Hennepin County Jury Awards Winning Verdict In Car Accident Trial
In a recent Hennepin County District Court jury trial, Pritzker Olsen attorney Brendan Flaherty won a $101,040.62 verdict on behalf of a woman injured in a rear-end car collision.
The collision caused a so-called “whiplash” or “soft tissue” injury: damage to the muscles and connective tissue surrounding the spine. Because the collision did not impact the client’s spine itself, her X-rays and MRIs appeared normal — a fact Farmers Insurance repeated again and again through negotiations and trial.
The client suffered neck and back pain triggered by a range of daily activities, including her job as a real estate agent. She sought treatment with a neurologist and physical therapist but her pain responded best to chiropractic care and massage therapy.
Before trial, Farmers offered to settle the case for $11,500, an amount only slightly greater than the client’s unpaid medical bills. In response, the client offered to accept $40,000. Farmers rejected this outright, refused to continue negotiations and left the client no choice but to go to trial.
“Farmers basically rejected the very notion that an injury to connective tissue could be permanent,” Brendan explained. “They hired a doctor to say that my client was perfectly fine after about 12 weeks of treatment, that chiropractic care was useless, that my client was probably lying about her injuries for money and, even more insulting, that her pain, if any, was caused by her weight rather than the collision.”
Inside the courtroom of Judge Marilyn Rosenbaum, Brendan used detailed medical illustrations and expert testimony to show the jury how his client was injured. “The illustrations in cases like this are crucial because they allow the jury to visualize the injury and understand that these injuries are real even though they are invisible on an MRI.”
Brendan also emphasized the fundamental unfairness of Farmer’s position by hammering on the fact that they hired a doctor three years after the collision to second guess the real-time decisions made by his client’s treating doctors. “Farmer’s in essence blamed my client for following her doctors’ orders,” Brendan said.
After nearly seven hours of deliberation, the jury of two women and five men sided decisively with Brendan and his client.
The trial was also a tactical success. Well before trial, Brendan used the new Minnesota Rule 68 to formally offer to settle for $40,000. Because the verdict exceeded $40,000, Farmers not only had to pay the amount of the verdict plus the $12,000 incurred as costs at trial, but also a penalty of an additional $9,969.48. “This case shows how important it is for all plaintiffs in Minnesota to use the new Rule 68,” Brendan said. “It provides great leverage when insurance companies refuse to pay fair value on a case.”
