The Lowcountry Law Offices of Daniel R. Denton, an accident and injury law firm in Beaufort, South Carolina, announced today its most recent personal injury settlement in a case involving injuries to a 57 year-old-man who fell approximately fifteen feet to a concrete floor.
Mr. Denton’s client was a sub-contractor hired by a company to run computer cable along its warehouse ceiling. The company provided a forklift and operator that lifted the client to the ceiling while he was standing inside a wooden crate sitting unattached on the forklift. When raised about 15 feet high, the forklift “lurched” causing the crate and client to fall to the concrete floor, resulting in complicated fractures to his right elbow and left wrist.
The company’s forklift operator was not trained and certified as required by company policies and OSHA regulations.
The client sought Workers’ Compensation benefits from the company as a “statutory employee” but his claim was denied. He then retained Mr. Denton who sued the company for negligent entrustment and premises liability. “If the company’s insurance carrier had agreed to accept the case as a workers’ comp claim in the first place, my client would never had sued the company, and it would have saved a lot of money,” said Mr. Denton.
The client had two surgeries to his wrist and multiple surgeries to his elbow, some of which related to treatment of a MRSA infection acquired in the initial surgeries. Two treating surgeons assigned permanent impairment ratings ranging 13-22% to the left arm and 2-9 % to the right arm, and both doctors stated that the client had post-traumatic arthritis which was most likely to get worse. The client had about $24,000.00 in lost wages, but was able to return to his usual occupation with no loss of future income anticipated.
After the defendant company refused to discuss any personal injury settlement for over 2 years, just days away before the scheduled jury trial when it became clear that Mr. Denton was not backing down from his substantial settlement demand made earlier in the case and was preparing for trial, defense counsel finally initiated meaningful settlement negotiations and the case settled for $775,000.00. Mr. Denton said that, “as in most
premises liability cases, assumption of the risk and comparative negligence were serious concerns in this case and we felt that getting a little over three-fourths of the policy limits of $1 million was much better than risking it all in front of twelve strangers.”
For more information on the Lowcountry Law Offices of Daniel R. Denton, please visit www.LowcountryLaw.com.
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