Virginia Injury Lawyer Blog
A 30 year old father of two was injured while working on a County trash truck. He received workers compensation benefits, but knowing they wouldn’t last forever, the worker sought counsel. After several lawyers told him there was no case, Gary Mims and associate Zachary Desmond agreed to investigate further.
The worker was injured when a co-employee accidentally pushed a control lever that activated a winch attached to a cable and hook stored on a handrail that the worker was holding onto. The winch retracted rapidly and the cable hook entrapped the worker’s hand causing a crush injury. The worker was flown to Baltimore Md, where he was treated by a renowned hand specialist. The hand was saved, but the worker developed a condition known as “complex regional pain syndrome” (CRPS), which rendered the hand almost completely non-functional.
Mims and Desmond retained expert engineers who said the truck should have had a safe place to store the cable hook, and that the control mechanism should have been protected from inadvertent, or accidental, activation.
The manufacturer carried only $2,000,000.00 in insurance which was offered just prior to trial and the workers compensation insurance company agreed to waive its lien for the moneys it paid.