No one who lost a loved one or suffered injuries in the Station nightclub fire stands to make as much money as some of the lawyers who filed lawsuits in their behalf. Lawyers who represent the fire victims are slated to make almost $59 million from the $176 million that’s been offered to settle the personal-injury suits now pending in U.S. District Court, according to a newly filed report by a court-appointed special master. The report, filed by Providence lawyer William A. Poore, says that the plaintiffs’ attorneys charged a one-third contingency fee in agreeing to take on the cases, and to date have spent more than $1.2 million of their own money fronting the costs of the sprawling litigation.

Poore, who was appointed by Senior Judge Ronald R. Lagueux to review proposed settlements to children who will receive money from the lawsuits, called the fee arrangement fair given the amount of work involved. He also pronounced as equitable all of the proposed settlements that are earmarked for the minors who lost a parent in the Feb. 20, 2003, fire or who have a parent who was injured in the blaze.

Read more at
http://www.projo.com/news/content/STATION_FIRE_MASTER_REPORT_11-25-09_4NGIU8O_v14.3b3deb6.html

Scott Skirpan, a 50-year-old ex-Marine from Easton, lost both his legs three years ago in a gruesome industrial workplace injury accident in Pennsylvania at a Northampton County landfill. According to this article in The Philadelphia Daily News, the firm that owns the landfill, and Caterpillar Inc. (which made the bulldozer that crushed his legs), agreed to pay Skirpan $16.25 million to settle his negligence lawsuit in mid-trial. It is one of the largest settlements in Pennsylvania history for a single-victim personal-injury case.

On May 1, 2006, five days into his job as a truck spotter at the Chrin Sanitary Landfill, a massive track loader backed around a pile of garbage and ran him over.
Skirpan’s attorney argued that Chrin Brothers, which owns the landfill, had failed to train their client, and that the Caterpillar didn’t have adequate rear vision. Skirpan was airlifted to St. Luke’s Hospital Trauma Center, arriving in cardiac arrest. He had eleven operations. Ultimately, surgeons had to remove his right leg and part of his right hip, and most of his left leg.

Read more at
http://www.pennsylvaniapersonalinjuryblog.com/2009/07/worker_wins_16m_settlement.html

Scott SkirpanA Palmer Township man who was run over by a bulldozer at the Chrin Brothers Sanitary Landfill and lost his legs has won a $16.2 million court settlement, ending a three-year court battle. Scott Skirpan, who suffered the injury when working for the Chrin Brothers Sanitary Landfill in June 2006 in Williams Township, says other workers stood by and watched, according to The Associated Press. Skirpan had to call 911 himself on a cell phone.

"Next thing I know, all of a sudden, he comes backing up at me. And before I could say anything, it was like 'Boom!'" Skirpan, a former Marine, told Fox 29 in Philadelphia.

Read more at
http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/easton/index.ssf/2009/06/palmer_township_man_wins_162_m.html