Case Focus: Brianna

An otherwise unremarkable day became quite remarkable with the flash of a light. One morning, Brianna was on her way to work when she was struck by a delivery truck and fatally killed.

Brianna lived in NJ and commuted to midtown Manhattan, where she worked as waitress in a diner. While walking to work, she entered the intersection to cross the street and was runover by a New York Times Delivery truck.

She died instantly.

Left surviving was her infant son from a prior marriage and her husband whom she had recently married.

The defense to this lawsuit was simply that while tragic it was not our truck that caused the harm.

The street where this occurred had several bays for several companies and their delivery trucks. One such bay was for The Times. Well after the fact one of the investigating police officers determined that this truck was involved in the collision.

This was prior to surveillance and cellphone cameras, and there were no eyewitnesses that were identified. Forensic evidence on the truck showed handprints on a front wheel where we claimed she was run over. The Times argued that the position of the handprint was for routine maintenance and could not have been from someone being run over.

We did locate a witness who supported our contention that he saw hands under a truck when the incident occurred, and the color of the truck may have been the same as their truck. The Times had an accident reconstruction expert testify at trial that the incident did not occur the way we contended. I submit that my cross-examination of this witness was crucial.

After a lengthy deliberation the jury found in our favor. The verdict included compensation for “fear of impending death” as we argued that she must have seen the truck a split second before being run over and one can only have imagined what her last thought was. At the time, the award of $300.000.00 was one of the highest ever.

Case Focus: Mehmet

Mehmet had finished his work week and had stopped at the local convenience store before going home for dinner with his family. This was in the day before everyone having a cellphone. He was using an “pay phone” to call his wife to ask if she needed anything for their home.

While on the phone, the driver of a motor vehicle rolled his vehicle into Mehmet. His injuries, while certainly not life threatening, required him to be transported to a local hospital by ambulance.

The hospital did a routine examination of him and found nothing remarkable.

Left surviving was her infant son from a prior marriage and her husband whom she had recently married.

However, Mehmet was making complaints of severe pain in his abdomen. He was admitted overnight for observation. He was kept again overnight as his complaints were constant and extreme. A test was run that was interpreted as normal. He was kept overnight again for observation.

On Monday he awoke in extreme pain and was rushed to the operating room. Emergency surgery was unsuccessful, and he died, basically due to poisoning of his body. The hospital denied any wrongdoing.

At trial, it was proved that the on-call physician was notified on Friday night of the situation, but he decided seeing one patient in the hospital was not worth his time and effort, and he would see Mr. Mehmet on Monday morning. Sadly, too late!

The case settled just prior to summations for over 95% of the available insurance coverage. The family did not see the reason to let a verdict result due to the relatively small amount of money that was withheld.