News Attorney Nick Hermann Discusses Recent $1.75 Million Settlement
In this conversation, Gruber Law Offices Attorney Nicholas Hermann discusses facts surrounding his recent $1.75 million settlement on behalf of our client, David Poole.
Carli: Hi Nick, first of all, congrats to you and our client on your recent $1.75 million motorcycle crash result. Why don’t you start this off by telling us a bit about how this crash occurred.
Attorney Hermann: Hi Carli, thanks for the kind words. The crash happened a few years back on an early Friday afternoon in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mr. Poole was heading back to work after finishing his lunch break. He was traveling north when we alleged that the Defendant driver failed to yield at the stop sign controlling their direction of travel and pulled out right in front of him. Mr. Poole tried to brake to avoid the collision, but was unable to stop in time. He suffered life-threatening injuries and had to be rushed from the accident scene to the hospital.
Thank you Nick. What type of physical injuries did Mr. Poole suffer and how is he doing today?
To put it bluntly, Mr. Poole suffered serious injuries. He had to undergo multiple surgeries and had to stay in the hospital for about a month. After being discharged from the hospital, Mr. Poole underwent an additional surgery and had to go through a lengthy course of physical therapy and doctor’s appointments. Mr. Poole experienced life-altering injuries and they still impact him to this day, but fortunately he has had a pretty nice recovery.
Tell us a bit about the background of this case from the legal perspective.
The parties did not reach a resolution during the claims stage, which means that there was no settlement or resolution prior to filing a formal lawsuit. We filed a lawsuit in the Milwaukee County Circuit Court. The Defendants were well-represented and fought us tooth and nail on everything—the extent of their fault, the extent of Mr. Poole’s injuries, the extent Mr. Poole’s injury has on his ability to work in certain capacities, and the extent to which his injuries would impact him into the future. There were numerous medical experts involved in the case as well as vocational experts. Both parties also hired accident reconstruction experts to help analyze how the crash occurred. To put it mildly, the parties differed in their opinions on a number of important factors in this case. Numerous depositions were taken and the discovery process had taken place. In Milwaukee County for the most part we have what is called mandatory mediation which means that before a formal trial date is given, the parties must attempt to mediate the case with a neutral mediator who helps the sides try to work toward a resolution. In this situation, the case was resolved by way of mediation.
Who from your team worked on Mr. Poole’s case?
Like every case here—this was truly a team effort. I was one of three attorneys on the case. The other two were Attorney Steven Gruber and Attorney Tim Knurr—who are both incredible attorneys and were instrumental in achieving this result for Mr. Poole. We were assisted by Paralegals Kortnie Williams and Suzanne Klein—who both did an amazing job on Mr. Poole’s case. In addition, we had our firm investigators and other support staff who provided important help on Mr. Poole’s case as well. Again, it took a complete team effort to obtain this result.
How did the case end up resolving?
We were able to settle the case at mediation for $1,750,000.00—which was many multiples of what the opening insurance company offer was. However, the most important part of this settlement was that our client was very satisfied with the result and he was able to close one horrific chapter in his life, achieve finality, and move on to a new chapter in his life.
Thank you for sharing this….
My pleasure.
**For privacy purposes given some of the circumstances we used a pseudonym instead of actual client name
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