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Some Of Our Actual Legal Cases

Not Such A Sweet 16th Birthday

Why is it so important to have adequate underinsured motorist coverage on your car insurance policy?  Let me tell you a story about a beautiful young girl whose parent’s insurance coverage made the difference.

Gillian was celebrating her 16th birthday.  The day turned out to be anything but sweet.  She was in a friend’s car which skidded around a turn, left the road and struck a tree.  Gillian’s face battered the windshield – she was rushed to the hospital where she received 75 stitches to her forehead, chin and ear.  Shortly after I took the case, I learned that Gillian’s friend had only a $25,000 car insurance policy.  Would that be all that Gillian could collect?  The good news was that her parents had stacked their underinsured motorist coverage and a total of an additional $200,000 was available.  The bad news was that her parent’s insurance company refused to pay the amount of the coverage.  They claimed that her scar was not that serious – were they right?

A few weeks before the trial, I saw a newspaper photo of a man who received a $125,000 award.  He was a cocaine dealer who had been beaten by the police and received 60 stitches in his face.  I sent the photo to the insurance company and told them if that case was worth $125,000, then Gillian’s case was certainly worth more than the parent’s policy. The insurance company looked at the convict’s photo and to their credit, sent out a check for the policy limits.      Stephen M. Karp, Esquire

The Amazing Disappearing Man

I once settled a medical malpractice case about 10 years ago on the eve of trial.  I was really looking forward to giving my closing argument and it was going to go something like this.  Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, when Don and his wife used to dance together, she would rest her arm on his shoulder.  Now when they dance, she places her arm on the top of his head – what type of medical malpractice could cause this to happen?

Don was born with osteogenesis imperfecta.  It’s a disease in which a person’s bones are brittle.  Don suffered many fractures during his early childhood but he grew out of it and didn’t have a broken bone for over 20 years.  One day, Don went to visit his doctor because he was having problems with his lungs.  He told the doctor about his previous history of osteogenesis imperfecta.  It is not known to many people but it is known to doctors that when you have this condition, it is contraindicated to prescribe steroids.  The steroids can aggravate the symptoms and cause excessive bone damage.  Don’s doctor ignored his history.  He later testified that he had forgotten about it – and prescribed steroid medication.  The result was catastrophic.  Why would my closing argument tell the story about Don and his wife dancing?

As a result of being given the steroids, Don sustained over a dozen fractures including several to his vertebrae.  The compressed vertebrae caused him to lose over 5 inches in height.  Don, who had been 6’1” was now 5’8”.  What better way to show a jury the affect this injury had on Don’s life than to paint a picture of he and his wife on the dance floor. Before the injury, her arm rested on his shoulder – now it was placed on the top of his head.            Stephen M. Karp, Esquire

Business Income Loss

I represented a gentlemen who, as a result of a rear-end automobile accident, spent over two months in intensive care and a year and a half in therapy.  Three years before the accident, he had retired from his old job and started his own business as an accountant.  Due to the accident, he had clearly been unable to work for over two years.  When we asked the insurance company to pay him his wage loss for those two years, they said no, since he had not drawn any salary from his new business for that period.  You see, in the first three years of his new business, he had ploughed all his earnings back into the business to make it grow.  As a result, he took no income for himself – he lived off of savings.  We argued fruitlessly that his newly created accounting business, which had been continuously expanding up until the time of the accident, was basically bankrupted as a result of the accident and that he did lose sales, future profits and lost the ability to expand his business.

After an expensive fight involving battling accounting experts, we were able to prove that our client clearly lost growth and income for his business for at least two years.  We showed that other similar accounting practices in the region made substantial profits after initial start up losses and that before the accident, he had been on target to accomplish these same financial results.  The insurance company finally paid him for all his business losses.  Unfortunately, It took a court fight to do it.                       Peter J. Hart, Esquire

Friends Don’t Throw Other Friends Out Of A Moving Vehicle

Sometimes, trying a case before a judge and a jury can be boring.  Other times, there are twists and turns which make it real interesting.  Let me tell you about one such case I tried in Delaware County several years ago.

Sam’s friend had just gotten his driver’s license and surprised Sam by picking him after work.  That was just the beginning of the surprises for Sam that evening.  Sam’s friend then picked up two other boys and the four began to cruise around for a couple of hours in the van.  They didn’t hit it off real well and there was a lot of taunting, cursing and shoving going on in the van for most of the night.  Finally, Sam got in a fistfight with one of the other kids.  After winning the fight, Sam then fell asleep.  The next thing he knew, he felt the rush of wind on his face.  This was just before he was thrown out of the van.  He landed on the street and suffered a serious head injury which required several operations.  The other boys told the police that Sam fell out of the van during the fight.  I sued the boy who had been in the fight with Sam.  Insurance coverage was sought from his parent’s homeowner’s policy.  Coverage, however, would only apply if there was negligence.  I, therefore, had to prove that Sam was negligently thrown from the van – not intentionally.  What happened and why was the trial exciting?

After everyone had testified, the judge decided to allow the jury to actually see the van.  We all went outside and the van was driven right to the front of the courthouse.  The judge then placed all of the boys in the van and let the jury move them about to see how the fight took place.

The jury deliberated the case for ten minutes and found in our favor.  I wish that all judges were as open minded in allowing jurors to get a hands-on experience of the facts of a case.            Stephen Karp, Esquire