Farah & Farah Wins $3.4 Million For Mother of Two
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November 8, 2004. It started like any other morning for 37-year-old Wendy Sugalski. She had just dropped her teenage child at school and was heading east on Atlantic Boulevard near Kernan to pick-up her other teenager.
Sugalski was stopped at a red-light when her car was rear-ended by a 26,000 pound moving truck traveling 40 miles per hour. Her Honda Civic was pushed forward, the force crushing the trunk of her car into her back seat.
Mrs. Sugalski didn't see it coming but immediately she felt the pain.
She suffered at least one herniated disc in her neck and suffered significant soft tissue damage. Treated immediately at the emergency room, Sugalski would undergo extensive pain management treatment including 69 injections in her neck and two surgical procedures that probe the nerves, then heat them to deaden pain. Her career as a dancer at Let's Dance in Ponte Vedra Beach would be reduced to instruction, not demonstration.
On Thursday, September 13th 2007, Sugalski won a $3.49 million dollar judgment against Reads Moving Systems of Florida, Inc. The attorneys in the case were Eric S. Block and Randall Rutledge of Farah and Farah, whose firm represented Mrs. Sugalski.
The company denied they were at fault. "That's the nature of the beast," says Eddie Farah. However, shortly before the trial, the Court ruled as a matter of law that Reads Moving Systems of Florida, Inc. was responsible for the crash. "They don't offer you any money unless you go to court and get a verdict. They wear you down because they know people are hurting for money and will take whatever they throw out," says Farah.
Reads Moving Systems of Florida Inc.,, a national company with offices on Philips Hwy., offered Ms. Sugalski $27,500 prior to a lawsuit being filed and $60,000 before trial.
"The insurance company never took her seriously," says Randall Rutledge who was co-counsel in the case. But the court determined that Reads was at fault and that focused the case on damages. "Causation and the amount of Mrs. Sugalski's damages is what the jury had to determine," says Farah.
Ironically, Reads' own medical experts found that Ms. Sugalski was permanently injured. When the company declined to use those experts in their case, Farah and Farah called them to the stand. Dr. Michael S. Scharf, of Jacksonville Orthopedic Institute and Dr. Bruce Hartwig, a Jacksonville doctor specializing in neurology, concurred that Wendy Sugalski's injuries are permanent.
The six-person jury agreed. The award includes almost $40,000 for past medical bills, $150,000 for past pain and suffering and $2.25 million for future pain and suffering. Included in the award is $1 million for future medical care which will include twice yearly nerve treatments known as RFL, radiofrequency lesioning which costs about $5,000 per treatment.
Reads could have avoided this verdict, but the company refused to settle the case when a proposal to settle for $175,000 was made.
For more information on this subject matter, please refer to our section on Car and Motorcycle Accidents.