$120,000 settlement for college student involved in motor vehicle accident for fractured scaphoid(a small bone in the hand). This case was resolved on the eve of trial.
A college freshman, returning to Widener’s campus from a doctor’s appointment, had the right of way, with no traffic device controlling his path through an intersection, T-boned the driver’s side of a car which had emerged into the intersection from a stop sign. The view of both drivers was blocked by a large truck parked at the intersection. The driver of the car T-boned claimed that he had followed the law by inching his way from the stop sign to a point past the parked truck so he could see oncoming traffic when violently struck by the college student.
The scaphoid is a small bone in the hand, at the base of the thumb. Although the college student complained of wrist pain following the accident, the fracture was not identified on x-rays in the emergency department nor by a hand surgeon in the weeks after the accident. Only after continuing pain and evaluation by a second hand surgeon, who did an MRI, was the fracture identified and repaired. The college student had suffered prior injuries to that wrist as a teenager and a question arose as to whether the MVA caused the fracture.
Baratta, Russell & Baratta (BRB) utilized an accident reconstruction expert to dissect the accident and determine that the defendant should have been able to see the college student travelling toward the intersection by looking behind the parked truck before he emerged from the stop sign. Further – BRB presented the testimony of a hand surgeon and radiologist, both of whom explained that the fracture was acute, caused by the accident, and not from the previous incident.
Result: Case settled on the eve of trial for $120,000
Attorney: Anthony J. Baratta of Baratta, Russell & Baratta
