Willis Law, P.A. has successfully recovered a massive settlement of approximately $1.3 million on behalf of the mother of a 16-year-old boy who drowned while a passenger in a vehicle with three other friends. The teens had attended a homecoming party at another friend’s house earlier in the evening, which involved drinking and smoking marijuana. After leaving the party, the teens’ vehicle, while backing up in reverse, drove off the road, down an embankment and flipped over backwards into a nearby canal at night. Three of the four boys in the vehicle drowned.

The City had previously installed guard rails at this canal, however they were too short to stop the vehicle and did not comply with length requirements established by the Florida Department of Transportation. Attorney John A. Willis of Willis Law, P.A. filed several lawsuits on behalf of the mother of one of the deceased teens against the City, the guardrail company, the owner of the house where the party took place, and the tenant of the house.

All defendants denied liability for the incident, citing the teenage driver’s impairment as the cause of the car accident. After several years of complex litigation with multiple parties, Mr. Willis settled separately with all defendants for a total settlement of approximately $1.3 million dollars.

A family of four was struck at a Palm Beach County intersection at night by a rental car doing 107 mph resulting in severe injuries to the four vehicle occupants. The total available policy limits were $500,000. Attorney John Willis was able to obtain a bad faith settlement of more than three times the policy limits when one of the insurance companies failed to settle timely.

A man on a bicycle was side swiped on a Delray Avenue by a moving truck resulting in a leg fracture and surgery. The driver of the moving truck and his co-worker denied any impact with the bicyclist. The case settled just before trial.

A woman was climbing into the backseat of a car when the driver suddenly started to pull away. Her foot not yet in the vehicle was dragged painfully on the ground for some distance. It ultimately caused Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), a lingering or lifelong condition.

Our client’s mother was waiting at a bus stop for her bus to arrive when a tow truck driver struck and killed her. The driver was found to have had a history of seizures, which likely contributed to the loss of vehicle control.

Attorney John A. Willis of Willis Law, P.A. recently secured a major $280,000 settlement on behalf of a client injured by a defective office chair. The plaintiff – who we will refer to as John for privacy’s sake – had purchased a home office chair from El Dorado Furniture. Upon first use, the chair fell backward, causing John to fracture a vertebrae in his back. Attorney Willis got to work and hired an expert engineer to examine the chair’s stability. The chair was ultimately found to be defective, both by the firm’s engineer and an engineer hired by El Dorado’s insurance company.

After more than a year of litigation, attorney John Willis has secured a $270,000 settlement for his client who tripped and fell in a Delray Beach restaurant.

The client – who we will call Jane for privacy’s sake – was sitting in an elevated booth that required a step up to enter. The open end of the booth was also crowded with bar stools, making entrance to and exit from the booth a tricky situation. When Jane went to leave the booth, she fell to the hard flooring, breaking both her right knee and right foot. She developed neurological complications from the resulting trauma, which is not uncommon for victims of shattered bones and joints. To make matters worse, the restaurant’s insurance company denied any liability for the incident.

The fight for this client was obviously going to be a challenge since the insurance provider did not want to pay out even a penny. Mr. Willis got right to work and started taking depositions from the restaurant’s employees. Through his investigations, it was revealed by the staff that they usually place bright colored tape on the step down from the booth to warn patrons and to make it easier to navigate, but that they had failed to do so on the day Jane fell.