Linda, who was 32-years-old and happily engaged, was heading to work at a nail care salon on the morning of May 18, 2013, at around 9:00 a.m. When she was about two miles away from work, she approached a T-intersection, where one can only turn left or right. The car ahead of her stopped suddenly in the midst of a right turn, forcing Linda stop as well. Although Linda left plenty of space in front of her and did not make contact with the vehicle ahead of her, the driver directly behind Linda did not leave enough space and caused a rear-end collision.
As Linda stopped her vehicle, she looked in the rearview mirror, and braced herself. Holding the steering wheel with both hands and her elbows locked, she felt the impact -- then she felt neck pain. Both hands had been curled tight against the steering wheel, causing her nails to leave imprints in her hands. When she was hit, Linda’s head went backward and hit the headrest.
Immediately following the accident her head was hurting and she was disoriented. When Linda got home she was exhausted and her neck and head hurt. As the hours went by, she started to relax a bit, but her arms continued to ache. Her back started hurting and aching and her legs were tingling and hurting: first the right leg, and then the left. It was then that Linda decided she had better go to the emergency room. The next day Linda could not move, felt very sore and her fingertips were tingling and numb -- she was worse than the day before.
As a result of the accident, Linda suffered cervical spine (neck) injuries and injuries to her lumbosacral spine (low back). Her treatment consisted of chiropractic care, massage therapy and physical therapy. Due to persistent and lifestyle-altering low back pain, her pain management doctor administered a total of 5 lumbar injections from March through October 2014. While Linda derived some relief from the injections, it was ultimately temporary.
While Linda was able to continue her job as a nail technician, she had to learn to perform her job in a way that minimized the aggravation of her injuries, including changing position and taking frequent breaks. A big loss to Linda was her inability to run around and play with her fiance’s 9 year old daughter. She could not stand or walk for long periods of time without her back and feet hurting and her leg, ankles and toes getting tingly and numb. This limited her cooking, cleaning, shopping, and other daily life activities and responsibilities.
Linda dealt with all of these struggles on her own until July 9, 2013, when she contacted the Morris James Personal Injury Group. As a result of our team approach, Linda had the opportunity to work with several of our attorneys in different phases of her case.
While dealing with the discomfort and pain caused by her injuries, Linda also suffered the loss of her mother on February 4, 2014, and her father on March 22, 2015. Both times, Linda traveled to her parents’ native land of Vietnam to take care of family matters after their deaths. Linda did all of this while dealing with her injuries and the legal issues of her case.
Because the pre-trial offer of settlement was not a fair one, we took the case to trial and obtained a significant and fair jury award for our client.
On August 9, 2015, Linda and her fiance married. Their first child was born in December 2016!
