$5.4 Million in Five Months, Without Ever Filing a Lawsuit
An attorney riding as a passenger in an SUV during a severe snowstorm suffered spinal fractures and a herniated disc when the vehicle lost control on ice and struck a tree. Her case settled for $5.4 million less than five months later; a lawsuit was never filed.
The crash happened during a blinding snowstorm. The client, a practicing lawyer, was riding as a passenger in an SUV when the driver lost control on an ice-covered road. The vehicle left the roadway and slammed into a tree.
The impact fractured vertebrae in her mid-back and herniated a disc, along with ligament damage and muscle strain across her lower back. The morning after the crash, surgeons operated to stabilize the fractured vertebrae and remove the herniated disc material.
Within a week, she was back at work part-time; within a few months, full-time. But the injury left its mark; she continues to live with occasional mid-back pain, the kind of residual damage that insurance carriers work hard to discount.
Less than five months after the crash, the case settled: $5.2 million in cash, plus a structured settlement with a present value of $200,000; $5.4 million in total. A lawsuit was never filed.
Five Months, $5.4 Million, Zero Court Dates
In personal injury litigation, the calendar is usually the insurance company's greatest asset. Serious cases routinely take two, three, even five years to resolve, and each of those months is leverage; the carrier's wager is that mounting medical bills and lost income will grind an injured person down to a smaller number.
“A $5.4 million case settling in five months with no lawsuit filed; that almost never happens,” said Scott E. Charnas, the attorney who handled the case. “It happens when the carrier opens your file and sees a case that is ready for trial on day one. They pay because the alternative is worse.”
Charnas credits the outcome to building the case for trial from the first week. “The fractures and the surgery speak for themselves,” he said. “Our job was documenting the full cost of this injury, present and future, so completely that there was nothing left for the carrier to argue about.”
Even Lawyers Need Lawyers
There is an old saying at the bar: a lawyer who represents herself has a fool for a client. The client in this case, herself a practicing attorney, understood that immediately. Injured, facing surgery, and up against a carrier with every incentive to minimize her claim, she hired counsel who handles serious injury cases every single day.
“Our client is an attorney. She knows this system from the inside, and she knew she needed someone who does this work daily,” Charnas said. “When a lawyer chooses you to handle her own catastrophic injury case, that is the highest professional compliment there is.”
When the Ice Returns
The case lands just as winter driving season approaches, giving its outcome a timely edge; the same ice-covered roads that sent an SUV into a tree last winter will return within weeks. What happens in the hours and days after a crash shapes everything that follows: the medical care, the documentation, the counsel.
Beyond the Check
The settlement was structured in two parts: $5.2 million in cash, and a structured settlement with a present value of $200,000; a stream of guaranteed payments stretching into the future. “The cash addresses what this injury has already cost,” Charnas said. “The structured settlement protects what it may still cost. That is what a complete resolution looks like; not just a number, but security.”
About Charnas Law Firm, P.C.
Charnas Law Firm, P.C. has spent more than three decades representing injured people nationwide, recovering more than $50 million for clients in personal injury, medical malpractice, and other serious injury matters. The firm offers free consultations: 212-980-6800.
