Case Successes

Car accidents

Lawyers at Adelman Hirsch & Newman represented the estate of an elderly gentleman who was killed (and his widow, who was seriously injured) in a four-car collision.

The car in front of our client's car, traveling in the same lane, collided with the first of two vehicles racing towards our client's car. As a result of that first collision, the oncoming car skidded along the road and crashed head-on into our client's car.

The issue in the case was which of the two cars that collided in front of our client's car was slightly over the centerline of the road. Because each of the parties had a different claim as to how the collision occurred, each presented testimony from accident reconstruction experts who, based on the physical evidence, offered their opinions as to how the collision occurred.

The jury returned a verdict in favor of our client totaling $1.16 million.

Trucking accidents

In a case we tried in federal court, the defendant truck driver, operating a tractor-trailer, started to notice brake problems, but decided to continue to drive for over a mile, with his brakes smoking, until he finally brought his truck to a stop near the top of a hill, blocking part of the right lane. During this time, he passed several places where he could have pulled entirely off the road.

Making matters worse, after he stopped, he failed to put out his reflective safety triangles, as required by law. Rather than dragging his rig off the roadway and ruining his tires, he decided to leave his truck where it was. About 30 minutes later, our client's husband, driving a flower van, crashed into the rear of the truck and was killed.

An expert human factors engineer we hired testified about studies showing that, without reflective safety triangles, drivers have trouble perceiving that a tractor-trailer in front of them is actually stopped until it's too late. While many people can perceive that a vehicle is stopped from 400 feet away, this visual cue is not reliable for all drivers until they are 200 feet away. At highway speeds, this doesn't leave enough room to avoid a collision.

We obtained a judgment of almost $1.8 million for the van driver's estate and widow.

Motorcycle vs. motor vehicle

One of our recent cases involved a motorcycle struck by a turning car on the Post Road (Route 1) in Westport. The car driver testified that she did not see the large orange motorcycle, equipped with an automatic headlight. We brought suit on behalf of the motorcycle driver and his wife, who was his passenger. The husband suffered horrific fractures to his leg, which could only be pieced together surgically with a custom internal fixator. His wife also suffered very serious leg fractures that required surgery, as well as a fractured jaw and teeth, and was left with a torn knee ligament. Both of them were suffered through a long, painful recovery and rehabilitation.

We were able to obtain seven-figure settlements for each of them.

Pedestrian accidents

Our lawyers handled a case that looked at first like it was caused by a negligent driver, but turned out to have been the fault of a negligent pharmacist.

Our client was a retired bank employee sitting on the steps of a St. Augustine Cathedral, waiting to attend 12:10 Mass. Suddenly, a car on Washington Avenue in front of the church started weaving from side to side, crossed the center lines, then jumped onto the curb, over the sidewalk, through the hedge row and onto the cathedral steps, crushing the man's foot, one-third of which had to be amputated.

While losing control of the wheel is usually caused by driver negligence, this time it was not. The driver suffered from epilepsy. When he went to Walgreen's, his usual drugstore, his prescription for Dilantin (used to control his seizures) was mistakenly filled with Diazide (used to treat high blood pressure and swelling due to excess body water).

As a result of being without his medication, the driver had a seizure behind the wheel and lost control. We were able to obtain a six-figure settlement from Walgreen's.

Fall downs

After using the self-serve gas pump at the Shell Food Mart in Orange, and going inside to pay, our client was walking back to her car when she tripped on the edge of the cement pad that surrounded the gas island. The section of the pavement was 11/16 of an inch higher than the asphalt section surrounding it.

Our client fell face first onto the raised step of the gasoline pumps. She suffered serious injuries, including an injury to her neck that required disc excision surgery.

We brought suit against Lampost Convenience, Inc. (the company that operated the gas station) and Motiva Enterprises LLC (the gas company that owned the property). In this difficult case, we used two experts, an engineer and a human factors expert, who testified that the cement pad was both high enough (compared to the surrounding asphalt) to be a trip hazard, and not so high that it would be obvious to someone walking in the area that they had to step up.

We mediated the case and obtained a significant six-figure settlement.

Medical malpractice

We represented the estate and widow of a 64-year-old artist who died following gallbladder surgery.

At around 3:30 a.m., our client went to the Emergency Department of St. Mary's Hospital in Waterbury with severe abdominal pain and was diagnosed with gallstone pancreatitis. Three days later, he underwent a laparoscopic cholecystectomy to remove his gallbladder. As part of the surgery, the cystic duct, which connects the gallbladder to the common bile duct, had to be cut and clipped to prevent bile from leaking into his abdomen.

Our client was discharged from the hospital the day after surgery. A week later, he went to the office of Dr. Abdulmasih Zarif, who had performed the surgery. Although his blood tests showed his liver function tests were above normal limits, Zarif instructed him to return to the office the following week.

When our client returned the following week, his liver function tests were still abnormal, and he was admitted to the hospital. A CT scan done in the hospital showed that a large collection of bile had leaked into his abdomen through the cystic duct. Despite the presence of fever, Zarif did not drain the bile collection until five days after admission. By that time, it was too late: our client died from the infection that had grown in the bile.

Adelman Hirsch & Newman presented expert testimony that Zarif, the treating surgeon, was negligent in four ways: 1) failing to properly clip the cystic duct during the surgery; 2) discharging our client from the hospital the day after surgery; 3) failing to start a workup on the cause of the abnormal liver function tests the week after the surgery; and 4) failing to drain the bile collection and commence appropriate antibiotics sooner.

The jury returned a plaintiffs' verdict in the amount of $2.2 million to compensate for the wrongful death of our client and his widow's loss of consortium.

Legal malpractice

After our client was wrongfully fired from his job at Moore Tool Company in Bridgeport, he hired a lawyer to file a federal lawsuit against Moore Tool. After years of litigation, legal fees and expenses, the lawsuit was thrown out of court when the lawyer our client hired failed to respond to a motion filed by Moore Tool's attorneys.

Instead of admitting his negligence, the lawyer tried to cover up the fact that the case had been thrown out by falsifying documents and lying to our client.

When we took on the case, we had to prove two things: first, that the original lawsuit was a good case with a substantial value; and second, that the lawyer was negligent in allowing that case to be thrown out.

We obtained a seven-figure settlement for our client.

Nursing home malpractice

Our client, an 81-year-old woman was admitted to Carolton Chronic and Convalescent Hospital in Fairfield to recuperate following surgery. When she was admitted, she was disoriented, and hallucinating about ice skaters outside the facility's window.

Over the hours that followed, she told the nursing staff that she saw smoke, cats, and "bad men" in her room. Despite these hallucinations, they left her alone and unsupervised in her bed. In the early morning the day after her arrival, the staff found her on the floor of her room, with a severe fracture of her hip.

We investigated the case, filed a lawsuit, and obtained a substantial six-figure settlement.

Unsafe products

Our client's work involved operating an injection-molding machine that produced rubber fasteners. No one told him that the machine had been modified by the manufacturer years earlier to add an automatic unloading device that pushed out the rubber fasteners being molded.

When the manufacturer added the unloading device, it removed an interlocked safety gate.

One morning, the unloading device became jammed in the middle of a cycle. Trying to clear the machine, our client switched it into manual mode. He thought that as long as the machine was on manual, it would not move unless he pushed another button.

As he cleared the jam, the unloading device activated, and pulled his master hand into the machine, crushing and subjecting it to heat so long it was literally baked and had to be amputated at the wrist.

Adelman Hirsch & Newman sued the German manufacturer of the injection-molding machine. Working with experts in product engineering and with working experience in injection molding, we established that the machine was defective because of the modification. If it had been properly guarded with an interlocked safety gate as originally intended, this tragedy would not have occurred.

We obtained a seven-figure settlement.

Wrongful death

Our client was a young working mother who developed thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, a rare blood disease. Although the disease was easily curable with a treatment called plasmapheresis, her treating physician didn't keep up-to-date with treatment methods.

Instead, he used a steroid treatment that had been abandoned by the medical community years before - because it did not work.

Deprived of the proper medical treatment, our client died while asking to be allowed to leave the hospital to go home to her 10-year-old son.

Although nothing could offset the tragedy of her horrible death at a young age, we were able to assure that her son will be taken care of, thanks to the substantial financial settlement we obtained.

Motorcycle vs. motor vehicle

Our client was driving his motorcycle on Route 12 in Thompson, when the defendant backed his van onto the road, causing a crash.

Our client slid along the pavement and suffered an avulsion fracture of his right heel bone and a tearing away of his right heel pad. The paramedics on the scene found no pulse in his right leg and were concerned that his foot might have to be amputated.

Our client underwent a long course of physical therapy to learn to use his right foot again. He was left with a significant wound where his heel pad was torn from his foot. He went through six months of wound dressing changes and enzyme treatment to clean away the dead the tissue.

As a result, our client had a chronically painful right foot and limited ability to use it. There was a large scar and swelling. Our client was in the floor cleaning business. He was advised that he should find a new way to make a living.

We arbitrated the case and received a substantial six-figure award.

Motor vehicle

Our client was seriously injured when her vehicle was struck head-on on a two-lane rural road.

In this difficult liability case, the issue was whether our client crossed into the lane of the oncoming vehicle while making a left hand turn.

The investigating police officer found a gouge mark in the lane of the oncoming vehicle, a fact which is typically used to prove that the collision happened in that lane.

Our firm conducted an extensive investigation and hired an accident reconstructionist. This expert was able to show that our client's vehicle was not moving at the time and that she was not in the process of turning her vehicle. Furthermore, the expert determined that the defendant was traveling approximately 25 mph over the speed limit.

If the defendant had been traveling at a reasonable speed, he would have had ample opportunity to pass our client's vehicle without collision, even if her vehicle was several feet over the center of the road.

Our client's right knee struck the dashboard, pushing her femur (though bone) through the wall of the acetabulum of her right hip. She eventually required a total hip replacement for the development of avascular necrosis (tissue death caused by lack of blood supply) of the femoral head. She also developed a nerve injury in her right leg, causing a foot drop, for which she wears an ankle-foot orthotic.

The collision made a significant impact on her life. We were able to obtain a significant six-figure settlement of her case.

Construction accident/Wrongful death

We represented the estate and widow of a mechanical plumber who was working in a steep, narrow trench, replacing a water line running from a large commercial office building to the main at the street.

The plumber had hired excavators to dig the trench, and both he and the excavators were aware of the OSHA regulations, which required the use of a heavy steel or aluminum box or sleeve to protect people working in the trench.

The property management company in charge of the building, which hired the plumber, was also aware that the trench was so steep and narrow that it required special precautions, but failed to require that a trench box or sleeve be put in place.

On night two weeks before Christmas, while the plumber was working on the water line replacement, the trench caved and buried him alive. He survived an agonizing 20 minutes of being crushed and asphyxiated. He left behind a widow and their three children.

We prosecuted a case against the property management company based on a rarely-used principle of law requiring someone who employs a contractor to take reasonable steps to make sure that special precautions are in place where there is a peculiar unreasonable risk of physical harm. At trial, we established claims on behalf of both the plumber's estate and his widow. The jury returned a verdict of $15.8 million. The case was later resolved.

Medical malpractice

Our client was a young man with a sore back. He went to a doctor, and was told that he needed major back surgery, involving removal of two of the disks in his spine, and the use of bone grafts and pedicle screws to fuse a portion of his spine. Because he trusted his doctor's specific knowledge, our client underwent the operation.

The operation failed. Our client was left almost totally disabled, in great pain, and unable to work.

Making matters worse, a review of the original x-rays showed that the doctor had been wrong: our client had never needed the operation. Rest and physical therapy would have healed his sore back. Instead, because of the doctor's errors he had undergone unnecessary surgery, which had left him crippled.

We sued the doctor, and settled the case after trial for a substantial figure, which has permitted our client to rebuild his life.

Premises liability

One day, while shopping at a major department store, our client, a retired teacher, tripped and fell over a bolt of cloth which had been left, hidden, under a rack of clothes. She fell and broke her shoulder.

Her shoulder was so badly broken that she needed surgery for a partial shoulder replacement. This led to a long period of physical therapy and rehabilitation. Despite her best efforts, our client was left with some permanent disability to her shoulder.

We sued the department store in Federal Court. During trial, the lawyer for the store finally admitted that the bolt of cloth should never have been left where it was.

We recovered a significant jury verdict for our client.