Victory after For Years of Litigation
Posted By
Jim Burns on Jul 13, 2011 4:50pm PDT
The client was badly injured in a pre-dawn crash involving six vehicles. A black jeep went out of control across all lanes of I-880. As the Jeep few in front of the pick-up driven by Dunnion’s client, he smashed into it, causing the other cars to pile into our client. Over several mediations involving all parties and their insurance companies, the cases against all but the Jeep settled when all the other drivers agreed to pay their policy limits to our client. However, the Jeep driver maintained that a never-identified someone had sideswiped him, setting off the events. During several years of litigation, Dunnion attorneys, with the assistance of multiple experts, were able to establish that there was no evidence whatsoever that the Jeep had been hit prior to going out of control, that the driver of the Jeep had spent the days before the crash binging on drugs, and that he had not slept the night before the accident while continuing to use methamphetamine. The Jeep driver still wanted to put the blame on Dunnion’s client, maintaining that he should have been able to slow to a stop before hitting the Jeep, in spite of testimony fromhis own experts that he was probably moving across the path of the pick-up at the time of the initial impact. Finally, in the face of overwhelming evidence, the defendant’s attorney and insurance carrier abandoned their defenses and agreed to pay whatever the damages award would be. The client and his wife were awarded a combined $500,000.00 which will pay the medical bills and allow them some compensation for what they have been through.