$1.15 Million Settlement – Distracted Driver in Supermarket Parking Lot Held Accountable for Hitting Shopper

Two days before Christmas a driver of a Dodge pick-up truck was rushing to find a parking spot at a Hannaford supermarket in Lloyd, Ulster County, to get some last minute groceries for the holidays. It’s dark and raining. The driver is looking left and not paying attention to the car in front of him when suddenly the brake lights come on. The pick-up truck driver swerves to the right to go around the car in front. As he does, he doesn’t see the woman walking towards the supermarket. The right side view mirror of the pick-up truck strikes the head of our client, a 60-year-old woman, knocking her unconscious. The pick-up truck driver drives off leaving her on the ground in the rain. After visiting his wife in the hospital, our client’s husband called Finkelstein & Partners because he knew whoever did this to his wife needed to be held responsible. Our law-firm immediately obtained the video surveillance from the supermarket as well as the police report. After identifying the pick-up truck driver we started a lawsuit. Due to the crash our client suffered a mild traumatic brain injury that resulted in her losing her sense of smell and partial loss of sense of taste. The insurance company for the pick up driver initially didn’t believe our client and offered only $100,000. That all changed once we sent the reports from our experts that clearly showed the mTBI caused a confirmed lack of smell and taste. Rather than proceed to trial in Ulster County the insurance company agreed to settle the case for $1,150,000. The case was handled by partners Andrew Finkelstein, Kenneth Fromson and David Gross.