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

By now, everyone in the Bay Area should be familiar with the case of Dax Pierson--keyboard player for Anticon offshoot Subtle, Amoeba record employee, and all around laid-back individual. Back in 2005, Pierson and the band were rolling through deep red state territory--Iowa--when the band's tour van hit a patch of black ice.

Unluckiness turned to tragedy in the moments that followed. The van rolled. Pierson's seat came loose. He slammed headfirst onto the roof, instantly paralyzing him. No one else in the car sustained more than a bump or a bruise.

Pierson sued Ford for faulty design mechanics, arguing that the defective seat contributed to his life-threatening injuries. The automaker denied that claim, blaming excessive speed for the near-fatal accident. On Wednesday, as reported in the Chron, a jury of 12 sided with Pierson, awarding him a total of 18.3 million dollars for medical expenses, pain, and suffering.


Read more at
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2009/05/dax_pierson_awarded_18m_in_set.php

Attorneys representing the Boardwalk Apartment complex and its management company entered into a $12 million settlement agreement on Monday with plaintiff’s lawyers of 9 different claimants. The Boardwalk Apartment complex went up in flames in October 2005, killing three people and injuring 20 other residents reported the Lawrence Journal-World & News. The owners of the Boardwalk located at 524 Frontier Road in Lawrence, Kansas issued demands to tenants to vacate the premises because of hazard and safety concerns for residents still occupying units in the apartment community.

Lawrence residents will be allowed to break their leases and refunded prepaid rents and security deposits. The horrific apartment fire killed three people, injured at least 20, caused massive property damages, and left scars on those residents who had to jump from third floor units to avoid critical injury and death.

Family matriarch Betty Salters was shopping for the Thanksgiving dinner she loved to cook when the SUV she was riding in was struck by a squad car speeding through a South Side intersection to assist with a nearby arrest.

Salters and her two-year-old granddaughter, who were riding in the backseat, were thrown from a rear passenger window that blew out on impact during the November, 2005 accident at the intersection of 63rd and Saint Lawrence. Salters was dead on arrival at Cook County Hospital. Two-year-old Quintaniya Jackson suffered a head injury, but has largely recovered.

Today, a City Council committee approved a $3.5 million settlement to compensate the Salters family for the loss of a 56-year-old woman who had cared for two adult daughters with learning disabilities and served as foster mother to two grandchildren.

Chicago Police Lt. Albert Wolf, who blew through a red light at “upwards of 60 m.p.h.,” according to plaintiffs and witnesses, was suspended for just two days.


Read more at: http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall/1568236,fatal-squad-car-crash-settlement-051109.article