Personal Injury News: Pick Of Last Month: Nov-2019

A panel of six jurors, following a seven days trial, awarded $8.2 million to a pedestrian who was struck by a teenager driving an SUV.

The casualty occurred on January 18, 2014, when the plaintiff was trying to cross North Military Trail to catch a bus and was hit by an SUV driven by a teenager traveling southbound on North Military Trail near 45th Street in West Palm Beach, Florida. The struck left the plaintiff with numerous fractures, and other personal injuries, which left him hospitalized for 58 days. 

The plaintiff also suffered a partial loss of vision and a frontal lobe brain injury that affected his speech, due to which he was unable to return to work since the accident.

The plaintiff won the verdict after six years, and the case was tried in front of the Palm Beach Circuit Court Judge, Honorable Lisa Small.

On Friday, Sept. 27, a California three-judge Court of Appeal panel affirmed a jury’s verdict of $5.5 million in a wrongful death lawsuit involving a car crash of three people.

According to the court memorandum, the first was speeding carelessly on a Bay Area freeway and crashed into the second car which was rear-ended by a third car. The collision caused the death of the driver of the second car and left his wife with life-threatening injuries.

A San Mateo County jury found that the driver of the third car was 70% responsible, whereas the drivers of the first and second car were each held to be 15% at fault. The jury awarded approximately $5.48 million to the wife and the two children of the driver of the second car.

On Thursday, Oct. 3, an Anderson County jury returned a $32 million verdict to the estate of a hospice nurse, who was killed by a dump truck driver.

According to the court records, on Sept. 7, 2012, the defendant was driving a dump truck under the influence of marijuana. The tests further indicated that he had taken Loritab and Valium pills. He crossed the center line and struck the plaintiff's car leaving her with a broken leg and pelvis in the car for more than an hour before firefighters pulled her out. She died five days later.

The defendant was charged with murder and DUI and pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to six years in prison, along with a verdict, which included $10 million in punitive damages.

The family of a laborer who died in a plumbing explosion at an Illinois wastewater treatment plant will receive $5.5 million from three construction companies and a pipe testing manufacturer to settle a wrongful death lawsuit.

The victim was a union laborer employed by Henderson Bros. Company, which was a subcontractor to Tobin Brothers, a plumbing subcontractor to Williams Brothers Company, the general contractor. On October 20, 2015, he was seriously injured while working inside a 54-inch diameter pipe when a piece of test equipment, known as a joint tester, exploded. The explosion caused the equipment and/or blast wave to violently strike him, leading to his death at the hospital, several days later.

The lawsuit was filed by the victim's estate in January 2016, alleging that Williams Brothers Construction Co., failed to provide proper safety and supervise its contractor, Tobin Brothers. The lawsuit further alleged that Tobin Brothers negligently assigned the victim to operate a joint tester without training, wherein the joint tester itself, manufactured and leased by Plug-It Products Corp., was dangerous.

In July 2019, a jury awarded a $47 million settlement over a boiler explosion lawsuit filed by injured plaintiffs. Kickham Boiler and Engineering, Chicago Boiler Company, Aquacomp Water Treatment Services, Loy‐Lange, Clayton Industries, and Arise Incorporated were the defendants who paid the penalty for not including corrosion allowance on the pressure vessel and failing to do proper water chemistry treatment, sediment removal, and inspections. The incident took place on April 3, 2017, at the Loy-Lange Box Company facility on Russell Avenue where a 3000-pound pressurized steam container exploded and flew 500 feet high before landing into the Faultless Linen Facility. The mishap killed one person and injured two at Loy-Lange, while three or more were killed at Faultless Linen.

A former Canyon Country woman, who was injured in a traffic collision in 2017, has been awarded $6.126 million.

On July 5, 2017, the plaintiff was driving her 1998 Lexus ES300 eastbound on Newhall Ranch Road. Her car was T-boned by a white box truck driven by the defendant. The collision left the plaintiff with serious and permanent injuries, including trauma to her cervical spine, multiple rib fractures, and a traumatic brain injury.

The jurors, after finding that the defendant had dozed off behind the wheel, which caused the mishap, passed a verdict in favor of the plaintiff. The award includes $275,000 for past economic damages, $851,000 for future economic damages, $1 million in past non-economic damages, and $4 million in future non-economic damages. Also, in December 2017, the defendant had rejected the plaintiff’s offer to settle for $1 million, which now resulted in a prejudgment interest at 10% per year. The final result is expected to exceed $7.3 million with interest.

The professional American football team San Francisco 49ers, located in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Santa Clara agreed to pay $24 million to the plaintiffs involved in a disability lawsuit, who encountered barriers in buying tickets, parking, reaching their seats, and even using the restrooms. The defendants have also agreed to revamp Levi’s Stadium and its parking to make it more accessible to people with disabilities in a proposed settlement. 

Several lawsuits were filed against the defendants by disabled fans claiming they faced difficulty, discomfort, or embarrassment at the stadium due to the barriers. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh declared the lawsuits as a class action on behalf of mobility-impaired stadium-goers. 

The plaintiffs, as many as 6,000, who faced problems at the stadium since it opened in 2014, can seek compensation of $4,000 and max up to $80,000 per person, for their every visit at the stadium. The amount may reduce depending upon the valid claims. The settlement is now pending before a federal judge in San Jose.

A plaintiff from Florida won a $12,037,000 verdict against a defendant in a June 2013 pedestrian accident lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit, on June 27, 2013, the plaintiff was standing on the sidewalk alongside Fourth Street North in St. Petersburg, near the intersection with Koger Boulevard. He was waiting to cross the road when the defendant, driving a sedan, struck him. The accident led to the amputation of his arm, traumatic brain injury, knee ligament tears, vascular injuries to his leg, and other serious trauma. 

A lawsuit was filed against the defendant, alleging that she was either speeding or did not look out properly, and hit the plaintiff, throwing him 30 to 40 feet into the air. The plaintiff landed near the sidewalk and was ran over by the defendant's vehicle, which led to the injuries.

A jury awarded $12.75 million to the plaintiff who was hit in the crosswalk by a New Jersey Transit bus on November 2, 2016. The verdict came three years after the incident on Sept. 6, 2019. The accident resulted in permanent brain injury, multiple brain haemorrhages, skull fractures, a right clavicle fracture, and multiple rib fractures for the plaintiff which has restricted him from working or caring for himself.

On October 11, the family of a  tractor-trailer crash victim was awarded around $40.5 million in damages by a New Mexico jury. 

According to the court documents, On February 23, 2017, the lady was driving a 2012 Honda Pilot when a man driving a tractor-trailer crossed four lanes of traffic and a concrete median colliding head-on with her car. The crash occurred around 8 p.m. on Interstate 10 outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

The man had only been driving for Werner Enterprises Inc. for eight days before the fatal crash occurred. The court filings allege that Werner continued to assign work to the man and his trainer despite former's inexperience behind the wheel. The filings further alleged that he drove approximately 64% of the time unsupervised, wherein the first four days went with "zero observation time," which the family believed was a disregard for basic safety policies and training of new drivers by Roadmaster Drivers School, acquired by Werner in 2014.

The verdict is a "Nuclear verdict," wherein the penalties exceed $10 million. In a similar case against Werner in the past 18 months, a Texas jury awarded a family nearly $90 million in a fatal crash.