Rear-End Accident Victim Receives $600,000 Settlement for Career-Ending Neck Injury | Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp

What Happened

Our Virginia personal injury client suffered a career-ending neck injury when another driver rear-ended his work truck in Chesapeake, VA.

The force of the rear-end collision was enough to total both vehicles, but doctors initially diagnosed our client only with soft-tissue injuries to the muscles and tendons in his neck. After the prescribed treatment of rest, pain relievers and physical therapy failed to produce any improvements in our client’s condition, a neurosurgeon discovered fractures to his sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae. These are roughly at the level of man’s Adam’s apple.

The surgeon subsequently performed a discectomy and fused the damaged vertebrae with screws and plates. Despite this, our Virginia personal injury client continued to suffer so much neck and back pain with accompanying restrictions on his mobility and ability to lift heavy objects that he was forced to retire from his position as owner and COO of a concrete curb and gutter contracting company.

 

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Key Legal Strategy

Health insurance covered nearly all of our Virginia personal injury client’s crash-related medical bills, and he would continue having coverage for long-term treatment and therapy. For this reason, the car accident attorney he hired focused on securing an auto insurance settlement for the loss of lifetime earnings.

A vocational expert we hired calculated that at the time of the crash, the disabled rear-end collision victim had a lifetime earning capacity of $52,000 for 24 years. Our Virginia personal injury attorney used this estimate to negotiate a settlement totaling $600,000 from the at-fault driver’s insurance company.

Lost wages and loss of earning capacity often negatively impact car crash victims long after any medical bills are paid. As Virginia Beach-based personal injury attorneys with an office in Chesapeake, we fight for recovering all forms of available monetary damages from at-fault drivers.

Court: Chesapeake Circuit Court, Chesapeake, VA

Staff: Staff attorney