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.

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.

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.