$1.3 Million settlement for bachelor party attendee struck by drunk driver

On February 2, 2014, Schulman Blitz, LLP‘s client and a group of his friends were attending a bachelor party in Manhattan.  After the festivities had concluded, our client and his friends were on a party bus on their way home to Long Island. While driving eastbound on the Long Island Expressway, the party bus driver stopped the bus in right hand lane of travel and directed our client and the other passengers to get off the bus in order to assist a Police Officer from the NYPD’s Mounted Unit whose horse trailer had become detached from his NYPD vehicle and was disabled on the right hand shoulder of the LIE. The NYPD officer directed our client and his fellow bachelor party attendees who got off the bus to help lift and reattach the horse trailer to the back of his NYPD vehicle.   As they were about to lift the horse trailer, a car being driven by a drunk driver crashed into the rear of the horse trailer, which subsequently struck our client  who went careening into the air and landed on the pavement head first.  Our client lost consciousness, was bleeding, and his entire body was contorted. The injuries our client sustained from the crash included fractures to his ribs and injuries to his back, knee and brain. Our client’s knee injuries required him to undergo an  arthroscopic surgery to repair a tear to his posterior cruciate ligament. Our client’s injuries to his back required him to undergo a lumbar spine laminectomy and fusion surgery.  The surgery to his back required implanting  a prosthetic device to fuse the vertebrae at the L4-L5 levels of his spine. The surgeon inserted screws and a metal rod in his lumbar spine to repair the damage. A few days before the trial was set to begin, the parties agreed to enter into a private mediation with former Appellate Division, Second Department Justice Peter Skelos.  At the mediation,  Justin Blitz, Esq. and Fred Schulman, Esq. settled our client’s case for $1,300,000,00.