Motorist Injures Father in Crosswalk

On August 28, 2010, L. Tochilnikov suffered multiple life threatening injuries when he was hit as a pedestrian in a crosswalk while pushing his one-year-old daughter in a stroller. The 88-year-old adverse driver acknowledged to the police that she had seen L. pushing a stroller on the sidewalk before he entered the crosswalk, and she subsequently admitted to hitting them as they proceeded to cross the street.

While L.’s daughter escaped relatively unharmed, L. suffered severe injuries, including a skull fracture with a subarachnoid hemorrhage, as well as injuries to the entire left side of his body, including damage to his neck, shoulder, elbow, hip, knee, ankle and foot. He was employed by Oracle at the time and missed months of work. His wife, V., also brought a loss of consortium claim.

Once it became known that there was only a $100,000.00, policy available to cover L.’s damages, the firm endeavored to discover whether the adverse driver had assets that might cover an excess judgment. We also notified L.’s personal automobile liability insurance carrier of the third party lawsuit and potential for an underinsured motorist claim. Once the third party liability claim settled for the $100,000.00 that was available, we turned our attention to L.’s first party underinsured motorist claim. We successfully demanded and received the $150,000.00 that remained of L. and V.’s policy short of arbitration.