Donald Solomon Nathan's Legal Cases (3)

Slip and fall accident

Murray v. Lincolnshire Group

N/A

OUTCOME: $2,175,000.00

Murray was working at a construction site for townhouse condos as a concrete laborer standing on forms for a wall being poured during the beginning of a snowstorm. As he was guiding the chute of the mi ... xer truck, the driver of the truck let out his clutch unexpectedly causing the chute to pop up. A chain attached to the end of the chute used to guide it had a hook at the end of it. The chain also popped up, and the hook caught Murray's fisherman's knit sweater pulling him off balance and causing him to fall seven feet to the pit below. In so doing, Murray severed his spinal cord at C7 causing total paralysis below the nipple line and partial loss of the use of his hands. The case was litigated both under the Illinois Structural Work Act as to the general contractor and as a general construction accident against the landowner and cement truck company and its driver. The total of all insurance policies available was $2,000,000 which was tendered after most of the parties had been deposed. In addition, the site developer added $25,000 from his personal funds. An additional $150,000 was set aside into an annuity to cover all medical needs for the rest of Murray's life at 18% interest, then the going rate. The workers compensation carrier then claimed a right to $352,000 under its subrogation lien and denied that it had any obligation to pay our firm fees. I sued for the fees and won over $88,000 together with an award for Murray of a proportionate share of the costs of the litigation I had prosecuted on his behalf. The insurance carrier, Travelers, took an appeal from that judgment and lost. As a result, Illinois attorneys have a right to a fee from subrogation actions as a matter of law, and their clients are assured a proportionate share of the cost of litigation undertaken on behalf of those carriers. Murray, who now lives in Bellwood, Illinois, still sends me a Christmas card every year. In spite of his catastrophic injuries and the suffering he has endured over the years, he never stops smiling. At his deposition, he testified that his only goal was to walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding. And he did - with crutches and braces.

Wrongful death

Estate of Hubbard v. Art's Transportation

N/A

OUTCOME: $1,300,000.00

The decedent was a 40 year old licensed practical nurse (African-American Female) with two adult children from her marriage and an eight year old son from a relationship. The year before her death, she ... earned $14,500.00 and had gone to a part-time position so as to be able to return to nursing school on a full-time basis. While driving home from work, she exited the Dan Ryan Expressway at 47th Street southbound onto Wentworth and was proceeding past 47th when an Art's Transportation van went through the red light and struck her van on the driver's door. Witnesses after the fact testified that she moaned in pain for about 20 minutes before dying and before any ambulance had come to the scene. A CTA bus driver on the 47th Street line had been seen pulling away from the scene just after the crash. I sent a subpoena to the CTA and obtained the names and addresses of every driver on the 47th Street line for the date of the crash. With a court reporter, I went to 25 of the 26 houses until I found the driver who had seen the crash and the Art's driver go through the red light. Once his statement was taken, the only question was one of damages. Two of the three children took a share in a lump sum. The eight year old son had a structured settlement arranged with $50,000 per year being paid from age 18 to 21 on each of the four birthdays, $100,000 at age 25, $200,000 at age 30 and $300,000 at age 35 with a trust fund set up for emergency needs right away of about $20,000 in addition.

Personal injury

Peterson v. Modern Metal Products

N/A

OUTCOME: Structured Settlement of $1,020,000 + W/C waiver

The Plaintiff was a quality control inspector for a Wisconsin plastics fabricator who had come to the defendant factory in Loves Park, Illinois to inspect rejected product. As she was walking down an a ... isle in the facory, a woman operating a forklift truck accidently pushed over two boxes of product that had been stacked four high. Each box had about 800 pounds of product in it. All of it fell onto she and pinned her to the floor of the factory causing her to suffer a Lis Franc fracture of the left foot and ankle (all metatarsals were broken) and a dislocation of her right shoulder. Her surgeon had to reduce the foot fractures with multiple pins, some of which came out in a second separate surgery. Several more pins are anticipated to have to be removed in the future. In connection with the Workers Compensation aspect of the settlment achieved through mediation, a second treating orthopedist opined that surgery would be needed sooner or later on the affected shoulder. The plaintiff, who was 31 at the time of her injury with a husband and three children, received $80,000 plus attorney fees paid in full at the time of settlment. She will received guaranteed payments for the next 30 years that ultimately will have paid her or her estate an additional $600,000. She is no longer able to do her job but has remained an employee of the same company.

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