Jany Martinez-Ward, left, and Gregory Ward, right, founding partners of The Ward Law Group. Courtesy photos
Two South Florida personal injury attorneys negotiated a multi-million dollar settlement to pay for medical bills and damages incurred by their client after she suffered a life-altering crash.
Jany Martinez-Ward and Gregory Ward, partners at The Ward Law Group in Miami Lakes, represented sales manager Marcella Ramirez against Connecticut-based The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. and American International Group Inc., headquartered in New York.
The litigators indicated one of the keys to their strategy in reaching the negotiated settlement against the insureds was the possible threat of trial as state courts emerged from the coronavirus pandemic.
"To reach such a fast resolution in this case, to reach a settlement, is a win for our client, because normally these cases would take at least three years for litigation," Martinez-Ward explained. "At least she can put this behind her and continue to move on with her life, even though she has future pending surgeries."
The negotiated settlement was in response to a July 15, 2020, accident on the Florida Turnpike in the Hollywood area. The defendant, David Martin, was driving a 2018 Mack truck and failed to keep his trailer in his lane of travel, according to internal emails.
Then, the trailer collided with Ramirez's 2017 Ford Explorer, propelling her into a guardrail. Both vehicles were severely damaged, and Florida Highway Patrol issued Martin a citation for careless driving, the plaintiff argued.
As a result of the accident, Ramirez suffered from several maladies, such as "extreme anxiety" whenever she enters a vehicle, emotional damages such as not carrying her 5-year-old daughter, constant headaches, episodes of vertigo, and damage to her spine, internal emails showed.
Now, the Hartford and AIG are set to collectively pay $2 million in the negotiated settlement in excess and underlying policies.
"Our strategy was to emphasize the significant nature of the injuries and the life-altering effects it had on her," Ward said. "The other issue, the property damage photos, did not look that significant, but there was no question that the defendant was at fault."
Ward explained that insurance companies typically focus on select factors when evaluating a claim. In this instance, the carriers argued that the injuries were preexisting. However, since spinal degeneration does not usually start until someone is in their forties, the insurers could not prove that the 33-year-old had a preexisting condition.
On the second issue, Ramirez's attorneys proved that her Ford Explorer had $12,000 in damages that were not readily apparent by looking at the vehicle's surface.
"Many times, insurance companies and people get confused thinking that a person could not be injured just because there is not a lot of visible physical property damage," Ward said. "In this case, the inside of the car was significantly damaged, so we had to go that extra step to demonstrate the vehicle was significantly impacted even though the body of the vehicle was pretty intact."
Michael A. Mora
Michael was born and raised in South Florida. He went to undergrad at Florida Atlantic University and earned his master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is the crypto litigation reporter for Law.com, as well as an editor for ALM Global. You can email him at [email protected].