Houston Personal Injury Attorney Case Results:

DISCLAIMER: Please note that every case is different and these verdicts and settlements, while accurate, do not represent what we may obtain for you in your case.

Worker obtains settlement after falling through roof at Houston work site; brain injury; various orthopedic injuries (non-surgical)

Mark was employed by a tree trimming company.  Mark was on top of a building in Houston, Texas pruning trees when the roof collapsed, causing him to fall 20 feet to the ground.  Mark sustained a brain injury as well as various orthopedic injuries.

The building was owned by Hodges Southwest, Inc.  This company had insurance with The Travelers Lloyds Insurance Company.

Mark hired Vujasinovic & Beckcom to investigate his case.  Through their investigation, V&B lawyers determined that immediately after the fall, the company gathered all of the evidence, threw it away, and fixed the roof.  V&B attorneys determined that Mark had a valid claim for "spoliation" of evidence, which means the destruction of evidence in order to cheat somebody out of a valid claim.  The lawsuit was filed in Harris County, Texas.

V&B lawyers worked up the case, which was defended by lawyers hired by the insurance company.  V&B attorneys filed a motion with the court requesting the company be penalized for its improper destruction of evidence.  The penalty would be that the jury would be instructed to assume that the evidence, if it had not been thrown away by the company, would have been favorable to Mark's case.

The day before the hearing on the spoliation motion, the insurance company agreed to pay the maximum limits of the insurance policy, in the amount of $1,000,000.  Attorney's fees are $400,000, and litigation expenses are $21,000.

Awarded: $1,000,000 settlement; $400,000 attorney fee; $21,000 expenses