CHULA VISTA MAN WORKING AT A GROCERY STORE GETS HIT BY A CAR WITH NO WITNESSES
Man working as a cart pusher for a grocery store finally gets justice after he is hit by a customer's car but there were no witnesses…
San Diego Personal Injury Lawyer Mark C. Blane represented an injured Chula Vista man who was pushing carts as part of his job duties at a well known grocery store. Unfortunately, he was hit by an elderly woman while she was backing up her vehicle. The women never admitted she hit the injured worker and there were no witnesses to the accident. Eventually the injured man filed for workers' compensation benefit and had minor right knee surgery to fix his injuries from this accident. He was formerly represented by two other San Diego law firms who could not get the lady's insurance to accept liability due to "lack of witnesses."
Mr. Blane took the case to fight for the injured man because no other law firm would do it; a law suit was filed in Chula Vista Superior Court and during discovery, the manager of the grocery store was deposed and it was found out that that he had viewed video tape of the accident occurring but the video tape no longer existed. Mr. Blane used this deposition testimony in a mediation to successfully settle the case for $40,000.00, and reducing the workers' compensation lien down to $8,000.00 from $46,000.00 (a $38,000.00 benefit). Thus, this resulted in a global settlement of $78,000.00. This occurred within two months of the trial date.
FINAL NOTE: This case is a another good example of having a third party liability AFTER the work comp portion was closed out. Normally, if you are injured at work but your injury was caused by someone not connected with your employer, a third party, then you can have the legal right to have both claims at the same time. Here, the prior attorneys who could not get third party liability due to lack of witnesses, were only successful in securing a work comp settlement. Mr. Blane had to prove the third party case knowing the work comp had already settled; when he finally achieved a settlement offer he still had to negotiate down the work comp lien interest under teh California Labor Code. He did this by reducing the lien of $46,000.00 down to $8,000.00 (see above).
