Personal Injury News: Pick Of Last Month: Dec-2019
Car Crash Victims Gets $1B Award
A Burleigh County jury has awarded more than $1 billion in total damages to a survivor and families of two women killed in a 2015 car crash in Mandan.
According to the court documents, on 27th June 2015, a man slammed into the car in which the ladies were travelling at the Mckenzie Drive exit on the Bismarck Expressway which resulted in their death. The third lady who was driving the car suffered a traumatic brain injury.
The jury awarded $295 million in punitive damages each to the victims and also awarded compensatory damages of $170 million to the woman who was driving and $36 million each to the families of the two women who died in the crash.
A similar lawsuit settled for around $40.5 million in damages to the family of a tractor-trailer crash victim. The settlement was declared by a New Mexico jury on October 11, 2019.
The court papers stated that the crash occurred around 8 p.m. on Interstate 10 outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico on February 23, 2017. The victim was driving a 2012 Honda Pilot when a man driving a tractor-trailer crossed four lanes of traffic and a concrete median colliding head-on with her car.
The man was driving for Werner Enterprises Inc. for eight days before the fatal crash occurred. The lawyer for the victim has alleged that the company continued to assign work to the man and his trainer despite the former's inexperience behind the wheel.
The penalties exceed $10 million and the verdict is identified as a "Nuclear verdict".
Baby Injured During Birth Receives $101M Verdict
A Cook County jury obtained $101 million medical malpractice verdict for the family of a baby born with a damaged brain at an Oak Park, Illinois, Hospital.
According to the court memorandum, on August 9, 2014, nurses at West Suburban Medical Center ignored the infant's external fetal monitoring strips for six hours before and during his delivery, which led to abnormalities. Due to the injury, he is unable to speak or take care of himself, which could have been avoided if the doctors were alerted and a C-section was performed.
The infant was taken to Misericordia Home, a facility that helps in taking care of people with mild to severe developmental disabilities. The verdict will ensure that he receives proper medical care for the rest of his life.
The plaintiff and her newborn daughter were awarded $229 million due to the brain damage caused to the child that resulted from misdiagnosis of preeclampsia during labor and delivery at John Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.
The court documents read that the plaintiff was showing signs of severe preeclampsia and was 25 weeks pregnant when she was admitted to the hospital. The doctors informed the lady that the baby was viable outside the womb, but the baby would die or be severely brain-damaged if she undergoes the cesarean section in the delivery.
The lawsuit claimed that the lady agreed with the doctors that resulted in her daughter suffering from oxygen deprivation, which led to brain damage and cerebral palsy. It is one of the largest verdicts of medical malpractice lawsuits accounting up to $229 million.
Special Needs Student Hit By A Vehicle Gets $28.5M
A special needs student who was hit by a vehicle under the care and supervision of the Victor Elementary School District (VESD) personnel is compensated with $28,500,000.
On February 3, 2017, after school, a District Personnel from Puesta Del Sol Elementary School walked the kid to the edge of the campus across the street and then left him to walk home alone, which violates "curb-to-curb transportation" individualized Education Plan (IEP) established by the District. Unfortunately, he tried to cross a four-lane road just a few blocks from his school and got struck by a speeding car.
As a result of this mishap, the kid suffered severe injuries, including a severe traumatic brain injury, complex facial fractures, serious internal hemorrhaging, and several broken bones. He was rushed to Loma Linda Medical Center, where he was in a coma for months.
The kid's cognitive function, speech, and motor control are damaged severely due to which he will require 24/7 care, therapy, and medical attention for the rest of his life. The court concluded that VESD was negligent and is solely responsible for the accident.
In a similar lawsuit, where a teenager driving an SUV was fined $8.2 million for crashing a pedestrian. The accident took place on January 18, 2014. The plaintiff was trying to cross North Military Trail to catch a bus when he was hit by an SUV driven by a teenager travelling southbound on North Military Trail near 45th Street in West Palm Beach, Florida.
The mishap resulted in severe fractures and injuries for the plaintiff. The plaintiff was hospitalized for 58 days post the accident. It even resulted in partial vision loss and serious brain injury that affected his speech. He is unable to return to work due to severe injuries. The verdict of the lawsuit came after six years of the accident.
Jury Awards $17M To Paraplegic Amputee
A woman who lost a leg and became a paraplegic post an outpatient surgery at Sparrow Hospital was awarded $17 million by an Ingham County Circuit Court on November 6.
The woman was 70 when she went into the hospital, in March 2015, for a "routine, outpatient procedure." She walked in to improve blood flow in her legs and relieve leg cramping, experienced due to walking long distances. The lawsuits state that the nurses negligently left sheaths in her legs for too long, which led to a blood clot followed by massive internal bleeding and poor blood flow to Bashore's spine and leg. Four months later, one of her legs was amputated, and she was paralyzed from the waist down, following which she underwent 35 surgeries and needed round-the-clock care.
A lawsuit was filed against the hospital and a cardiovascular surgeon in early 2017 for the "preventable errors." The trial began on October 21 lead to a total of $17 million, which includes $7.1 million for past economic and non-economic damages and the rest for future damages.
PG&E Pays $13.5 Billion To Wildfire Victims
Bankrupt PG&E corporation is attempting to compensate $13.5 billion as part of a restructuring plan to the victims of the wildfire that recently took place in Northern California.
The rival group of creditors, namely Pacific Investment Management and Elliott Management, have also offered the same amount of compensation to the victims.
PG&E is trying to get out of bankruptcy until next year by restructuring a plan for the same. The company went bankrupt due to the malfunctioning of equipment leading to catastrophic wildfires and damaging an estimated $30 billion worth of liabilities.
Governor of California has warned PG&E to come up with a suitable reorganisational plan soon. Even the judge has ordered the victims and PG&E to try an agreement at the earliest.
PG&E has ensured that the victims will receive reasonable and fair settlement very soon.
Hoboken Train Crash: Injured Woman Gets $1.5M
NJ transit pays $1.5M to a woman who got injured in the Hoboken train crash on September 29, 2019.
The woman was commuting to work on the day of the crash. The Hoboken bound Pascack Valley Line train #1614 in which she was commuting, crashed through a bumper at the end of the tracks and into Hoboken Terminal.
The woman suffered back, neck, shoulder, and hip injuries in the crash. Also, a pre-existing disorder in her auto-immune system complicated the treatment for those injuries, leaving her unable to work.
Another person who was walking through the station got killed in the crash from the falling debris. The crash induced $6 million in property damage and injured 108 people.
Wave Pool Injury Led To $49M Verdict
A boy who almost drowned in a wave pool at the Cowabunga Bay received $49 million as he suffered severe lifelong injuries.
According to the court memorandum, the boy went to the Cowabunga Bay along with his friend, and the friend's father. He was not wearing any lifejacket when he went into the pool.
The Lawsuit claims that there were not enough lifeguards on staff at the pool when the boy was underwater due to which he suffered a severe brain injury as he was submerged underwater for a long time. The boy requires 24-hour care as he suffered a hypoxic and anoxic brain injury, which disrupts the oxygen flow around the body.
The plaintiff's attorneys stated, the lifeguard plan submitted by the park in 2014 claimed that there were six lifeguards at the Cowabunga Bay’s Surf-A-Rama Wave Pool, but Southern Nevada Health District insisted that the park requires at least 17 lifeguards.
Cowabunga Bay submitted a revised proposal, but inspection reports claimed that the park failed in maintaining the necessary guidelines. The water park's parent company requested to settle the issue as it will damage their reputation and cost a tremendous amount of loss in business.