EP03 S01: Car Accident Lawsuit and Slip & Fall Lawsuit for over $1,000,000.00: A Trial Story
In this episode, two quick trial stories, two trials I did in 2019, last year, before the COVID-19 pandemic. One was a car crash, a lady was driving to work and a police officer blew a stop sign and hit her, and she ended up having a surgery on her neck known as a fusion, a cervical fusion, the second is a slip and fall, click below to listen to the stories.
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Full Transcript:
Welcome to Trial Stories, an informative discussion of civil justice with a focus on the human story. I’m your host, Arkady Frekhtman, a New York city trial lawyer passionate about helping serious injury victims and their families.
Hi everybody. My name is Arkady Frekhtman, I’m a personal injury trial lawyer here in New York. And I just wanted to talk about two quick trial stories, two trials I did in 2019, last year, before the COVID-19 pandemic. One was a car crash, a lady was driving to work and a police officer blew a stop sign and hit her, and she ended up having a surgery on her neck known as a fusion, a cervical fusion.
And we ended up starting the trial, picking a jury, we put on the plaintiff, she testified, and we had the police officer on the stand. So we cross-examined the police officer, and the police officer’s supervisor was about to take the stand. And the supervisor had all of the nitty-gritty details about this officer, that she was disciplined before for the same kind of thing. It was actually ironic because she was a school safety officer, and she was there giving out tickets to motorists who would pass a school bus without stopping, but yet this officer in an unmarked car was driving recklessly and blowing stop signs herself. So anyway, they wouldn’t let the supervisor testify, we had too much dirt on the supervisor. And so they settled the case and settled for $1,400,000, which we thought was fair, and a pretty large amount.
So then the other case was a case that was completely dead. There was zero offer on it, and it was also against the City of New York, and it was for a mother who was picking up some kids from school and she had a slip and fall. And it was raining out, so it was a difficult case on liability, and that’s why they had a zero offer on it. But we tried the case, and we also put on the teacher from the school who knew about the puddle, we put on the custodian of the school who talked about the fact that they didn’t really have a procedure for checking these puddles, and we even put on an expert. And of course, the plaintiff testified and we gave our summation, closing arguments and the case went to the jury and the jury started thinking about it.
But while the jury was thinking about it, we were talking and negotiating, and then the case also settled, and also for $1,400,000. A completely different case, this was a slip and fall, this one was in civil court and the other one was in Supreme Court, so a completely different case, but the same amount. And this one also had lumbar fusion surgery to her back.
So it’s just interesting. I was looking back at the year, looking back at the cases we’ve handled, and just interesting to consider two cases, one slip and fall, one car accident, but both settling for the same amount. Which, both amounts were pretty fair and looking back, hopefully, when things open up again we can do more trials and win even bigger amounts for our clients, and get absolute top dollar for serious injury victims and their families.
Have a great day everyone. Drop us a comment, ask us any questions. We’d be happy to answer your question, or maybe even shoot a personal video to answer the most frequently asked questions, so that you get your concerns answered and you get your issues heard. That’s what we’re here for. Have a great day.