As mentioned on my other blog, we had a huge personal injury verdict on Friday (4/27/2007) in Albany. The verdict was $3.85 million. I'm supposed to say something like: "Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome" or "Your mileage will vary." I'll be more clear than that. You better hope you never get hurt bad enough to have any kind of shot at all at getting a verdict like this, and even if you do, the odds of doing this well are pretty darn small. Many outstanding personal injury lawyers go their entire career without getting a verdict this large. If you do hire us, I can almost guarantee that you will not get that much money. Even this client will likely get less than that.
Anyway, I will describe the case in detail over the course of the next few weeks. I'll start with an intro here.
Our client was driving his motorcycle through the village of Waterford. Traffic had stopped and he was waiting behind another vehicle. All of a sudden, an SUV coming the other way crossed over the centerline, striking the client and his motorcycle, and driving them into another SUV (operated by a Troy police officer who testified at trial).
The accident itself caused a partial amputation of my client's left foot (somewhere between the toes and the middle of the foot). In other words, a chunk of his foot was found on the ground at the scene. He had multiple fractures in his left leg, including at the hip, mid-shaft of the femur, and in his lower leg as well.
Client was taken to Albany Medical Center. Within hours he went into surgery, where they attempted to fix the various fractures and did a further amputation of his foot in an attempt to save the ankle. About 12 days later he had another surgery, amputating his leg below the knee. He spent roughly 46 days in the hospital.
At trial, the big question was about who crossed the centerline. An eyewitness said the defendant crossed over. The defendant himself said he didn't know. A sheriff's reconstruction concluded that my client had crossed the line. Both sides hired experts and the jury heard quite a bit of testimony about this issue. In the end they found that the defendant crossed over and was 100% responsible. It was a unanimous verdict.
At least a few people seem to think I'm a millionaire now. Not true. I'm still five figures in the hole on this case. The trial was only Round One. Round Two is a battle with the defendant's insurance company in what's known as a bad faith claim, plus there's another insurance policy which we should be able to tap into.
In the next few weeks I'll post some photos and other documents related to the case, and I'll try to explain and analyze all of what went on with this $3.85 million dollar verdict.
Yes, you're right, most plaintiffs will never get anything close to that huge amount. Any how, good job on helping him get what was deserved.
Just a question for my blog, is it ok to discuss client's cases as long as no details as to identities are mentioned?
thanks
jason
litifin -dot- com
Posted by: jasonarg | April 08, 2008 at 07:07 AM