A Brownsville man injured by a vehicle while walking on a Dallas sidewalk is puzzled and angry that a jury found him half at fault for the accident and entitled to no damages.

Robert Charles Butson, 81, was walking toward a machine shop on Nov. 15, 2007, to look into having work done on his pickup truck when he was struck on the right hip by a van driven by Scott Alan Sommerfeldt of Dallas and knocked to the ground.

Sommerfeldt was crossing the sidewalk after leaving a car wash.

Butson, his eyes trained on the machine shop, never saw the van until he was on the pavement. He was taken to a hospital and still has pain from the accident.

"I've been thrown off a lot of horses," Butson said, "but I've never been hit like that."

Represented by Lebanon attorney Thomas McHill, Butson sued Sommerfeldt in Polk County Circuit Court.

The lawsuit said Butson sustained permanent soft-tissue injuries to his neck, back and right thigh and asked for $100,000 in non-economic damages.

Sommerfeldt received a citation for failing to yield, pleaded guilty and paid a $250 fine in Dallas Municipal Court.

In the civil case, however, tried Sept. 22-23, a 12-person jury ruled that Butson and Sommerfeldt shared equally the blame for the accident. That meant any damages awarded would be halved under the principle of "comparative negligence" that Judge Robert J. Morgan instructed the jury to apply.

It became a moot point when the panel decided the plaintiff should receive no compensation.

McHill, Butson's attorney, said Monday he could somewhat understand the 50-50 ruling given that Butson had admitted in court that he wasn't paying attention to cars in the area.

But he was puzzled by the jury's finding that his client should get no money. And that was the part of the decision that, in his mind, made the case effectively unappealable.

The judge, the defendant and the defendant's attorney, Ralph Spooner of Salem, could not be reached for comment.

Butson, who's lived in Brownsville for 39 years after spending 14 years in the Navy, did not file an appeal during the 30-day window he had for doing so but is unwilling to let the matter drop completely.

He plans to tell his story to whatever lawmakers in Salem will listen to him.