Ms. Banahan Dagestad joined Evans & Dixon in 2016, after graduating from Saint Louis
University School of Law, where she received the CALI Excellence Award in Legal
Research & Writing. Kerry is a member in our Civil Litigation Department and concentrates her practice on defending individuals, businesses, school districts, and
municipalities in a wide variety of complex legal matters. The bulk of Ms. Dagestad’s experience is concentrated on personal injury litigation stemming from premise liability claims, vehicular collisions, and alleged civil-rights violations.
Since joining the firm, Ms. Banahan Dagestad has had the opportunity to try nearly twenty (20) matters to jury verdict, alongside her partner, James E. Godfrey, Jr. The tried matters include slip and fall claims, vehicular collisions, construction defect claims, and actions for wrongful death. In 2020, Ms. Dagestad and Mr. Godfrey had two of the “Top Ten” defense verdicts in the State of Missouri, including favorable verdicts in a slip and fall action out of Jefferson County, Missouri and a vehicular collision in St. Francois County. Notably, these verdicts were obtained in a nine (9) day timeframe, in back-to- back trials. Most recently, in June 2025, Dagestad and Godfrey tried a construction defect case wherein the jury awarded Plaintiff roughly half of the last pre-trial offer, and
several hundred thousand dollars less than the amount sought by Plaintiff at trial.
In her representation of government entities, Ms. Dagestad has litigated claims involving injuries sustained on government property, collisions involving school or city buses, excessive force complaints, sexual abuse complaints and allegations regarding discrimination or failure to accommodate.
Ms. Dagestad has also successfully resolved matters on behalf of her clients via dispositive motion practice. Notable victories at the trial court level include a successful Motion for Summary Judgment in the District of Kansas on a third-party liability case involving a shooting on hotel property, as well as a Motion to Dismiss in the City of St.
Louis on the topic of co-employee liability, a decision that was later upheld by the Court of Appeals for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Ms. Dagestad is an active member of the Missouri Bar, the Illinois Bar, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, the U.S. District Court of Kansas and the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals.