Brooklyn Car Accident
Attorneys Stephen Wagner and Andrew Wanger settled a 50-year-old Brooklyn man’s rear-end motor vehicle crash case while on trial in the New York Supreme Court, Kings County for $2,750,000. Attorney Victor Goldblum handled the case during discovery.
Our client suffered injuries to his neck and back, resulting in surgeries to both. He also had multiple surgeries on his knees but had a good recovery and waived his knee injury claims before trial.
The defendants’ insurance companies argued that it was a low-speed collision that could not have resulted in our client’s injuries. Instead, they maintained his injuries were pre-existing or from age.
The insurance companies maintained for years that the crash could not possibly have led to the injuries. They spent thousands of dollars on at least 9 different investigators who followed the plaintiff around for no less than 4 years to secretly surveil him. Immediately before trial, the defendants exchanged over 20 videos of the plaintiff going about his daily activities in a misguided attempt to “catch” him in a compromising situation. They also resorted to manipulating the video – in one instance failing to include several seconds of video when the plaintiff began to hold his back in pain after an insurance medical examination. Their efforts utterly failed.
Furthermore, the insurance companies went so far as to claim our client’s surgeries were the result of “fraud,” even though they had no evidence whatsoever to prove that. Their claim was so devoid of merit that a judge denied their motion to argue there was fraud. In fact, their own board-certified orthopedic surgeon conceded that to a high degree of medical certainty the plaintiff’s neck injuries and resultant surgery were caused by the crash, but in a transparent ruse, this paid witness recanted his opinion before trial.
After a judge struck down their meritless efforts to wrongly argue fraud, the insurance companies then hired a “biomechanical engineer” to testify based on junk science that there was not enough force from the crash to cause our client’s injuries.
Following five days of jury selection, Mr. Wagner and Mr. Wanger argued over a dozen evidentiary motions before opening statements. This resulted in the judge precluding the defendants’ biomechanical engineer’s junk science analysis and the defendants’ paid opinion spinal surgeon from testifying about our client’s back surgery. Defendants’ paid opinion neurologist was also partially precluded.
After dragging their feet for nearly 8 years, the defendants’ insurance companies offered $2,750,000 the night before opening statements. Notably, this was an increase of $1,500,000 from their pre-trial offer.