Uploaded By: AskTheLawyers™
In this video, injury attorney Claude Wyle explains a case he handled where he represented a man who was injured in a drunk driving accident and sustained a brain injury. In this case, a company shared liability for providing drinks to an employee who went on to be in a serious car accident that caused a brain injury. Fortunately, Claude was able to obtain a favorable result for the injured young man.
Claude Wyle is an injury attorney based in San Francisco and partner at Choulos Choulos
& Wyle.
Contact him directly at 888-981-0826
Learn more at his AskTheLawyers.com profile: http://bit.ly/2LtaBUm
Video Transcript:
I get a message from this young man and he says he’s been hit by a drunk driver and he needs help. So I get up from the pool and leave my family and go and call him, and he says “Hi, this is Nathan,” and I said, “Hi Nathan, how can I help you?” He says, “Well, I got hit by a drunk driver and I have a brain injury and I don’t know what to do.” I said, “Well OK. Well I handle a lot of brain injury cases and I’d be happy to help you. How did you happen to come to me?” Said, “Well the case is settled and I I have a lawyer and they settled my case, but my boss said, ‘Don’t sign anything until you call Claude.'”
Nathan’s got a lawyer. The lawyer has already accepted $100,000 dollars. I can tell just by looking at his face that he has an injury, this that would… with the jury just be far far more just be much bigger than that. And I want to help him.
So I start to help him. And it turns out that although the lawyer had met his mom when Nathan was in a coma in the hospital, Nathan had never actually met the lawyer and he’d been out of that coma for about eight months. And the lawyer had never come to visit him. He never had any face-to-face meeting with Nathan when Nathan was awake and so of course Nathan had no confidence in him. It’s very important to meet your lawyer and not just sign him up over a DocuSign on the computer but get a feeling for how that person is with you as a person. And it’s the same thing for me as a lawyer. I really want to meet my clients in person because I’m going to go on a journey with them for many years.
So I got a hold of the drunk driver’s criminal lawyer and told him the facts that I needed to know. And he said “Well, he’d been to the Sharks game with his employer and they were having a party at the company skybox and his employer had bought all the alcohol and they were entertaining company clients on the company dime. And he was driving home from that event when he hit your client.”.
Well in California if somebody is drinking and it’s for the benefit of their employer, and then they get behind the wheel of a car, that means the employer is responsible for any damage they cause while that employee is on the road. So we put our facts together and we were able to obtain a settlement that was one hundred and fifty times greater than the original lawyer.
Disclaimer: This video is for informational purposes only. In some states, this video may be deemed Attorney Advertising. The choice of lawyer is an important decision that should not be based solely on advertisements.
Watch more at: Case Story: Victory for Brain Injury Survivor Against Drunk Driver’s Employer