White Plains truck accident lawyer Michael Joseph won a major jury verdict in the Westchester Supreme Court. The case involved a truck accident where a City of White Plains garbage truck rear ended a pick up truck which was stopped at a red light. Originally, the defendant driver and the City of White Plains attempted to claim that they were not liable because the brakes unexpectedly failed and there was no negligence on the part of the driver. To combat these bogus arguments, our White Plains truck accident attorneys consulted with highly qualified diesel mechanics and retained consulting experts who assisted us in highly technical depositions. Through deposing most of the diesel mechanics in the City of White Plains garage, our New York truck accident attorneys proved that the City of White Plains claims were mechanical impossibility. Every mechanic testified in their depositions that the air brakes were in perfect working order and that if there was a brake failure, the fail safe mechanism would automatically stop the truck.
Then to add insult to injury, the defendants argued that our client’s injuries were all pre-existing. They claimed the mere existence of dessication meant that our client’s herniated discs were pre-existing. Through expert testimony from our client’s treating doctors, our White Plains personal injury lawyers were able to prove that while our client had dessication, the herniated discs and nerve injuries were caused by the accident. While dessication may make a disc weaker and more likely to be injured in a trauma, it did not in and of itself cause an injury. Our experts also testified that there was MRI and CT evidence that the trauma was so forceful that the disc ripped a piece of bone from its fibrous insertion into the vertebra. Also our neurologist expert testified that the E.M.G showed that the injuries were acute and subacute and therefore, could not be longstanding.
The jury agreed and rendered an award of approximately $750,000, which will amount to more than $800,000 after interest and costs. The irony is that the City of White Plains shunned our offer to settle for $600,000 before trial.
Our car accident attorneys and truck accident lawyers regularly handle cases in the Westchester Supreme Court, for accidents from White Plains, Yonkers, Rye, Greenburgh, Elmsford, Ossining, Pelham, Port Chester, Mount Kisco, Mount Vernon, Valhalla, Mount Pleasant and New Rochelle.
