Virginia Beach, Virginia (PRWEB) March 08, 2012
Virginia (VA) brain injury attorneys, Randy Appleton and Jim Lewis, with Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton law firm, settled multiple cases for Virginia Beach family members in a small car that was rear ended by a truck, resulting in injuries to the parents and brain injuries to their two daughters, including a guaranteed $21 Million settlement payout for the most signficantly brain damaged daughter. The impact of the wreck was so violent that the trunk of the small car was smashed into the passenger compartment of the car forcing the little girls--belted into their child seats--into the head rests on the top of the front seats. The young girl seated on the passenger side of the back seat was unresponsive at the scene and was rushed to the local children’s hospital where she remained in a coma for days. Once successfully brought out of the coma, this daughter underwent extensive rehabilitation and regained use of her left arm and leg and began responding to outside stimuli, but a series of brain CT scans and MRIs, over weeks and months, revealed significant and permanent brain damage, mainly to the frontal lobe of her brain.
Both before and during the lawsuit seeking compensation for her traumatic brain injury, Appleton and Lewis focused on understanding the young girl's future supportive and medical needs, worked with her treating doctors, neuro-psychiatrist, and therapists, as well as her school teachers and developed a comprehensive life care plan to insure there would be money to pay for lifetime medical expenses.
Several months before trial, the company employing the negligent truck driver agreed to voluntary mediation with a retired Virginia judge presiding. Brain injury attorneys Appleton and Lewis worked for weeks organizing a multimedia presentation, including three dimensional medical illustrations of the brain damage shown by CT scan and MRI, and also included a variety of slides outlining economic impact and future medical needs.
At a first mediation, three of the family’s cases were settled, which was followed by a second mediation about two months before trial for the more severely brain injured daughter. Our Virginia Beach based injury attorneys also arranged for a structured settlement annuity consultant to attend the mediation session in order to project the necessary medical expense necessary to protect the young girl and her family from being without money to pay future medical and special educational needs.
A trust was established to provide for her short term medical and educational needs and a separate structured settlement guaranteed to pay in excess of $21 million over its life was negotiated as a comprehensive settlement (present value $5.5 million). Our injury attorneys were proud to represent this wonderful family and assist in assuring that the young daughter with the most serious brain injury will be able to cover her lifetime medical expenses.
About Shapiro, Lewis and Appleton law firm: in October 2000 our Virginia personal injury law firm, and co-counsel, obtained the largest verdict in Virginia's history, $60 Million including interest, for a Virginia brain injury victim of a Norfolk Southern railroad derailment in Manassas, Virginia. The personal injury law firm has been named a Tier One personal injury “Best Law Firm” by U.S. News (2012, Norfolk VA); two firm injury attorneys have been included among the “Best Lawyers in America” (2010-12, Personal Injury) and three firm injury attorneys are named as “Virginia Super Lawyers” for injury law (2012).
Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/3/prweb9249249.htm
