Confidential
Settlement – $275,000Judge
Court
Riverside Superior Palm Springs
Attorneys
Plaintiff
Defendant
Facts
On September 9, 1993, the plaintiff, a 25-year-old technician, worked for a company which maintained and serviced windmills generating power in the Coachella Valley. The plaintiff's employer had acquired all of the assets of the defendant company including certain tools which had been made by the defendant company in order to adjust the pitch of the propellor-type blades mounted on the windmills 90 feet above the ground. The plaintiff was injured when the safety device (designed to hold the tool to the blade) failed and the tool fell approximately 90 feet and struck the plaintiff's heel. The plaintiff brought this action against the defendants, the company and ____________ (who/role???) based on product liability and negligence theories of recovery.
Settlement Discussions
The plaintiff made a settlement demand for $_________. The defendants made a C.C.P. º998 offer of compromise for $____________ .
Specials in Evidence
$39,023 $37,476 $855,128 uncertain
Damages
The plaintiff claimed $3,500 in vocational rehabilitation.
Injuries
The plaintiff alleged that he sustained a contusion of his right posterior calcaneus, right achilles tendinitis, and possible reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndrome as a result of the incident. The plaintiff also alleged that he was diagnosed (one year after the accident) with Haglund's deformity and peroneal involvment requiring surgery in January of 1995, and hospitalization in February for deep venous thrombosis, requiring him to take coumadin and resulting in continued pain and swelling in his right foot as a result of the incident.
Other Information
The settlement was reached approximately one year and six months after the case was filed. A mediation was held on March 26, 1996, before Mediator Robert J. Popelka, Esq., of San Jose resulting in the reported settlement. The workers' compensation carrier not only waived its $79,999 lien but contributed an additional $65,000 new money in the settlement.
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