Case Results

The Estate of Nicholas Carusillo v. Metro Atlanta Recovery Residences, Inc., Richard Waldman, M.D.; and Matt Erwin.

This case involved the death of a young man on September 22, 2017. Nick Carusillo was 29 and had been forced to leave a dual-diagnosis mental health and drug treatment facility 60 hours before his death. He had been diagnosed as bipolar when he was 20. He also had a long history of substance abuse.

The psychiatrist at MARR did not believe Nick was truly bipolar and he stopped Nick’s lithium cold turkey and reduced his Seroquel to a non-therapeutic level. Three weeks later, MARR forced Nick to leave, against his will, because Nick allegedly violated a rule by having an unauthorized cell phone.

At that point, Nick was already de-compensating and despite MARR saying he needed a higher level of care, they sent him to a lower level of care (sober house). He begged to stay and his parents begged he be allowed to stay but MARR refused.

Two days later, Nick, while in a psychotic state, walked onto Interstate 85 at 4:00 am and laid down naked in the fetal position facing traffic and was hit by multiple cars and killed.

The defense said it was suicide. We said it was a psychotic break caused by the doctor taking him off his medications and the facility forcing him to leave against his will such that he was no longer in a safe place. The autopsy toxicology screen was clean.

There was gross misconduct in the days after his death in terms of MARR creating records and dating the records to look like they had been written while he was still at MARR. But Audit trails don’t lie. We were able to probe their bad faith in this case.

After a 14-day trial in a 5-year-long litigation case, a DeKalb County jury loudly declared that mental health matters and that treatment facilities that are negligent will be held accountable. The final jury verdict was a total award of about $77.5 million.

Estate of Israel Ramirez v. Avalon Mobile Home Park.

After a one-week trial a jury returned a verdict of $31 million for the wrongful death of Israel Ramirez. Mr. Ramirez was living with his sister and brother-in-law at Avalon Mobile Home Park.

Avalon had experienced multiple crimes in the years before Israel’s death. While home from work for lunch, Israel and his sister saw a thief stealing his car from his home. Israel reacted quickly and confronted the thief, who shot and killed him.

Avalon failed to have reasonable security in place to protect its residents from foreseeable crimes. At trial, Avalon tried to blame Israel for his own death, claiming he should not have reacted to the theft of his vehicle.

The defense claimed Israel acted unreasonably for defending his property. Our firm introduced evidence that the husband of Avalon’s property manager had left his own home to confront trespassers with a loaded gun on a previous occasion, contrasting the defense’s blaming Israel while celebrating a different resident who survived a similar encounter.

After hearing from Israel’s family members, including his children, the jury determined the value of his lost life, pain and suffering and awarded $31 million against Avalon Mobile Home Park.

Female Plaintiff v. Hospital and Doctor. Plaintiff was permanently disabled after a botched surgery to replace electrical leads on her pacemaker.

Plaintiff Name underwent a procedure to replace the leads on her pacemaker and was placed under anesthesia. Prior to the surgery, Plaintiff Name, was worried about the risks of the surgery and asked the doctor what emergency plans were in place if something went wrong. She was assured that there would be adequate preparations if any issues occurred.

However, during the surgery, an issue did arise, and the hospital and doctors were not prepared. Ms. Patient’s heart was nicked during the surgery, causing her to bleed out.

Defendants failed to have adequate emergency procedures on hand, and a surgeon was not immediately available. During the time she waited for lifesaving procedures to be performed, Plaintiff was without oxygen. She suffered severe brain damage due to the delay in treatment, leaving her permanently disabled.

The firm secured a settlement on the eve of trial, after several years of Plaintiff being cared for by her teenage son.

The firm was able to recover millions of dollars for the families of 5 victims tragically killed in a collision on an interstate highway.

The firm’s clients were traveling together in a work van when a car from the other side of the interstate suffered a blown tire, crossed the median, flipped over and landed on the roof of the vehicle.

Prior to settlement the Firm was able to obtain evidence that the tire was defectively manufactured and failed as a result of these manufacturing issues. This tragic case involved the deaths of 5 people in the work van, as well as the deaths of family members in the other vehicle with the defective tire.

In consultation and cooperation with lawyers for the family members in the other vehicle, the Firm successfully obtained evidence that the defective tire was the cause of this tragic accident.

Chhetri v. Michelin

On March 22, 2011, 50 year-old Mr. Kharka Chhetri, died after the vehicle in which he was riding experienced a failure of a defective tire. Mr. Chhetri was traveling on I-75 south near Forsyth, Georgia, along with 14 other passengers, all of whom were on their way to work in Perry, Georgia. The tread separation caused the driver of the van to lose control of the vehicle, causing the van to roll over several times. Unfortunately, Mr. Chhetri was ejected from the van and died as a result of his injuries.

We filed a lawsuit and litigated the case through trial. During the lengthy trial, we demonstrated to the jury that Defendant Michelin North America, Inc. negligently designed and manufactured the defective tire that failed. We also proved that Michelin knew, or should have known, that the tire was defective and dangerous, and that Michelin failed to warn the public of this danger, showing a conscious indifference to the consequences and warranting an award of punitive damages. Michelin argued that its tire was not defectively designed or manufactured.

After the trial concluded, the jury returned a verdict for our client and awarded $16,520,000 in damages for his wrongful death.

Smith  v. Evergreen Apartment Complex. DGL Attorneys obtained an $11 million settlement, the full limits of the property owner’s insurance, for the wrongful death of their client at Fake Name Apartments.

Evergreen Apartments was a troubled apartment complex with multiple crimes and shootings occurring regularly. Only a few weeks before Plaintiff went to the complex another shooting had occurred. Yet the apartment did not act reasonably to increase security or make the complex safe.

Plaintiff went to the apartments with two friends to meet another acquaintance who lived at the apartment complex. While waiting outside in their car to meet him, they were approached and confronted by other persons loitering in the parking lot. After a verbal altercation, Plaintiff, who was driving the car, attempted to leave. Instead, the loitering group began to fire guns at the car.

At least one of the passengers returned fire. During the ensuing firefight, Plaintiff was shot and killed. The bullet that killed him came from behind and hit him in the back as he was attempting to drive away.

The apartment complex had been written up in local news stories as an unsafe place without reasonable security in place to prevent rampant criminal activity.

Female Plaintiff v. Mio Trucking Company. A truck driver’s anger and rash decisions caused lifelong suffering to Plaintiff when she was severely injured in a trucking accident.

The driver for Mario Trucking Company had pulled into a parking lot of a closed retail store for unknown reasons. When the owners asked him to leave the lot, he became angry and volatile.

Without looking, the driver backed into the road of a busy state highway. He collided with a van, which was then catapulted into the opposite lane, where it hit Plaintiff’s minivan in a head-on collision. With her children in the backseat, Plaintiff nearly died at the scene, but miraculously survived with the help of bystanding witnesses.

She suffered severe internal injuries and was hospitalized for nearly 2 months. Eventually, she was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury that will have lifelong impact.

The Firm was able to defeat Mario Trucking Company’s attempts to blame the other driver and to deny wrongdoing by its own driver. The case settled after several years of litigation just a few weeks before trial.

Sofía v. Construction Company

Sofía (not her real name) was the mother of 2 children when she lost her life, after she was hit by a commercial motor vehicle while traveling as a passenger on a motorcycle.

We filed a lawsuit against the company for the both the driver’s negligent actions and the company’s negligence in not properly maintaining their commercial motor vehicle. During the litigation, we requested all maintenance records, hired the necessary experts, and made all the necessary inquiries in order to maximize our client’s recovery. During our investigation, we were able to verify that the truck’s brakes had an air leak and did not allow the driver to stop in time. Companies with commercial vehicles are required to keep their vehicles in good condition, and to have a record of the service history of their units. As a results of our efforts, we were able to get the company to compensate our clients $9,250,000.00 for Sofia’s wrongful death.

Plaintiff v. Business. A young man in the prime of his life was shot and killed by a thief robbing a car in a parking lot. Plaintiff was working as a valet at a restaurant after graduating college and before starting his master’s degree program.

While returning from parking a car he saw a thief breaking into a vehicle. Security was not present and did nothing to deter the thief. When Plaintiff said something to the thief, he suddenly shot and killed him.

DGL was able to achieve an early settlement near the insurance policy limits of the company, saving the family from years of painful litigation.

A significant factor in the early settlement was the hiring of our firm to represent the Plaintiff, as the Defendant knew it would likely lose the case at trial and thus offered an early settlement.