Case Histories

STATE TO PAY $8.5 MILLION IN QUADRUPLE FATALITY

The State has been ordered to pay $8.5 million to the three surviving children of an Amherst couple killed with their two children in a crash on the Thruway in Lancaster. A New York State Supreme Court Judge found the New York State Thruway's failure to inspect and maintain a portion of the toll road near Lancaster to be 100% responsible for the crash. The judge ruled that the Thruway Authority failed to properly inspect and maintain that section of the road, and that the poor maintenance caused the victim/driver to lose control of his car.

FAMILIES OF VICTIMS IN CHASE GET $5.1 MILLION

Jurors awarded $5.1 million to the survivors of two people killed in an accident in Portville following a high-speed chase by state police.

The State Supreme Court jury deliberated for three hours before returning a wrongful death award of $4.7 million for the family of the driver of the car, a mother of three, killed in the accident, and $390,000 to the family of her male passenger.

The female victim was driving west on Route 417 when a pickup truck crashed head-on into her auto. The pickup truck, at the time of collision, was being pursued by the state police at a high rate of speed from Weston Mills until shortly before the crash. The driver and passenger of the auto were pronounced dead on arrival at Olean General Hospital.

CONSTRUCTION WORKER ACCEPTS $4.3 MILLION SETTLEMENT

An Allegany County construction worker left permanently disabled with a severe head injury.

When an overly fatigued truck drive rear-ended his vehicle at a Southern Tier Expressway bridge resurfacing site has accepted a $4.3 million insurance settlement.

The trucker, who had illegally been at the wheel of his westbound tractor-trailer for 21 hours, rear-ended the construction worker's pickup truck, ejecting the victim from his vehicle and causing him to be thrown 140 feet down an embankment and knocked unconscious. The victim remained in a coma for 3.5 weeks.

Letro said doctors have told the victim that he can never hold another job because of balance problems stemming from the head injury.

MOTORCYCLE/POLICE VEHICLE COLLISION-BUFFALO POLICE DEPARTMENT FOUND 100% NEGLIGENT – AWAITING TRIAL IN WRONGFUL DEATH DAMAGES FOR SURVIVING FAMILY

An off-duty Buffalo firefighter and his passenger were killed in a spectacular collision on Route 33/Kensington Expressway when an on-duty Buffalo police officer wrongfully pulled into the path of the victim's motorcycle. The jury found the Buffalo police department 100% negligent in the accident.

OLEAN WOMAN RECEIVES $3,000,000

An Olean woman who spent nearly a year in a Buffalo hospital following a two-vehicle accident that killed two other people in Great Valley received a settlement of nearly $3 million, her attorney confirmed.

The 44-year old woman was a passenger in one of the cars that collided at the intersection of Routes 219 and 98 in Cattaraugus County.

CRASH INJURIES LEAD TO $3.3 MILLION JURY AWARD

A Portville teen has been awarded $3.3 million for severe head injuries she suffered in a back road car crash.

The crash occurred on Cherry Hollow Road, jointly owned by the towns of Genesee and Portville. Francis M. Letro, the teen's attorney noted that the two towns had resurfaced the road three days before the crash and that signs were improperly posted warning of the oil and gravel-filled roadway. The driver lost control of the car on a curve and the car rolled, its roof slamming into a telephone pole after ejecting the teen, who landed 10 feet away. She was in a coma for four weeks in the Erie County Medical Center.

WIDOW SETTLES SUIT FOR $2.6 MILLION
OHIO MAN KILLED BY LUMBER FALLING FROM TRUCK

The widow of an Ohio man fatally injured when lumber fell from a truck and smashed into his car near Olean will receive $2.6 million, according to an out-of-court settlement.

Insurance carriers for Frontier Lumber Co.Inc. of Buffalo, Wood Treaters of Buffalo, Inc. and the driver and passenger of the truck, both of Little Valley, agreed to the cash deal after 11 weeks of an Olean jury trial in State Supreme Court.

The award goes to the widow, 51, of Solon, Ohio, whose husband died of multiple head injuries more than a year after the crash. That crash also killed the driver of another car.

According to attorney Francis M. Letro, the victim, 53, a schoolteacher, was driving home with his wife from a New England vacation trip and had stopped in Olean to eat. The crash occurred on Route 417, about five miles west of Olean, when an eastbound flatbed truck overturned. The driver had his truck driver's license for less than three months at the time of the accident and was driving down the side of a hill when his truck overturned at a curve in the road and his load of landscaping timbers fell off and hit the westbound victim's car.

"Doctors said every bone in the victim's skull was fractured" when the lumber crushed the driver's side of his vehicle. The victim died 14 months later in a nursing home after being a patient at three hospitals, Letro said.

INJURED WOMAN ACCEPTS $2.1 MILLION SETTLEMENT

A Franklinville woman, severely injured in a lunchtime traffic accident in Olean, has accepted a $2.1 million cash settlement.

The settlement by the Franklinville woman, 43, came during the second week of her negligence trial against Stroehman's Bakery of Olean and one of its drivers.

Letro said his client, an instructional aide at an Allegany rehabilitation center, was driving east on West State Street in Olean when a Stroehman bakery truck driver made an unsafe left turn into the path of her vehicle.

$800,000 SETTLEMENT OK'D IN CASE OF TEEN DWI

A 74-year-old Youngstown woman severely injured when a drunken underage driver drove head-on into her car, accepted a combined $800,000 settlement from insurance carriers for the girl and underaged boy who used fake proof to obtain alcohol, said the victims's attorney, Francis M. Letro.

$638,000 SETTLEMENT FOR INJURED FLAGMAN

A flagman on a construction site received $638,000 for a shoulder injury sustained when he fell running away from an out of control tractor trailer entering the construction zone.

JURY AWARDS $633,000 FOR INJURIES

A Buffalo hairstylist was awarded $633,000 by a State Supreme Court jury in Niagara Falls for injuries he suffered when his motorcycle was hit by a teenage driver in Fort Erie.

Following a six-day trial, the jury deliberated about three hours before awarding the judgment to the hairstylist. The victim's attorney, Francis M. Letro said the award must be paid by insurance carriers for the driver of the car and his father, both of Lockport.