When a bus driver attempted to accelerate through a yellow light, the driver in front of him stopped to avoid running the red. The bus driver hit the brakes hard, throwing passengers from their seats. Our client, a 62-year-old mechanic seated in a side-facing seat, was thrown face-first into the bus's metal railing. The force of the impact caused a catastrophic eye injury. He was rushed into surgery, where doctors determined his eye could not be saved. Over the course of several months, he underwent additional procedures to remove the eye and replace it with a prosthetic. For a tradesman whose work depended on hand-eye coordination and depth perception, the injury permanently changed the way he was able to live and work.
Thanks to the determined work of Attorney Sean Breen and the professionals of DK Global, Howry Breen & Herman, LLP was able to secure a confidential settlement. What’s more, the settlement was about twice as much as the typical compensation amount awarded for similar eye loss claims.
The Defense Tries to Minimize the Harm of Losing an Eye
Attorney Sean Breen took the lead for this case and got right to work at picking apart the defense’s strategy of trying to downplay the severity of losing an eye. The defense’s argument can more or less be summarized as: “Your client still has one functioning eye and modern prosthetics are good, so losing an eye is not as significant as the plaintiff claims.”
Sean had encountered this line of thinking before. Researching past jury verdicts, he found that eye injury cases are frequently under-settled because attorneys fail to fully communicate the real consequences of the loss of an eye to a jury. He knew that winning the right outcome for our client would require making the extent of his loss undeniable and real to the judge, jury, and defending counsel.
3D Visuals Left No Room for Doubt
To prepare a thorough presentation of our client’s injury and how it affected his entire life, Attorney Breen assembled a team that included a liability expert, an ophthalmologist, and an eye surgeon. He also brought in DK Global, a company that specializes in producing high-quality visual aids for legal proceedings, to create detailed 3D recreations of both the accident and the injury.
Bus surveillance footage had captured the incident, but it was too low in quality to convey the severity of the trauma. DK Global collaborated with the medical experts to produce accurate, thorough animations showing the mechanics of the accident from multiple angles, slowed down to illustrate each stage of the impact, alongside detailed 3D reconstructions of the injury, the surgeries, and the full medical process our client endured. Sean made a deliberate choice not to tone down what had happened or omit gruesome details. The goal was to present the complete truth of our client's experience.
When the defense filed a motion for a continuance before trial, Attorney Breen successfully defeated it. The case proceeded to mediation, where he presented the DK Global animations to the defense team. The reaction to the presentation was immediately noticeable, and the severity of losing an eye was finally understood.
Securing a Confidential Settlement
The case settled confidentially, at approximately twice the amount typically achieved in eye loss cases. It is a result that reflects what is possible when a legal team commits fully to preparation, assembles the right people, and finds the most effective way to present the truth and scope of a client's injury.
At Howry Breen & Herman, LLP, we bring this same level of commitment to every catastrophic injury case we take on. If you or a loved one has suffered a life-changing injury in Texas, learn if we can help you take legal action. Contact us today for a free consultation by dialing (512) 430-4844.