Truck Crash Victim’s Family Awarded $2.2 Million in Pennsylvania Wrongful Death Case
By Dean I. Weitzman, Esq. on January 10th, 2014
As he drove his tractor-trailer on Interstate 78 in Lebanon County, Pa., early in the morning of Nov. 13, 2009, 36-year-old Eric Claxton's rig struck another tractor-trailer that was entering the highway from the side of the road in the darkness. The force of the collision caused both vehicles to catch fire, killing Claxton at the scene and leaving his passenger in a fight for life that ended a month later. Now Claxton's family will...
$3.4 Million Wrongful Death Settlement in 2012 Car Crash of Young Mother
By Dean I. Weitzman, Esq. on January 3rd, 2014
As her 1995 Nissan Sentra broke down on southbound Interstate 664 in Chesapeake, Va., about 9 a.m. on June 14, 2012, 27-year-old Crystal A. Burgsteiner pulled the small car to the side of the highway and turned on its emergency flashers. While she waited in her car on the side of the road, a tractor-trailer behind her left its lane after its driver allegedly suffered an undisclosed medical emergency and plowed into the rear of...
Philadelphia Family Receives $42.9 Million Medical Malpractice Award for Premature Birth
By Dean I. Weitzman, Esq. on December 27th, 2013
A jury has awarded a Philadelphia family a $42.9 million medical malpractice award after their son was born prematurely and suffered from a multitude of complications after his birth in July 2007. The family sued the doctors and hospital where their son was born, alleging that the "complications suffered by their child due to extreme premature birth were the result of negligence" on the part of the doctors who treated the mother and the baby,...
10 Years After Car Crash, Insurance Company Hit with $18 Million Bad Faith Settlement
By Dean I. Weitzman, Esq. on December 20th, 2013
The family of a then-15-year-old car crash victim who was critically injured in February 2003 in Lawrence County, Pa., has been awarded $18 million in a settlement that resolves a bad faith case against their insurance company, Erie Insurance Exchange. The case had dragged on for more than 10 years when the insurance company continually delayed payments that originally would have topped out at the $100,000 bodily injury limits of the family's policy, according to...
Paraplegic Man Receives $6.6 Million Settlement from Two Bars That Served Him Alcohol
By Dean I. Weitzman, Esq. on December 13th, 2013
An East Stroudsburg, Pa., man has received a $6.6 million settlement from two bars that served him alcohol before he drove drunk and crashed his vehicle into a tree. The man, Jason Mercado, had played team softball before the crash in May of 2010 and went drinking with his friends after the game, according to a Dec. 11 story in The Legal Intelligencer. Mercado had filed a dram shop action against the two bars, alleging...
$3.8 Million Settlement in I-83 Wrongful Death Crash Lawsuit in York, Pa.
By Dean I. Weitzman, Esq. on December 6th, 2013
The family of a Monroe, N.Y., woman who died in a multi-vehicle crash on Interstate 83 near York, Pa., on May 30, 2011, will receive a settlement of $3.8 million to end a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family after the tragedy. Susan Gunther, who was a 53-year-old school teacher at the time of the crash, was heading back home to Monroe after dropping her daughter off at nursing school in York when a...
$11.6 Million Settlement for Woman Who Fell Through Building Skylight
By Dean I. Weitzman, Esq. on November 27th, 2013
While visiting with other members of her college a cappella group during an informal gathering at a house in Philadelphia near the University of Pennsylvania, Lorna Bernhoft, a junior at the school, sat on a board across a raised fourth floor skylight and fell through to a staircase below. She then slid down the stairs and landed on her head, causing massive injuries which left her a paraplegic. The woman, who was 20 years old...
$3.5 Million Settlement to Family of Construction Worker Killed by Falling Crane Bucket
By Dean I. Weitzman, Esq. on November 22nd, 2013
When a metal piece from a heavy, overhead crane bucket fell to the ground at a construction site in Middleburg, Pa., on May 2, 2008, it struck a construction worker who was working nearby, causing grave injuries. The worker, 49-year-old Ray Doan, Jr., was struck in the back of the neck by a piece that came loose from the bucket, while he worked on the site for Advanced Concrete Systems Inc. (ACS) of Middleburg, Pa.,...
Family of Chicago Pedestrian Killed by Tour Bus Receives $6.75 Million Settlement
By Dean I. Weitzman, Esq. on November 15th, 2013
After more than two years, the family of a 26-year-old Polish woman who was killed on a Chicago street when she was struck by a private tour bus in May 2011 has received a $6.75 million settlement from the bus company that employed the driver. The driver of the bus had cocaine in his bloodstream while he was operating the vehicle on May 3, 2011, just before it struck and killed Justyna Palka, who was...