By admin 
A Placer County jury on Monday awarded nearly $16 million to the widow of a retired CHP officer who died in a motorcycle collision with developer and minority Sacramento Kings owner Phil Oates on a suburban street in 2024.
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The unanimous award is a fraction of the $45 million Miranda Flores had sought for the loss of her husband, Patrick Mulderrig, whom she described as the love of her life. Still, it is four times the loss amount Oates’ attorney calculated should be assessed.
Outside Placer County’s historic courthouse in Auburn, Flores hugged a juror before speaking publicly for the first time about her case against one of the region’s leading businessmen.
“I’m happy the jury is holding the responsible party accountable,” she said. “I’ll miss Patrick until the day I die.”
The award, though smaller than the amount she sought, nonetheless represents a victory for Flores, whose attorney successfully argued that Mulderrig’s death should be compensated at a higher level than is typical. The case set a complicated task before the jury — assessing the financial worth of a human life in a case where severe misbehavior was not alleged, and Oates’ wealth could not be considered.
Oates was not cited or charged
Oates, 75, was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and was not cited or charged with any crime in connection with the traffic collision that killed Mulderrig on a sunny early evening in May. He declined to comment on the award on Monday, but during the trial Oates gave testimony describing the crash.
The chairman of the Buzz Oates, the commercial real estate firm founded by his father, was making a left turn from Douglas Boulevard in Granite Bay onto Kingsgate Drive on his way home from a trip to a nearby Carl’s Jr., restaurant. He testified in court that he did not initially see Mulderrig approach from the opposite direction on Douglas Boulevard until it was too late.
He sped up to try to get out of the motorcyclist’s way, but they both moved into the same lane, leading Mulderrig’s red Harley-Davidson Sportster to crash into the rear passenger side of Oates’ Cadillac, spinning it around 180 degrees and launching the former CHP communications officer into the air.
Mulderrig, 60, hit the ground about 15 feet away from the Cadillac and never woke up. He died five hours later at a Roseville hospital.
Flores: ‘I feel like just a piece of a person’
Flores, who was 41 when her husband died, met Mulderrig when she was 21 and working in security at the Capitol and he was 39. Losing him meant losing the person she’d been connected to for essentially all of her adult life, she testified in court.
“Now I feel like just a piece of a person,” Flores said Monday. “I wake up and try my best to breathe and pretend like I am living, because I know he would want me to be ok.”
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At the crash scene, CHP officer Michael Zerfas wrote in his report that Oates was responsible for the incident because he had turned left in front of Mulderrig. Zerfas referred the incident to Placer County District Attorney Morgan Briggs Gire for possible prosecution as misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter, with no gross negligence involved.
But Gire’s office decided not to bring charges, saying there was no evidence of a criminal act. Flores, bereft and angry, rejected the settlement offered by Oates’ insurance company and filed a wrongful death suit against the developer.
Because Oates took responsibility for the crash, the jury of eight men and four women was not asked to decide who was at fault, or whether punitive damages should be assessed. They were also told not to consider the relative wealth or poverty of either party, or whether Oates had automobile insurance.
Instead, their deliberations were about the value of human life and loss.
During the two-week trial, Flores’ attorney presented Mulderrig as a loving and attentive husband. He retired with a full state pension a year after their 2014 wedding, and spent the next ten years tending to their marriage and home, attorney Roger Dreyer said.
He successfully argued that Flores should be compensated for any pain and suffering experienced by her husband in the hours before he died, putting a neurological expert on the witness stand who testified that even though Mulderrig was in a coma, he might still have felt pain.
Oates’ attorney, Chris Hogan, argued that was impossible, presenting witnesses who said that the motorcyclist had little brain function and would not have felt pain. Flores’ loss should be assessed at about $4 million, Hogan told the jury, with no compensation for pain, suffering and disfigurement.
The jury, however, sided with Flores, awarding $2.3 million for pain and suffering alone.
The panel also awarded Flores $2.5 million in economic damages for the loss of her husband’s pension and other financial contributions. The largest award was for the loss of his companionship and love — $11 million.
Losing him, she said Monday, will always bring pain.
“I didn’t just lose my sweet Patrick that day,” Flores said in notes that she wrote Monday morning and shared with The Bee. “I lost the life that we were supposed to have. I lost all of our todays — and every tomorrow that we were supposed to have.”
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This story was originally published September 28, 2026 at 2:07 PM.