t just lose my sweet Patrick that day. I lost the life we were supposed to have. I lost all of our todays — and every tomorrow that should have been ours,” she told KCRA 3.
According to a police report obtained by Flores and cited by KCRA 3, Mulderrig was riding along Douglas Boulevard when Oates turned left in his Cadillac.
Oates told police that he saw the motorcycle changing lanes as he began entering the roadway from a turn area and accelerated. He said he then realized the motorcycle was traveling faster than he had expected. The vehicles collided soon afterward.
The police report stated that Oates was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol when the crash occurred.
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Following the collision, police referred Oates to the district attorney’s office for possible citation and manslaughter charges.
The district attorney’s office ultimately did not file a case or issue a citation against Oates in connection with the crash.
The civil case nevertheless resulted in a multimillion-dollar award for Flores.
“This has always been a case about accountability and responsibility,” Roger Dreyer, an attorney with Dreyer Babich Buccola Wood Campora LLP who represented Flores, said in a statement, according to KCRA 3.
“Patrick was a remarkable husband who loved and lived for his wife and others. The fact that all 12 jurors reached the same conclusion speaks volumes. We deeply appreciate this jury recognizing the extraordinary depth of Miranda’s loss and what Patrick meant to her.”
Dreyer said the district attorney’s office failed Flores by declining to prosecute or cite Oates. He added that the civil justice system nevertheless provided a way to hold Oates accountable.
The California Post contacted Oates for comment, but he declined to respond.
