NYC Truck Accident
Wingate, Russotti, Shapiro, Moses & Halperin, LLP attorney Stephen D. Wagner III obtained a settlement of $950,000.00 out of a one million dollar liability policy for a 54-year-old intellectually disabled Brooklyn woman with a trial pending in Bronx County.
The defendant’s box truck struck our client in an unmarked crosswalk in Brooklyn at three in the morning. Unfortunately, an erroneous ambulance report stated that our client had been drinking. This is possibly because our client sustained a severe concussion and may have presented as inebriated while in actuality she was concussed. Thankfully, a urinalysis conducted at the hospital revealed she did not have alcohol in her system. However, the defense wanted to introduce the erroneous statement in the ambulance report into evidence.
We obtained summary judgment against the box truck driver and their employer in addition to having the Court strike the plaintiff’s affirmative defense of comparative negligence. In other words, the Court agreed that there was no evidence that our client did anything wrong.
Our client suffered a neck injury which required surgery and also underwent arthroscopic procedures. The defense argued that all of her orthopedic injuries were degenerative and not from getting hit by a box truck while walking in a crosswalk.
Our client also suffered “non-displaced” fractures that were picked up on MRI scans, but not on X-rays. The defense argued that she did not have any fractures and submitted a radiologist report to defeat Mr. Wagner’s “serious injury threshold” motion. If this case had gone to trial, a jury would have had to decide if she suffered fractures and if she had suffered a consequential permanent injury.