$5,200,000.00 "Bad Faith" Settlement Following $9.3M Verdict on $1.250M Policy

CHICAGO, IL, June 05, 2013

A $5,200,000.00 settlement was reached 3 months following a substantial verdict reached by GWC partners, Louis Cairo and Michael Fisher, in a head-on collision case that was tried before the Honorable William Haddad in February of 2013. This was an amazing turn of events following a very contested trial that resulted in a fully briefed Motion for Mistrial, with an appeal likely to follow, that was scheduled to be heard by Judge Haddad in the next 4 - 6 weeks.

The underlying case involved the death of Luis Ramirez, a 54-year old machine worker, who was killed in a head-on collision on September 26, 2007 in Elgin. The case went to trial with Defendant claiming that the collision was the sole proximate cause of a left turning vehicle in front of the Defendant, causing her to steer into the on-coming lane of the highway killing Ramirez instantly. Defendant argued for a not guilty verdict as a result. The jury rejected the claimed defense and awarded the Estate over $9.3M.

Months prior to the underlying trial, Plaintiffs' counsel advised the Defendant that the family was willing to accept the underlying $1.250M insurance policy to settle the case. Instead, Country Mutual Insurance Company chose to offer only half of its policy and insisted on proceeding to trial given their alleged sole proximate cause defense. Plaintiff's counsel confirmed, and re-confirmed, that an excess judgment would result in a rejection of any offer of the policy limits following the verdict and the filing of a bad faith lawsuit against the carrier.

Following the verdict, Defendant brought a Motion for a Mistrial that has been fully briefed, but not yet argued. No post-trial motions have been filed yet either. Nonetheless, the parties agreed to conduct a mediation at ADR in an effort to resolve the impending "bad faith" claim that Plaintiff's counsel promised to bring against the carrier. Following a full day of negotiations before the Honorable Stuart Nuddleman at ADR, counsel for the Plaintiff, Louis Cairo and Michael Fisher, were able to resolve the matter with Glen Amundsen, of Smith Amundsen, whose firm was recently retained as counsel by Country Mutual's Errors and Omissions carrier to defend the Bad Faith case that was going to be filed.

According to Cairo, "This resolution came to be as the result of numerous fortuitous events that occurred in this case. First, there was an untenable position taken by the insurance carrier in the underlying case that was completely unsupported by the evidence. Their baseless defense put their insured at serious risk of an excess verdict far above their insurance limits, thereby creating the potential for a "bad faith" situation. The case was assigned to one of the finest trial judges in Illinois and a substantial verdict was reached by a Cook County jury. Then, the combination of having one of the defense bar's elite defense attorneys representing the E & O carrier in the mediation before such an accomplished and respected mediator as Judge Nuddleman is, just resulted in the stars being perfectly aligned so that true and fair justice was achieved for our clients.

Fisher commented that "Had the underlying carrier done the right thing from day 1, the case would have settled for the $1.25M policy and that would have been the end of it. It's failure to negotiate in good faith and, thereby, force the family to endure the agony of going to trial resulted in the ultimate justice to the Ramirez family."

GWC is Illinois' largest personal injury and workers' compensation law firm concentrating its practice on catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases. May has been quite a good month for GWC clients so far because GWC has already settled 4 cases in excess of $1.0M for their clients in the first 3 weeks of May! In fact, as Cairo and Fisher were negotiating the Ramirez case at ADR, partner Colin J. O'Malley was negotiating and settled a contested construction negligence claim for almost $2.5M before Judge Ward in the room next door.

GWC is the Largest Personal Injury and Workers Compensation law firm in Illinois. The firm's attorneys handle catastrophic cases throughout the country in all types of cases involving, particularly, construction, transportation industry, nursing home abuse, product liability and mass tort.

For more information on this verdict contact Louis Cairo at 312-622-3261 or at lcairo@gwclaw.com.

Website: www.gwclaw.com