$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...
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...
Two Oklahoma Families Reach $1.5 Million Settlements with Toyota in Fatal Unintended Acceleration Crash in a Camry
By Dean I. Weitzman, Esq. on November 1st, 2013
An Oklahoma jury has awarded a $3 million verdict to two families after a 70-year-old woman died when the Toyota Camry in which she was a passenger accelerated suddenly and crashed into an embankment in 2007. The case is the first which Toyota has lost on a plaintiff's claim of unintended acceleration in one of its Camry midsize automobiles, which have been accused several times in recent years for accelerating on their own without any...
New Jersey Motorcyclist Critically Injured By Buses in 2011 Receives $2.5 Million Settlement
By Dean I. Weitzman, Esq. on October 25th, 2013
As Keith Nystrom rode his motorcycle through the Lincoln Tunnel into New York City from New Jersey on Feb. 24, 2011, he was critically injured in a chain reaction crash involving three New Jersey Transit buses. The crash was horrific, with one bus crashing into the rear of a second bus, which then rear-ended Nystrom and wedged him under a third bus that was just ahead of him, according to an Oct. 17 story on...
$9.5 Million Settlement to Victims of Texas Vehicle Crash Caused by Impaired Truck Driver
By Dean I. Weitzman, Esq. on October 18th, 2013
Two Texas families will share in a $9.5 million settlement reached in the case of a commercial truck driver who was driving while intoxicated when his tractor-trailer rear-ended several vehicles in an intersection in Victoria, Texas, in March 2012. Several people were seriously injured in the crash, which occurred when a tractor-trailer being driven by Johnny Raymond Rodriguez failed to stop as it approached the intersection of U.S. 59 and Upper Mission Valley Road on...