Attorney Thomas Brennan recently secured a settlement of $850,000 as a result of a 100% liability verdict against the defendant for a 57-year-old man whose car was backed into by a private garbage truck in Forest Hills, Queens. The settlement represented much of the remaining insurance available from an eroding $1 million policy.
Defendants claimed that the client drove into the rear of their stationary truck while it was picking up garbage along Queens Boulevard. Prior to the liability trial, the parties entered into a high-low agreement, and with the liability verdict, the high was triggered.
The client initially underwent conservative treatment for a lower back injury, which eventually necessitated surgery, and then had arthroscopic surgery soon after the accident. The defendants were claiming that the back surgery was precipitated by a subsequent motor vehicle accident.