Kasey Murray and the Koonz team recently recovered $9,300,000 for a pedestrian who was struck by a vehicle. The pedestrian sustained life-changing crush injuries and is now disabled as a result of the accident. The case involved legal questions regarding the duties of drivers and their employers, as well as the legal impact of the recovery of workers’ compensation benefits on a personal injury lawsuit. The settlement is one of the largest in the firm’s history.

A pedestrian who suffered a brain injury when struck by a truck while walking in  Southwest Washington D.C. near the waterfront obtained a $6,000,000.00 settlement. During depositions, the Koonz team was able to prove that the truck driver was talking on his mobile phone at the time he struck the pedestrian.

When a construction company did not safely cover a hole in a roof, a construction worker fell thirty feet to the ground. He seriously injured his back and leg. He will never return to the skilled construction job that he had at the time. Paulette Chapman and her litigation team wrote numerous motions to convince an insurance company to pay $3 million dollars to the injured worker.

A driver lost control of her car when she backed out of a parking space. The car struck a pedestrian who was exiting a store. The store agreed to pay the pedestrian $3 million dollars after watching a computer reenactment of the ways safety poles would have prevented injury to the pedestrian. The litigation team of Chapman and Fisher devoted many hours to the computer reenactment.

When a one-year-old boy had injuries to his internal organs, the case settled after protracted litigation. The case settled for over $4 million dollars. Paulette Chapman and her litigation team retained nationally recognized experts to testify that injuries were caused by the negligence of the defendant.

A clothing store was renovated to house a national retail chain. During the renovation, a painting company used harmful chemicals that were not ventilated from the store. Our client inhaled the chemicals while working on a raised platform. He fell ten feet where he injured his spinal cord. We successfully defeated motions filed by the painting company. The painting company agreed to pay our client $2.7 million dollars.

In 2019, the litigation team of Kasey Murray and the Koonz team obtained a $3,000,000 settlement in a wrongful death case for a family who lost their teenage son in a car crash. By working closely with an accident reconstructionist, Ms. Murray and Mr. Johnson were able to argue that the vehicle carrying the decedent was traveling at a rate of speed far in excess of the posted speed limit. The case was brought in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

Our client was in an office building delivering packages. He sustained an injury when the elevator allegedly malfunctioned. The defense attempted to claim that our client was responsible for his own injuries, but injury lawyers Julie Heiden and Peter DePaolis ultimately obtained a $2.99 million award for the deliveryman. View the article.

A husband and wife recovered $2.25 million dollars when the husband died in a fire and the wife was also burned. Paulette Chapman and her litigation team used historic Google maps to win the case. Google maps from the years 2011 to 2014 showed dangerous changes made to the streets around our clients’ home in NW Washington. These changes caused the fire and subsequent death.

Senior Partner Peter C DePaolis along with co-counsel Ann Jones and Donna Rostant, recently received a jury verdict of $2,550,000 in a medical malpractice trial in Stafford County, Virginia. The client is a young woman who suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of a surgical error while undergoing back surgery.

Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has agreed to pay $2.3 million to the daughter and widower of government worker injured in a WMATA accident. A Metro bus struck a female pedestrian when she was in the crosswalk. Virginia injury attorney Julie Heiden and her colleagues successfully represented the daughter for her claims of wrongful death.

The firm recently recovered 1.8 million dollars for a worker who fell through a hole in a roof while on a construction site. Though the general contractor covered the hole, the cover was not secured and was not properly marked. OSHA found that the contractor did not maintain a safe place to work and violated safety regulations. In addition to relying on the OSHA investigation, the firm used medical illustrations to demonstrate the full extent of the worker’s injuries.

Paulette Chapman and her litigation team settled a construction case for $2.2 million on behalf of an injured worker. A contractor allegedly violated an OSHA safety regulation. Ms. Chapman presented proof of the spinal injury that prevented the worker from resuming work in the building trades. Her team had presented the evidence of a safety violation, researched construction laws, and wrote motions on the laws of evidence.

In 2017, Kasey Murray and her litigation team secured a $2,200,000 settlement for a young child who suffered a brain injury at birth and was left with a disability. The case was settled just two weeks prior to trial, and the team devoted several years of litigation to the case. As a result of the settlement, the child’s mother was able to utilize her resources to provide her child with better home care, and much needed medical equipment to improve her child’s quality of life.

In 2017, Kasey Murray and her litigation team obtained a $1,200,000 settlement for a construction worker who was exposed to ozone while working on a renovation project at the National Zoo. The client suffered permanent lung damage as a result of the exposure. His physicians were prepared to testify in trial on his behalf regarding the severity of the exposure, and its impact on his life.

A woman was driving with her daughter as a passenger. Another driver, who was working at the time, ran a red light and crossed into the woman’s path, causing a serious car crash. She required five surgeries after the accident. Injury attorneys Peter DePaolis and Julie Heiden secured a $1.75 million award for the woman, who is now disabled because of the car accident.

A man who developed internal injuries settled his case without trial for $2.1 million dollars. The firm’s litigation team used alternative dispute resolution techniques to resolve the case without filing a lawsuit. Part of our success was retaining a retired judge to assist the parties pre-litigation.

Partner Paulette Chapman and her litigation team recovered $1.2 million in the settlement of a wrongful death case for the family of a 95-year-old pedestrian who was struck and killed by a van. The driver of the van was distracted by using his cell phone at the time he struck the pedestrian.

A healthy and active 82-year-old WWII veteran was placing his luggage into the trunk of his car when he was struck from behind by defendant. Plaintiff’s right leg was crushed between the two cars. As soon as EMT arrived on the scene, it was immediately apparent that the Plaintiff had suffered a severe car accident injury to his leg. The parties agreed to the settlement of $1.2 million after a nine-hour mediation.

A gust of wind blew a construction worker off the side of a building. Using expert analysis of the weather, we convinced the construction company to pay $1.5 million.

When a faulty ladder caused a ladder accident at a US Government building, a construction worker injured his low back. A subcontractor controlled the ladder. The injured worker is now limited to part-time work due to the construction accident. OSHA did not investigate the job injury. Partner Paulette Chapman and her litigation team filled the void left by government inaction. They successfully argued that the subcontractor pays $825,000 plus waive repayment of all workers compensation benefits.

Washington, D.C. injury lawyer Marc Fiedler, the appellate specialist at Koonz McKenney Johnson & DePaolis LLP, recently won an important victory in a medical malpractice case. On February 15, 2008, the D.C. Court of Appeals upheld the wrongful death jury verdict of over $750,000 in favor of the wife and son of a forty-six-year-old Metrobus operator who had died as a result of a blood clot in his heart, which probably would have been prevented if his doctor had prescribed blood-thinning drugs.

David Schloss successfully litigated a case involving a legal secretary who had slipped and fallen on a recently mopped floor while at work. The secretary sustained a knee injury and was later diagnosed with “reflex sympathetic dystrophy,” a relatively rare neurological condition also known as “complex regional pain syndrome.” Mr. Schloss pursued both a workers compensation claim against the law firm that employed his client as well as a negligence claim against the janitorial services company that had recently mopped the floor but had allegedly failed to post any wet floor warning signs. After significant litigation, Mr. Schloss was able to secure nearly $1,000,000.00 in total benefits for his client.