Bicyclist Who Suffered Catastropic Injuries In Automobile Accident Compensated $3,500,000 With Assistance From Medical Expert
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-09-20 10:28:40 | Word Count: 662
Lawyers who help catastrophically injured victims of car accidents understand that in certian lawsuits it is necessary to bring in specific experts so as to establish the liability of the defendant. This is not automatically true in each lawsuit. Naturally no expert is necessary if an issue, such as liability, is not disputed. Experts are quite costly. For those cases that just involve (1) minor injuries or (2) minimal insurance coverage and minimal or no assets that may be employed toward a settlement or award in the case, the economics of the litigation might make retaining an expert not feasible. When the claim involves considerable injuries and the recovery is likely to be a substantial amount, though, hiring an expert may make sense.
Consider the following reported case. The automobile involved in this car accident case was driven by an elderly man. He in some way lost control of the vehicle, slammed into a 40 year-old man who was riding his bicycle in the bike path adjacent to the road, then hit a telephone pole. The driver sustained extensive trauma to the chest area and died at the scene of the accident prior to any medical personnel came to the accident scene.
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The plaintiff sustained a head injury that placed him into a coma and resulted in permanent brain damage. With this disability he was not able to go back home to be with his two daughters. He was could not return to his job. He will likely have to get life care on a continuous basis because of his disability. He will also probably have to live in a rehabilitation facility or institution for the rest of his life. As of the time the lawsuit was reported the expense of his medical care had already reached more than $500,000.
It was concluded that the driver had had a heart attack. The defense used this fact to take the position that the reason the defendant lost control of the vehicle was because of the heart attack. As this amounted to a medical emergency the defense argued that the defendant had not been negligent and thus the victim was not entitled to any money. With (1) the availability of sufficient insurance for a significant recovery, (1) a permanent devastating injury to the plaintiff and his family, and (2) the defense denying liability by arguing that a medical emergency was the reason for the accident, this was one of those cases where the lawyer needs to look got an expert who can definitively establish liability.
The law firm forwarded slides of heart tissue taken from the autopsy to a medical expert for fuller study. The medical expert was able to definitively demonstrate that the heart attack did not happen until after the driver suffered trauma to his chest from slamming into hitting the telephone pole.
The law firm documented that, once it had this critical information, it was able to achieve a settlement for the case for $3,500,000. Of this amount, $1,000,000 was for the victim's wife who had a claim for loss of consortium. This lawsuit demonstrates that facts which at first seem bad to a lawsuit may in actuality be just what will lead to a settlement when it is placed in the correct framework. The case illustrates that under some circumstances retaining someone with just the right type of expertise can make all the difference in the outcome of the case. Finally, the lawsuit illustrates the importance of not letting the defense position the lawsuit.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting catastrophic injury cases. For additional information on how a bicycle accident lawyer may be able to assist you and about other vehicle accident cases including fatal car accident cases visit the websites
