Our client was leaving a restaurant at Bridge Street Town Center in Huntsville, Alabama when he was struck by a pickup truck.  As our client was leaving the restaurant he proceeded across a marked crosswalk when he was struck by this pickup.  The driver of the pickup truck admitted to being on his cell phone at the time he struck our client.  As such, he admitted to being a distracted driver.

As a result of this impact, our client was taken from the scene by paramedics to Huntsville Hospital.  He suffered severe neck, back and knees injuries due to this impact.  To treat his injures, he underwent numerous rounds of physical therapy, cervical and lumbar injections, a cervical disc replacement surgery as well as arthroscopic knee surgery.

A lawsuit was filed in Madison County Circuit Court on behalf of our client.  In the complaint we alleged that our client had the right of way because he was in a marked cross-walk and the defendant driver was negligent for failing to keep a proper lookout and yield the right of way to our client.  After the complaint was filed and initial written discovery was filed we proceeded to take the deposition of the defendant driver, his wife, and our client’s treating physicians.  As a part of the lawsuit, we made claims for past lost wages, out of pocket expense, past medical expenses, future medical expenses, as well as pain and suffering and mental anguish.

During the course of the litigation it was discovered the at-fault driver not only had liability insurance with Alfa, but he also had an excess or umbrella policy.  For the excess policy to come into play, the plaintiff must first exhaust the underlying liability policy.  Following two of the plaintiff’s doctors’ depositions, mediation was setup.  Mediation is a process whereby both the plaintiff and defendant select a neutral third party, often a retired Judge or a well experienced attorney, to act a mediator to help the parties see if they can agree to a settlement in the case.  Despite both parties working hard towards a resolution at mediation, we were not able to resolve the case.  Following mediation, we proceeded to take another doctor’s deposition to relate our client’s ongoing headaches to the accident.  Then following this additional testimony, we were able to reach a very favorable resolution to our client’s case.