Case Results

DISCLAIMER: Please note that every case is different and these verdicts and settlements, while accurate, do not represent what we may obtain for you in your case.

Automobile Accident - Albemarle County, Virginia

Jury Trial in Albemarle County Circuit Court

Co-Counsel

Vaden Warren of The Warren Firm PLLC in Charlottesville
Graven Craig of Graven W. Craig PLLC in Louisa

Our client was a passenger in a car driven by a co-worker on 29 North. The two co-workers were on their way to lunch and stopped at the stop light at the intersection of 29 North and the entrance to the Fashion Square Mall. While stopped, they were rear-ended by another car, which hit them hard enough to drive them into the vehice that was stopped in front of them.

As a result of the accident, our client suffered injures to the neck, left wrist, left coracoid, left shoulder area and was ultimately diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome. Fortunately, the neck injury was minor and resolved a few months after the accident. The left wrist injury did not manifest for sometime after the accident and was treated by Dr. David Neilsen, who diagnosed the injury and related it to the car wreck. The injury required immobilization and injections for the discomfort. The coracoid is a bone that attaches to the scapula (the shoulder blade) and reaches to the front of the body near the collar bone. Medical Testimony stated that it woudl take a significant trauma to fracture the coracoid bone. Dr. Mark Goldberg, who was the plaintiff's family physician, diagnosed the fractured coracoid and related the injury to the automobile accident.

Anatomy of the Shoulder

The client's main injury was sever pain in the left shoulder area and numbness and pain down the left arm into the left hand. The client was examined for possible shoulder injuries, including a rotator cuff injury, but after a number of months, she was diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome. The medical testimony was that thoracic outlet syndrome is diagnosed through eliminating other possible causes of pain and numbness. After two doctors made diagnoses of potential thoracic outlet syndrome, the plaintiff was referrred to Dr. Irv Kron at the University of Virginia. Dr. Kron, head of the Department of Surgery at the University of Virginia Hospital, and Cardiothoracic Surgeon, specializes in thoracic outlet syndrome, which is a fairly rare injury. Dr. Kron confirmed the diagnosis and related the condition to the automobile accident.

The thoracic outlet is an area of the body near the shoulder where the arteries, veins and nerves exit the chest and come into the arm. The entire structure includes the first rib on the bottom and a group of muscles called the scalene muscles at the top. They are relatively small muscles and when they compress, they can cause several symptoms: obstruction to the arteries, obstruction the veins, and the potential for irritation to the nerves which is responsible for the tingling sensation and pain the the shoulder and hand. All of these symptoms were present in with the plaintiff's condition. In order to relieve the compression, Dr. Kron performed a procedure called a rib resection. Part of the top rib is removed along with some of the scalene muscle to widen the thoracic outlet to reduce the pressure on the artery, vein and nerves. This procedure helped resolve much of the pain and numbness, but not all of it. The plaintiff was given a permanent impairment rating of 14% of the upper left extremeity which translates to a full body impairment rating of 8%.

In spite of the fact that three different treating physicians testified that the injuries they treated the plaintiff for were related to the collision, both Nationwide and Geico Insurance Companies did nto want to accept responsbility for their driver's actions. While they did admit the accident was their insured's fault, (it was a rear end collision) they contested practically all of the treatment. The way to contest treatment of treating physicians (physicians that the plaintiff was referred to by other doctors, not the attorneys or anyone else) is to go find a doctor to give an opinion favorable to the position of the insurance companies. That is exactly what Nationwide and Geico did. They hired an orthopaedic doctor from Fredericksburg who had made hundreds of thousands of dollars testifying. 90-95% of the time his opinions are favorable to the defense. The most remarkable part of his testimony was that he did not relate the thoracic outlet syndrome to the accident. In his testimony, he admitted he had only ever seen two cases of thoracic outlet syndrome in his over twenty year career. Despite practically never seeing the condition, he asserted that he was qualified to testify about it and stated that Dr. Kron was wrong; Dr. Kron, the doctor who is published and specializes in thoracic outlet syndrome.

Fortunately, the jury appeared to give the defense hired doctor little weight, and found in favor of the client with compensation of $130,000. The insurance companies had only offered $57,000.