3.25 Million Settlement by John Bosco for car accident on Nelson Avenue

In 2005, President George Bush signed into law a federal highway bill that gave the lessors of leased vehicles immunity against lawsuits for damage and injury.  Bush's legislation changed New York State Law that holds owners of motor vehicles, including lessors, liable.  Corporations had once again successfully lobbied away the rights of the injured. Bush's gift to the automobile leasing industry, however, was too late to protect the Mercedes Benz Credit Corp whose leased vehicle was involved in a collision on February 8, 2003.

The leased Mercedes, in the process of exiting the St. Clares parking lot onto Nelson Avenue on a busy Saturday afternoon, crashed into a Honda in which our client was a passenger. The crash devastated the vehicles. Our Client was taken by ambulance to the hospital. She eventually had surgery to her right shoulder and lower back.  The case settled for Three million two hundred fifty thousand ($3,250,000.00) dollars after a jury had been selected and the case was assigned for trial to the Honorable Judith N. McMahon, a judge of the Supreme Court in St. George.  "We had lined up four doctors and an economist to testify" Bosco added. Summary Judgment had already been granted against the Mercedes on the issue of liability in January of 2006 by the Honorable Robert J. Gigante, formerly a Supreme Court judge now the Richmond County Surrogate Court Judge. The issues that needed a jury trial were an apportionment of liability amongst the defendants and damages.