Automated Baking Machine Crushes Worker's Arm Netting Him Millions
Jan 08, 2024
OUTCOME: Multimillion dollar settlement (amount subject to confidentiality)
Our client was a machine attendant in an automated baking production line station with a cover which had no automatic disconnect when its guards were removed, even though the manufacturer's patent for ...the station called for such an "interlock" and prior and subsequent designs of the machine called for one. Our firm, working with expert witnesses, proved that the machine's patented design for freeing baked product defect actually encouraged jamming and required operators to work without the cover in place. We also disproved the client's employer's version of the accident which claimed that the client had actually removed the cover himself and showed that the employer had submitted a witness statement that the witness denied in testimony.
Medical malpractice
$1 million settlement for medical malpractice -- failure to provide follow up diagnostic treatment
Aug 16, 2021
OUTCOME: Settled with no liens for $ 1 million.
Client, a 69 year old former smoker, underwent a benign CT scan in 2019 as part of a basic physical. The radiologist recommended a follow up CT scan in six months. However, the recommendation was not... implemented by the hospital or treating primary care physician. He returned to the hospital for another routine physical in 2021 with the same physician who again recommended a CT scan which disclosed Stage IV lung cancer. The hospital provided notice to the client of a likely medical error and Attorney John Strazzulla referred the client to me to negotiate a prompt settlement, which was reached with cooperation from hospital risk management. As part of the settlement process we persuaded potential lienholders that the medical care received for the client's cancer would have been required regardless, resulting in waiver of $200,000 in potential liens. We also assisted the client in managing elder planning to preserve the settlement from future liens.
Defective and dangerous products
Solvent Manufacturer's Defense Goes Up In Smoke After a 12 Year Old Child is Badly Burned
May 08, 2018
OUTCOME: Multimillion dollar settlement (amount withheld by confidentiality agreement)
Our client, a 12 year old boy, was burned over 60% of his body while helping his Dad assist a neighbor in re-doing an apartment. While working with a furnace in the next room a commonly sold househol...d stripper and cleaner caught fire as they spread it. The manufacturer had been sued and had obtain legal judgments on cases filed against it in multiple states based on Federal law which immunized them from suit even though the company knew that the product was extremely flammable. We found a way around this legal defense, caught the manufacturer in a lie about their product warnings, and successfully our client's case, making this teenager a multimillionaire.
Personal injury
$650,000 Settlement Against Private Home Nursing Agency
Jan 01, 2018
OUTCOME: Settlement
Nursing home agency failed to provide thyroid medication to a patient, leading to her death. The plaintiff suffered from severe medical complications in addition to her thyroid condition. The nurse mai...ntained she could keep track of medications by visual identification, but she could not identify the medication in question. The case settled after one defendant deposition.
Personal injury
$1.7 Million for Worker's Loss of Arm in Industrial Shredder
Aug 07, 2011
OUTCOME: Settled
An employee working as a materials handler at a box-making factory attempted to unjam an industrial shredder which was part of the plant's recycling system, although he had not been trained or authoriz...ed to do so. He erroneously attempted to re-install the access door plate of the shredder while the shredder's blades were still turning. While he was doing so, the plate slipped; his arm was caught in the shredder and was flayed by the turning blades.
Working with two local attorneys and multiple experts, MALIS|LAW was able to use Massachusetts product liability law to demonstrate that the worker's injury was something that a reasonable product manufacturer and seller of the industrial recycling equipment could expect in an industrial environment, and that their failure to incorporate a safer door design and safety interlocks which would not allow the shredder to be operated while guards were displaced was unreasonable.
The case was the first major significant settlement result against the manufacturer, who had successfully avoided significant payouts in 5 prior claims based on the same theory of liability. It also represents the largest payout for a similar loss of body part in the region.
Slip and fall accident
$4.1 Million for Spinal Injury of Construction Worker
Jan 08, 2010
OUTCOME: $4.1 million settlement from stair collapse
Through aggressive investigation and discovery, we obtained $4.1 million for a construction worker with a burst fracture of his vertebrae caused when a staircase he was walking on at a construction sit...e collapsed. We proved to the general contractor, carpentry subcontractors, and architect and design engineer that the staircase had inadequate specifications, improper construction, was improperly destabilized during the construction process, and was inadquately monitored.
Through medical and vocational experts, we were able to demonstrate $2 million in present value damages for medical expenses and lost earnings, and, despite the fact that the Plaintiff could walk, drive, carry out family tasks, and was, except for his pain complex, in good health, that he was permanently totally disabled at age 36.
An essential step of obtaining such a settlement was litigating and preserving jurisdiction in Massachusetts in Federal court, as opposed to litigating in New Hampshire, where settlements and trial values are historically significantly lower.
Personal injury
$1.025 Million Judgment Against Construction General Contractor
Jan 03, 1994
OUTCOME: Judgment
Client was regularly treating for back problems before the accident.
Slip and fall accident
$1.1 million verdict for construction site injury
N/A
OUTCOME: $1.1 million verdict for contractor negligence
After a jury trial, I obtained a verdict of $1.1 million when a construction worker, already suffering from degenerative disk disease, injured his back, totally disabling him.
The worker was injured... when he stepped on a plank on a construction site that was serving as an improvised cover for an excavated hole in the worksite floor. The planked skidded forward and the employee fell into the hole, herniating a disk and causing a significant worsening of his already problematic back.
I was able to demonstrate that the general contractor was aware that the hole was created, and the contractor's principal supervisor argued that the hole had been secured and covered months before. This was proven false. Through a review of the project architect's files (which no other party bothered to examine), I located a change order requesting repair of the hole -- filed the day after the worker's injury.
Through use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging and the treating orthopedic surgeon's testimony, I was able to show a dramatic accellerating of the deterioration of the worker's back following the accident, proving graphically the accident's signficant contributing cause of the worker's disability.
Slip and fall accident
$900,000+ in benefits for shoulder and back injury at construction site
N/A
OUTCOME: Obtained $650,000 for injured construction worker
A female electrical worker tripped over bolts protruding through the floor of a construction site in a poorly lit area, tearing her rotator cuff and herniating a disk her neck. We filed suit against t...he general contractor and lighting contractor. Although the contractors attempted to withhold or deflect investigation, forceful discovery efforts disclosed poor general site safety; memoranda from inspectors critiquing poor lighting on the job; and an attempt to cover up the accident after its occurrence. The project's safety director, new to the job, was demonstrated to be incompetent and complicit in the cover up. The case settled for an excellent results four weeks prior to trial for $650,000, including a significant reduction in the workers' compensation lien.
Personal injury
$285,000 For Client Attacked by Unsupervised Patient at Psychiatric Hospital
N/A
OUTCOME: Hospital pays for injury to cleaning worker
THE SETTLEMENT: MALIS|LAW, hired as trial approached, working with Attorney Dean Brunel, obtained a $285,000 settlement from a mental hospital on behalf of a cleaning contractor with a significant kne...e injury. The cleaning contractor’s knee was significantly injured when he was assaulted by a psychotic patient who was allowed to walk freely in the corridors of a mental hospital while being admitted.
THE HOSPITAL’S NEGLIGENCE: The patient was being transferred from the open unit of the institution to the ‘closed’ unit on an involuntary admission, with a known history of violence, especially towards people of color. The institution had few formalized guidelines for such transfers, developing them after the patient attempted to strangle my client as he cleaned the hallway. As a result of the assault, my client suffered a stretched and torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) of his left knee, which an orthopedic surgeon addressed by reattaching and treating the fibers with heat.
CREATING A WINNER: Attorney Brunel approached us to try the case about one month before trial. The client had not treated with a physician for several years, although he had complaints of knee pain. Given the imminent trial, we mounted a ‘full court press’ to make the case trial ready. We approached his original surgeon, who ordered a new MRI of his knee and found that the surgical repair, which had been performed with an experimental technique that has since been abandoned, had again failed, requiring additional procedures. Within that month, we also developed expert psychiatric testimony of the hospital’s failure to follow proper procedures for communication of information about a committed patient between outpatient and inpatient wings of the hospital, which accounted for the lack of proper security and the patient’s being allowed in the vicinity of other persons at the hospital. Literally on the eve of trial, we were contacted by the institution’s insurer, which agreed to settle. The settlement was paid by the insurers for the institution; the admitting psychiatrist, who was sued for negligence; and the facility’s security company for negligent security.
