In 2017, a young New Orleans woman came to Breaux Law Firm for help. She had been rear-ended by the driver of a commercial vehicle in New Orleans East, yet the insurance company of the commercial vehicle was refusing to pay a fair amount for her recovery.
The insurance company did not deny that the commercial driver was clearly at fault for having rear-ended this young woman. However, this insurance company instead disagreed with the validity and value of her injuries, and thus they refused to cover their cost.
Due to this accident, our client had to seek out medical treatment for over 14 months. She experienced a severe single-level cervical disk herniation and a lumbar herniation. After undergoing numerous epidural steroid injections (ESI) that did not seem to fix the problem, she had to have a costly fusion surgery. Yet she continued to experience back pain, even after surgery. A supervisor at a national nonprofit, she was forced to take a leave of absence for 3 months and thus lost 3 months of wages. In addition to her physical pain and suffering was the emotional turmoil of fighting to prove the validity of that pain — adding insult to injury.
The insurance company still refused to offer an amount equal to or greater than this young woman’s medical expenses, and so Breaux Law Firm prepared to go to trial. As the trial date approached and the insurance company got nervous about their unfair refusal to reimburse a victim, they reached out to settle at mediation rather than risk going to trial. We settled at mediation for $450,000, with the trial date only a few months away.
We’re proud that in the case of this client, as with so many of our other clients, we fought tooth and nail against a greedy, evasive insurance company to win our client the compensation that was rightfully hers.
