Articles Posted in Auto Accidents

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On Oct. 8, 2009, Kristin Gosell was driving northbound on the Willow Road exit ramp from Interstate 294 when the defendant, 42-year-old Hope Lerman, ran a red light on eastbound Willow Road and T-boned the driver’s side of Gosell’s car. Both cars were totaled in the high-speed crash. Gosell was trapped inside her car for 20 minutes until the Glenview Fire Department personnel could extract her from the vehicle.

She was taken by ambulance to Glenbrook Hospital where she was treated and released. However, Gosell, 39, sustained herniated discs at C3-4 and C5-6, soft tissue injuries to her neck, back and ribs and bruising to her chest and stomach. She underwent physical therapy, was treated by a pain specialist and first saw an orthopedist, Dr. Jay Levin, in October 2012. She had presented evidence of $34,851 for her medical expenses and also claimed lost time from her job as a teacher.

Dr. Levin testified that Gosell’s disc condition was permanent, but she was not a candidate for follow-up surgery.

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Brooke Melton, 29, died allegedly because of the General Motors’ ignition switch flaw. Her case had been pending for a period of time when it was settled by General Motors in October 2013. The settlement was reached before General Motors was found to have been downplaying and otherwise concealing the ignition switch problems from consumers and lawyers involved in these tragic cases.

Although the Melton case was settled, the Melton family lawyers want to reopen the case and show that General Motors was guilty of fraudulent concealment regarding the switch problem. If the Meltons are successful in reopening this case, other settled injury or death cases arising from the ignition switch defect may be reopened for further consideration.

Today the lawsuits or claims management of the many ignition switch injury cases are being handled by attorney Kenneth Feinberg, whose group has settled hundreds of the GM death and injury claims from crashes that were caused by the ignition switch defect.

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Mei Pang was a passenger in a car driven by Ingrid Chan in January 2002 when a crash occurred between Chan’s car and another vehicle driven by Donald McGinnis. Pang was injured severely. McGinnis’s insurer paid Pang $100,000 to settle her personal injury lawsuit and claim.

Chan was insured by Farmers Insurance Group. Chan and her husband had a special “umbrella policy.” The umbrella policy covered the named insureds (the Chans themselves), any relatives of the Chans by blood, marriage or adoption or any person under 21 in the care of the named insured.

On Jan. 7, 2010, Pang filed a complaint for underinsured motorist coverage seeking coverage both from Farmers under the Chan umbrella policy and also from Mid-Century Insurance Co., which issued the Chans their primary auto insurance policy.

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On June 4, 2008, 70-year-old Edward Wasik, a retired school teacher, was a customer at Ridgeway Chevrolet, an automobile dealer located in Lansing, Ill. Wasik was walking behind the service bays in the service department when he was struck by a car backing out of the service bay.

The car that hit Wasik was driven by the defendant, Barry Boer, a mechanic at the dealership. Boer was operating another customer’s car, but apparently was looking forward while moving in reverse. Boer struck Wasik with that customer’s car, injuring him.

Wasik sustained injuries to his lower back, ribs and left knee, which resulted in arthroscopic surgery, physical therapy and continuing injections to the left knee as well as physical therapy to his back.

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On Nov. 11, 2007, Daniel Heimbrodt was driving eastbound on Highway C in Burlington, Wis., when his car collided with the vehicle operated by Robert Jones, which was traveling northbound on Highway U. Jones had a stop sign at the intersection while Heimbrodt did not.

Jones erroneously believed that Heimbrodt had a stop sign. Heimbrodt, 20, was injured in the crash. He suffered a herniated disc at L4-5 with immediate pain and developing radiculopathy, which required physical therapy, pain injections and acupuncture as well as pain medication. Future surgery was recommended. Heimbrodt lost four months of work as a heavy equipment operator. His lost time from work totaled $41,088.

Heimbrodt did return to work full time after the four months off, but he has not missed any time since then; however, he claims he may need to change careers to a less physically demanding position.

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Deshaw Nelson fractured his right femur in a car crash in 2007. The defendant in the case, Donald Artley, was driving an Enterprise Rent-A-Car vehicle. In January 2010, Nelson filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County alleging his injuries were caused by the negligence of the defendant Artley. On May 4, 2010, after Artley defaulted, a default judgment was entered against him in the amount of $600,000. Nelson then initiated citation proceedings against Enterprise Rent-A-Car in June 2010.

A month later, Enterprise answered and asserted that it was only responsible for $100,000 per occurrence for the liability for its cars’ drivers under the rental agreement and the Illinois Vehicle Code. Enterprise had already paid $75,000 to two other people injured in the same car accident. Enterprise argued that it was only required to pay Nelson the remaining $25,000.

In September 2011, Nelson filed a petition with the court against Enterprise for turnover order for the entire $600,000, plus interest and costs. Nelson argued that when Enterprise applied for a certificate of self-insurance with the state, it said it retained a risk of loss for third-party liability up to $2 million per occurrence.

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On May 20, 2010, the plaintiff, Bernard Fay, 47, was stopped at a red light at an intersection in Skokie, Ill. Fay was waiting to make a right turn on red and pulled forward to see if traffic was clear before proceeding. However, the defendant, Elisa All, thought that Fay had turned and her car rear-ended his car.

Fay sustained a nondisplaced fracture of the coronoid process in his left jaw, which was not operated on, two fractured molars requiring a crown on one and a filling for the other, neck pain that required chiropractic care for one year and bulging discs at C5-C6 and C6-C7 with internal disc disruption requiring a future 2-level fusion. Fay lost time from his job as a stationary engineer.

The defendant, All, admitted liability but argued that Fay did not need the future neck surgery and that his disc pain was a diagnosis by exclusion based solely on subjective complaints. She also maintained that Fay told his chiropractor in June 2011 that he was 100% improved.

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On June 28, 2010, Dariusz Bosek was stopped at a red light in the northbound lane of Randall Road at Mill Street in Batavia, Ill. His vehicle was then rear-ended by a car driven by the defendant, Hildegard Maas. Bosek, 44, was injured in the crash; he sustained a left elbow injury, a painful tendon injury that required physical therapy, injections and eventually surgery in November 2011. Bosek made a full recovery after the surgery and has no permanent problems now. His medical bills totaled $38,620. He did not have any lost time from work as a delivery driver.

The 89-year-old defendant, Hildegard Maas, had been stopped behind Bosek but reported that she sneezed, which caused her foot to slip off the brake pedal. Maas was not present for the jury trial because she was in poor health and residing in a Colorado nursing home.

The defense admitted negligence at trial, but contested the extent of the plaintiff’s injury pointing to the minimal damage to the vehicles and a 7-month treatment gap from November 2010 to June 2011 in which Bosek was treated.

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On Oct. 29, 2008, Jonas Zigmantas was driving a flatbed truck for trucking company A.V., Inc. The truck was traveling northbound on Illinois Interstate 294 around 9:30 p.m. Zigmantas stopped his truck because he was involved in a minor property damage crash with a Honda Accord, which was driven by Michael Hawkins, near mile marker 2.

The Accord had sideswiped Zigmantas’s truck. Instead of pulling the flatbed semi-trailer over to the shoulder of the four-lane highway, Zigmantas stopped in the third lane of traffic, got out of his cab to check damage to his truck, walked to the shoulder to see if Hawkins was injured and told him to call the police.

After some time out of the truck, Zigmantas got back in, but he did not move the truck to the side of the road or put out any reflective hazard warning triangles or flares behind his parked flatbed trailer.

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A Cook County jury entered a $4,268 jury verdict for Jonathan Mischo, who was riding his bicycle eastbound on Belle Plaine Avenue in Chicago when he was struck by the car driven by the defendant, Dawit Tekeste, who was driving a southbound taxi cab at the intersection of Belle Plaine and Clarendon.  Mischo suffered a sprained left wrist and aggravation of chronic headaches. Tekeste maintained that Mischo was traveling through a stop sign, didn’t stop and entered the intersection when the collision took place.

The attorney for Mischo, Bryan O’Connor Jr., asked the jury to return a verdict of $117,000.  The offer to settle the case before trial was $4,500.

The jury’s verdict of $8,535 was reduced by 50%, which the jury found was the contributory negligence of Mischo.  The total verdict of $4,268 was made up of the following damages:

  • $4,268 for medical expenses.

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