Our client was riding his motorcycle early in the morning when a work van cut him off without warning. The impact forced him into the van and then onto the ground. He struck his head on the windshield. His helmet saved his life.He was hospitalized immediately and underwent emergency surgery for a lacerated abdomen. He sustained multiple fractures throughout his body and suffered a traumatic brain injury. His foot was impaled. He was a young man -- under 30 -- facing a road of surgeries, procedures, and an uncertain future.The long-term damage driver was the TBI. Even the defense's own experts conceded at least a mild TBI. Mild does not mean minor. The cognitive deficits, relationship disruption, and impact on activities of daily living were real, corroborated by expert testimony, and permanent. For a client with decades ahead of him, that permanence carried enormous weight.The van driver was operating in the course of his employment. His employer was liable vicariously. The case settled for $2,000,000 -- full policy limits -- one day before mediation, on a time limit demand, at the threshold of triggering a bad faith claim.
We moved immediately. Expert retention and vehicle inspection happened early -- before evidence degraded and before the defense could build a comparative negligence narrative.We dismantled every comparative negligence argument. Defense teams in motorcycle cases almost always try to shift blame onto the rider. We anticipated every angle and systematically eliminated each one until the defense had no viable theory left.We documented the TBI properly. A TBI that even defense experts acknowledge is a powerful damages foundation. We built a complete medical and expert record around the cognitive, relational, and functional impact -- not just the acute injury.We applied pressure at the right moment. The time limit demand, set one day before mediation, put the carrier on notice that failure to tender limits would trigger bad faith exposure. They settled the day before.
