Make California Post a Preferred Source The widow of a retired California Highway Patrol officer just won big — a Placer County jury awarded her $15.8 million over the death of her husband in a motorcycle crash involving Kings minority owner Phil Oates.
Miranda Flores’s husband, Patrick Seamus Mulderrig, was 59 when he was killed in the May 2024 crash 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 of 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.”
After the verdict, Flores also said that she’s still having difficulties processing the death of her husband.
“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.
Mulderrig had been driving along Douglas Boulevard when Oates turned left with his Cadillac, according to a police report Flores obtained, KCRA3 reported.
At the time, Oates told police he saw the motorcycle changing lanes as he began pulling onto the roadway from a turn area and accelerated. He then realized the motorcycle was traveling faster than he had anticipated. The two collided shortly afterward.
Oates wasn’t driving under the influence of any drug or alcohol at the time of the crash, according to the police report.
Police referred Oates to the district attorney for possible citation and manslaughter charges at the time of the incident.
At the time, the district attorney, however, did not file a case or cite Oates for the crash.
But the jury still decided to award Flores millions.
“This has always been a case about accountability and responsibility,” attorney Roger Dreyer of Dreyer Babich Buccola Wood Campora LLP, who represented Flores, said in a statement, KCRA3 reported.
“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 also said the district attorney’s office failed Flores by neither prosecuting nor citing Oates, but emphasized that the civil justice system was still able to hold him accountable.
The California Post reached out to Oates, but he declined to comment.
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