Million Dollar Settlement

$1,050,000 global settlement was achieved by Alex D. Abate for a man and the estate of his wife who were hit head on by a vehicle that crossed the center line.  The man suffered significant injuries and the wife died in the collision.  The Defendant driver who hit them only had a $25k/$50k insurance policy and had no significant assets so she was essentially judgment proof.  The injured clients only maintained an underinsured policy that was slightly higher.

Through investigation he determined that the Defendant Driver was traveling from her home on her way to work as an in-home care provider at the time of the accident.  He asserted that she was within the scope of her employment and acting as an agent at the time of the collision, so we filed suit against both the Defendant Driver and her employer.  The defendants asserted that the Defendant Driver was not on the clock at the time of the incident, she was not being paid for her travel, and that Federal Labor laws do not require payment for employees traveling from their homes to the first job of the day.  Despite this, he successfully argued that she was in fact a traveling employee within the scope of her employment, and at the direction of her employer.  The employer eventually tendered their full $1,000,000.00 insurance policy to settle the case.

Once the global settlement had been reached for the full settlement of the available insurance policies, he was then confronted with over $700,000.00 in liens for medical expenses, most of which were paid by health insurance agreements and policies created under Federal laws.  He was successfully able to petition some of the lienholders to extinguish their liens under equitable principles, and others were extinguished by enforcing the contractual langue in the insurance contracts themselves.  Additionally, he successfully petitioned the Court to apportion the global settlement funds into three separate settlements.  The liens were only able to attach to one of the three settlements and the other two settlements were able to be given to his clients without any liens.  Ultimately, he was able to allocate over 85% of the funds to claims free and clear of any liens and the aggregate liens were ultimately paid off at less than 10 cents on the dollar.

This was an extraordinary case where he was not only able to obtain a substantial recovery where is seemed like he was faced with only a minimal insurance policy but was able to utilize his expert knowledge of the lien laws and statutes to further maximize the amount of recovery that his clients received.