If you’ve ever driven on the roads in town Atlanta, metal plates covering up construction work and potholes are a far too familiar site.
BBGA settled a case with Travelers Insurance for $100,000 for a man who broke his collarbone in a scooter accident caused by a metal plate that wasn’t properly secured to the road.
Here’s what our client had to say on Avvo about our work on his behalf:
Review by: Michael
Reviewing: Michael Ruppersburg’s Scooter Accident Legal Services
Date published: 9-22-2013
Rating: ★★★★4 / 5 stars
THE ACCIDENT
Mr. M was riding his scooter down a neighborhood street and was driving through the intersection you see below. Please note: that’s a picture of the intersection after the accident and the traffic cones were put there afterward. The metal plate on the far left (where the traffic cones are) wasn’t secured correctly and had come out of position. As Mr. M rode over the plate, the weight of his scooter caused it to move and fall downwards into the hole it was covering up. The front wheel of Mr. M’s scooter went down into the hole and struck the side, throwing Mr. M over the handlebars and onto the road.
Police and EMS responded to the scene and an ambulance took Mr. M to Grady where the doctors took X-rays and diagnosed him with a comminuted fracture of his clavicle (that’s the medical term for collarbone) and decided he’d need surgery to repair it.
Several days after the wreck, Mr. M had surgery to repair the fracture. The surgery involved inserting a metal plate and surgical screws into his collarbone.
Mr. M made a good recovery from his injury and surgery but had to wear a sling on his arm for months, do extensive physical therapy and still experiences occasional pain and limited range of motion in his arm. All told, his medical bills were more than $22,000.
From similar cases we’ve had against Atlanta, we knew that the city has contractors maintain city roads and install and maintain metal plates like these. So first we had to determine which contractor had installed the plate. To do that, we sent Open Records Requests to the City of Atlanta to determine which contractor it was.
(Side note: you think Atlanta is slow to repair potholes? It took months for Atlanta to respond to our Open Records Request and we had to threaten to report them to the State Attorney General before they did so.)
The contractor had insurance with Travelers Insurance Company. We sent Travelers a settlement demand and after several rounds of negotiations, Travelers agreed to pay Mr. M $100,000 to settle his case.
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