Okay let me tell you a story of the three most either heroic, sympathetic cases I have ever handled…

(1) I would like to tell you about a case I handled in the past to show you to what extent the insurance companies will go to cut people off and deprive them of their rights. TW_ was an automotive worker at the Bud Company in Philadelphia which has since closed down but he had a severe injury to his hand. He had his thumb and three fingers severed. In order to save money on the case the insurance company or the Bud Co. did an outlandish procedure where they severed his toe. They took his toe off and reattached it to where his thumb was.

TW_ walked around with a big toe attached to where his thumb was and an insurance company doctor said you are all better. You got your strength. You are good to go. T_ came to us and we saw the job that the doctors had done for the Bud Company and we were appalled. We didn’t stand for it. We went to court and we were able to obtain a very large settlement for him for a total loss and use of his hand. All the while claiming that his hand was normal with a big toe where his thumb was.

(2) Okay… you want another one? When I talk about the settlement I think that a lot of people would appreciate understanding what large settlement means. Her is what it means to get that settlement.

Most of the injury cases that we handle are orthopaedic in nature meaning knee, shoulder, back or neck. There are many injuries though that aren’t as obvious. We do have clients that unfortunately suffer heart attacks on the job. We had one such case that I personally prosecuted and the offer before the case started was $5,000. We were able to get the right expert on the case to show that that heart attack was caused by repetitive stress at work. When the case was finally decided and settled after we won the case the case was settled for $150,000. That’s $145,000 difference between what the insurance company was willing to way and what they paid with competent representation. Good lawyers do make a difference.

(3) Looking back on my 20 years of representing injured workers one case certainly comes to mind. I had a client who was a contractor and he was driving a nail into some brick and a sliver from a nail lodged in his eye. He didn’t know how seriously injured he was because all he felt was a foreign substance in his eye. Eventually the eye became infected.

The lens became infected and the eye was enucleated. In other words he lost his eye. When he came to me it was late. We needed to repiece together exactly what happened to him. We were able to obtain the expert. We were able to obtain the actual forensic studies on his eye that was taken out and as gruesome as it may sound we were able to prove with proper testimony that that eye was lost as a result of the injury that took place three years prior.

It was a case the insurance company denied throughout the litigation. It wasn’t until we got the decision from the judge and testimony from the client as well as the experts that we retained that we were able to prove the case. And there is a case that justice was done but certainly without proper representation there would be no case.