A pair of Atlanta attorneys has secured a $1.25 million pre-suit settlement for an 82-year-old woman injured in a vehicular collision.
The Beasley Allen duo is now detailing the deliberate step they took when submitting their Holt demand to Allstate Insurance Co. to help reach the six-figure resolution.
‘So She Can Simply Walk’
Beasley Allen attorneys Ken Wilson and Preston Moore joined forces to represent the plaintiff, who’d been riding as a “passenger in a vehicle hit by another car attempting to make a left turn,” according to plaintiff counsel.
The plaintiff had been wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash, but plaintiff counsel said the severity of the collision ”left her with multiple serious injuries including a broken sternum, broken spinal vertebrae (L2) and exacerbation of existing spondylolisthesis.”
“Her 82-year-old body was subject to numerous tests, examinations, and above all, pain,” Wilson said. “She suffered three days in the hospital wondering if these injuries would permanently take her mobile and active life.”
In addition to enduring 16 weeks of physical therapy as a result of the injury collision, plaintiff counsel said their client now requires in-home care, given her ”increased risk of paralysis if she falls.”
“Our client must put full focus on physical therapy to strengthen herself so she can simply walk without pain like she did prior to this wreck—a goal, given her age, she may never attain,” Moore said. “This also took away her confidence in caring for herself alone.”
‘Category by Category’
Advocating on the plaintiff’s behalf, Moore opted to begin his representation by issuing the defendant driver’s insurer, Allstate Insurance Company, a Holt demand pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 9-11-67.1.
But it’s what plaintiff counsel detailed in the demand that helped their client’s matter reach resolution without litigation.
“One thing I do that might be a little unique is in all of my Holt demands, I calculate out, category by category, the low-end conservative value of what I believe a DeKalb County jury would … return for each of the tort damages factors under Georgia Civil Pattern Jury Instruction 66.501,” Moore said.
Allstate Corp. (Courtesy photo)
Moore pointed out that the categories included interference with normal living, interference with enjoyment of life, loss of capacity to labor and earn money, impairment of bodily health and vigor, fear of extent of injury, shock of impact, past and future actual pain and suffering, past and future mental anguish and the extent to which the plaintiff must limit activities.
When combined, Moore said the detailed calculation and his firm’s established “reputation for ensuring its clients see the full value of their damages in settlement, or trial if necessary,” helped enable the plaintiff team to resolve the personal injury matter for $1.25 million pre-suit.
“Counsel for the insurance company informed us that was one of the primary reasons they decided to resolve this case pre-suit,” Moore said. “As part of the settlement, Allstate Insurance Company has agreed to pay $100,000 in medical damages.”
‘Settle Cases With Less Evidentiary Showing’
Plaintiff counsel applauded the resolution, but noted their representation of the client had not yet concluded.
