Insurance Company Offers Settlement of $100,000 to Motorcycle Accident Victim, Jury Awards 18x More

PR Log (Press Release) – Feb 12, 2009 – In a victory for personal injury litigants everywhere, a Santa Clara County jury on February 4, 2009 awarded David Allen over $1.8 million as compensation for injuries that he received in a motorcycle accident occurring in San Jose, CA on April 30, 2007. The trial, which lasted over three weeks before the Honorable Joseph Huber, was conducted by Mr. Allen’s attorney B. Robert Allard of Corsiglia, Mc Mahon and Allard.

Mr. Allen claimed that the accident was caused due to the carelessness of a commercial truck driver employed by Bottomley Distributing, a longstanding beer distribution company in Santa Clara County which strongly disputed that it was in any way responsible for this motorcycle accident. The insurance company for Bottomley, St Paul/Travelers, topped out its settlement offers to Mr. Allen at $100,000 despite acknowledging that Mr. Allen suffered from a serious leg injury which required surgical intervention and another complicated surgery in the future to address a non-union.  

The jury effectively awarded Mr. Allen over eighteen times what he was offered in settlement by the insurance company. This hard line stance taken by St. Paul/ Travelers was buttressed by the assessment of the investigating police officers. The police officers reported that Mr. Allen was entirely at fault for this accident because he allegedly had crossed the double yellow lines on King Rd. just before the accident. The jury, however, dismissed this notion and ruled that Bottomley was 100% responsible for the accident.  

Attorney Allard, who was assisted at trial by Steven Kirby of Kirby, Kirby and Kirby in Redondo Beach, California, attributed this astounding result directly to his client. Attorney Allard commented, “I was fortunate to represent a man who refused to let this horrible accident ruin his life.  Instead of complaining about his condition and exaggerating about his injuries, he fought through and refused to quit.  I think the jury saw that and wanted to go to bat for that man, which is obviously what they did.”

About Attorney B. Robert Allard
This is the third straight seven figure jury verdict obtained by Attorney Robert (Bob) Allard in recent years, having previously represented a bicycle rider in San Francisco, California in 2008 and another motorcycle rider in Ventura, California in 2007. In part for his role as lead trial attorney in this last case in Ventura, which resulted in a jury verdict of over $3.1 million, Attorney Allard was awarded the Santa Clara County Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2007.