$400,000 Car Crash Verdict
Dec 20, 2018OUTCOME: After offering $1,000 pre-trial, State Farm paid nearly four times the applicable insurance of $100,000 post-trial.
In December 2018, Ostroff Injury Law Partner Richard A. Godshall obtained a $400,000 verdict in Lancaster County, PA on behalf of a woman re-injured in a 2015 car crash. Making the case more challengin ... g, there was virtually no damage to Godshall’s client’s car. Godshall alleged that this 2015 crash aggravated preexisting neck and back injuries that she sustained many years earlier in another accident. Godshall took the case to trial, because State Farm Insurance Company insured the defendant and offered Godshall’s client $1,000. State Farm argued that since there was virtually no damage to his client’s vehicle, she suffered very little or no injury in this crash. In a two-day trial, Godshall successfully proved to the jury that the crash was the cause of a serious re-aggravation of his client’s prior neck injury. After less than 45 minutes of jury deliberations, Godshall obtained a verdict of $400,000. State Farm paid the verdict without an appeal, despite the fact that the defendant carried only $100,000 of insurance coverage.
