$345,000 Settlement for Motor Vehicle Accident / Disregarded Stop Sign

Blume Donnelly partner John E. Molinari represented a 70-year-old woman with a history of chronic pulmonary disease (difficulty breathing). The woman was driving her car and exiting the parking lot of a hospital, where she had just received treatment/evaluation for her respiratory disease, when the defendant driver disregarded a stop sign and struck our client’s vehicle at a slow speed. The woman sustained a fractured rib which caused her a host of complications, further compromising her respiratory condition, ultimately resulting in her death. The defense argued that her preexisting condition would have significantly shortened the woman’s life span, and therefore that the damages surrounding her premature death were limited. Mr. Molinari worked with a medical expert to establish that the damages were significant, in that the woman, with proper treatment of her disease, could have lived much longer than the defense claimed. Mr. Molinari settled this case for $345,000 at the end of the discovery period.