Case Results

In December 2018, our client was involved in serious motor vehicle accident that unfortunately took his life. On this fatal night, our client had been at a bar consuming alcohol with a friend and the bartender until the bar closed. Our client and his friend then left together, with our client riding as the front seat passenger in his friend’s vehicle. Shortly after leaving the bar, our client’s friend failed to make a curve in the road, causing the car to go airborne and land upside down in a nearby creek. The two men were both pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. The coroner’s report indicated that the driver’s blood alcohol level was .22—nearly three times the legal limit.

Our firm was contacted shortly after this horrible accident to assist our client’s family in their recovery and we successfully negotiated a policy limits settlement with the intoxicated driver’s insurance company. We also obtained a significant additional recovery for our client’s family by negotiating with the insurance company that had issued a policy to the bar the two men were drinking at prior to the fatal crash. Ohio law provides that under some circumstances, a bar itself may be liable for injury of its patrons or third parties when an individual continues to be served alcohol despite the bar or its employees having actual knowledge that the individual is intoxicated.  By pursuing this additional claim, we were able to ensure this man’s family was not limited to the driver’s liability policy limits and had access to an additional amount of recovery. While there is no amount of money that can take away the pain that our client’s family endured, the settlement we obtained will assist our client’s family as they move forward.

***Individual results may vary based on the facts, injuries, jurisdiction, venue, witnesses, parties, and other factors. This result is not necessarily representative of the results obtained by all clients.***

One evening in February 2013, a 30-year-old young father and his girlfriend were returning to the apartment complex where she resided. When the couple exited the vehicle, our client heard the desperate cries of a mother, pleading for someone to help her son, and he noticed a large crowd gathered by the lake. When our client approached the lake, he saw the tragic sight of a young boy drowning. Without hesitation, our client quickly jumped into action and entered the frigid water in attempt to save the five-year-old boy. After trying to save the boy for about 10 minutes, our client, knowing he was unable to continue, took his final breath and submerged himself into the water so that he could lift the child as high as possible in hopes that the young boy could be saved. Unfortunately, both our client and the young child died. Our selfless young client spent his last breaths trying to save a child who was a stranger to him, leaving behind a family, including his beloved son who was just six years old at the time.

This was an avoidable tragedy. The apartment complex advertised their complex as “lakeside living” and featured a large manmade lake in the center of the complex that was around 20 feet deep. Though more than 50 percent of the residents at the apartment complex had children, there were no warning signs, no barriers around the lake, and no lifesaving equipment was available near the lake. The lake had also already proven to be dangerous, as several other drowning deaths had occurred in it prior to this horrible accident. Had the apartment complex taken the appropriate precautions, it is likely that both our client and the young boy would still be alive to this day.

Our attorneys worked tirelessly to ensure that this grieving family got the justice they deserved. We originally filed this action in the Common Pleas Court of Franklin County, but were able to avoid the need for an emotionally challenging trial due to our team’s dedicated work. While no amount of money can ever be enough to account for the loss of a family member, we were successful in reaching a settlement that satisfied our client’s family and gave them some closure.

In 2014, our client and her family were spending the day at an amusement park in Ohio when she sustained serious injuries. Our client, her husband, and their two children were riding a large swing amusement ride, and as the ride began to gain speeds of around 60 miles per hour and reach heights well over 120 feet, a 100-foot metal support cable detached from the top of the ride and began whipping around, striking riders. The cable began striking our client, causing injury to her head, neck, back and knees. Park employees were unable to bring the ride to an immediate halt and the ride continued to swing with the loose cable until it came to a natural stop. Once the ride ended, our client was forced to remain on the ride for an extended period of time as the broken cable created an issue with removing the ride’s passengers and ultimately required our client to be extracted from the ride with the use of a power tool. Our client was then transported via ambulance to a nearby hospital to treat her injuries. After an investigation, it was determined by state inspectors that the cable had failed and fractured.

At the hospital, our client was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and significant head trauma. These injuries caused our client several complications after the accident including, memory loss, migraines, vertigo, post-concussive syndrome, and severe depressive disorder.

We initially filed suit in court on behalf of our client, however, due to a successful negotiation we avoided the need for trial as we obtained a satisfactory confidential settlement for our client.

***Individual results may vary based on the facts, injuries, jurisdiction, venue, witnesses, parties, and other factors. This result is not necessarily representative of the results obtained by all clients.***

In 2017, our client was playing golf at a country club when he was injured. As our client was driving a golf cart through the country club, a large tree limb cracked and fell on the golf cart, pinning and crushing our client in between the tree limb and golf cart. Emergency crews arrived and used equipment to lift the tree off the golf cart. Once the tree limb was removed, our client was able to be extricated from the cart and he was quickly transported to a nearby hospital by emergency medical services.

At the hospital, our client was diagnosed with complex pelvic fractures, a sacral fracture, injury to his lumbar spine, a renal lesion, and other serious injuries. Our client’s injuries were so severe that he was required to undergo extensive rehabilitation and multiple surgical procedures. Despite all the rehabilitation and surgical intervention, our client sustained permanent damage from his injuries. Along with the permanent physical injuries he sustained from this horrible accident, our client also incurred substantial medical costs and economic losses. It was also believed that his injuries would require future medical care and costs associated with that care.

We were retained to assist our client just days after the accident occurred. We filed suit, but through successful negotiations we avoided trial and obtained a large settlement for our client. While our client can never be made completely whole due to the permanent nature of his injuries, the substantial settlement we secured for him will go a long way to account for his pain and suffering.

***Individual results may vary based on the facts, injuries, jurisdiction, venue, witnesses, parties, and other factors. This result is not necessarily representative of the results obtained by all clients.***

Our 39-year-old client suffered extensive third-degree burns to her scalp and permanent hair loss after being burned at a local hair salon during an appointment for balayage highlights. The stylist at the salon in question applied a bleaching product to our client’s hair, wrapped it in foils, and then placed her under a heated steam machine. This was done despite the fact that the bleach product itself had a warning in all caps bold print that said DO NOT USE WITH HEAT. Within minutes, our client’s head felt like it was on fire and she was in so much pain that she was crying and shaking. After paying and leaving the salon, she went immediately to the emergency room, where she was diagnosed with full-thickness scalp burns. Her burns were so severe and deep that part of her scalp ultimately detached, and she was left with permanent hair loss. Our client underwent numerous surgeries in attempt to reduce the bald areas, and she suffered enormously both physically and emotionally as a result of the burn injury.

We filed a lawsuit in Lucas County on behalf of our client and her husband. Litigation continued for more than a year. During that time, we did extensive investigation into the salon and the hair coloring products used, took the depositions of the hair stylist and salon owners, and added claims for punitive damages based on what was discovered in the depositions. We also consulted with an expert in Cosmetology who works for the State Board, who believed the salon had been negligent in numerous ways. As the scheduled mediation neared, we also conducted a focus group to determine how real jurors would react to the facts of our client’s case. The case settled for a confidential amount at private mediation two years to the day from our client’s initial burn injury.

Our client was traveling as her granddaughter’s passenger when another vehicle attempted a left-hand turn in front of them and caused a collision by failing to yield the right-of-way. This other driver was cited for failure to yield and attempted to fight the ticket by pleading not guilty and trying to cast fault on our client’s granddaughter. She was unsuccessful and was found guilty of failing to yield the right-of-way while turning left in front of oncoming traffic.

As a 67-year-old woman with severe osteoporosis, our client suffered a serious back injury as a result of the crash. Although she had prior issues with back pain, after this collision she experienced a significant increase in her pain and found herself unable to stand, bear weight, or carry out her normal life activities without pain. After many diagnostic tests, our client was discovered to have suffered compression fractures to multiple portions of her spine. These fractures were described as a significant collapse. To repair the fractures, she was forced to undergo a surgical procedure called kyphoplasty, which involved injecting cement to repair her spinal fractures. The injury caused our client a significant amount of pain and forced her to undergo complicated and painful medical procedures, and it limited her mobility as she was required to obtain a motorized scooter following her surgery.

When pre-suit negotiations failed, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of our client. In addition to suing the driver who failed to yield, we also sued her employer because she was on the job at the time of the collision. We filed an additional claim on behalf of our client’s husband because her injury also had a substantial impact on their relationship. After exchanging written discovery with the defendants, we were able to successfully negotiate an out of court settlement with defense counsel and resolved the case for a confidential amount of money.

Our client was driving home from work when a truck failed to yield at a stop sign and crushed the driver’s side of his SUV. An eyewitness to the crash who was traveling behind the truck stated that the truck never stopped, instead running right through the stop sign into the intersection and colliding with our client. Knocked unconscious and bleeding heavily, our client was trapped in his vehicle with his left arm nearly amputated. The entire driver’s side of our client’s SUV was crunched in, and the interior of his car was covered in blood. The eyewitness happened to be a nurse. She was able to use a belt as a tourniquet, potentially saving our client’s arm or even his life.

It took approximately ten minutes for emergency crews to cut our client out of his vehicle. Upon being extracted, our client was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery on his arm. He ultimately underwent three procedures to repair the damage to nerves and muscles. Some of these involved transferring tendons from his wrist area to another part of his left arm to regain mobility there. Unfortunately, that tendon transfer permanently reduced our client’s ability to use his left hand. After all these surgeries, our client has large scars zigzagging across his left arm – a constant reminder of the terrifying day that a truck came out of nowhere and changed his life. He still suffers from tingling and pain in his arm, and his activities are impaired as a result of the accident. In addition to the arm injury, our client suffered back and neck pain, along with numerous other cuts and abrasions to his body.

Our office filed a lawsuit in federal court against the truck company and its negligent truck driver. After obtaining documents related to the truck company and defending our client’s deposition, the case settled at a court-facilitated settlement conference for an undisclosed amount of money.

Our client was instructed by his boss to stand in a debris-littered bucket of a backhoe so he could be lifted between nine and eleven feet in the air to fix some low-hanging cable and telephone wires. His employer never instructed our client to wear a safety harness, and while he was attempting to fix the wires, he came in contact with an energized electrical line and suffered a severe electrical shock – all while his boss was allegedly on his cell phone.

7200 volts of electrical current went through his right hand and across his chest before blowing out his left wrist. He was thrown out of the backhoe bucket and fell several feet.

Our client sufferedd cardiac arrest and was defibrillated three times before his heartbeat was restored. He was taken straight to the hospital, where he remained in an induced coma for 28 days following the accident. He then spend an additional 87 days in the hospital enduring a slow and painful recovery.

Our firm was able to obtain a confidential settlement for our client that was able to compensate him for more than $1 million in medical bills and his pain and suffering.

Confidential Settlement

DISCLAIMER: The results are specific to the facts and legal circumstances of each of the clients’ cases and should not be used to form an expectation that the same results could be obtained for other clients in similar matters without reference to the specific factual and legal circumstances of each client’s case.

A leaky freezer at a local Wal-Mart caused an employee to slip and fall while working, resulting in a shattered kneecap.

She was rushed to the hospital where the knee cap was re-constructed in emergency surgery.

Not only has she endured extreme pain and a lengthy recovery, she will never be able to kneel on the ground again.

Confidential Settlement

DISCLAIMER: The results are specific to the facts and legal circumstances of each of the clients’ cases and should not be used to form an expectation that the same results could be obtained for other clients in similar matters without reference to the specific factual and legal circumstances of each client’s case.

Our client was a patient at Flower Hospital and was scheduled for a routine colonoscopy on November 20, 2009. On the night of November 19th, she had to use the restroom. She called the nurses to come help her and when they went to move her, her legs got tangled up. Our client had insisted that the nurses stop because her legs were tangled, but they continued moving her. She was then dropped during the move and fractured her right femur. Because of this accident she had to undergo 3 surgeries and many months of physical therapy.

Confidential settlement

DISCLAIMER: The results are specific to the facts and legal circumstances of each of the clients’ cases and should not be used to form an expectation that the same results could be obtained for other clients in similar matters without reference to the specific factual and legal circumstances of each client’s case.