Days after securing a $697,000 settlement for a client who was wheelchair-bound before the injury, plaintiff counsel Pamela Cameron said the message to fellow attorneys is simple: Do not underestimate the impact of major trauma on a person who's already injured or ill.

"We should never dismiss a plaintiff that is already impaired," Cameron said Wednesday. "Taking these cases can actually be more valuable because people, like my client, have a more difficult trajectory after trauma than a more able-bodied person. That was a big deal in this case."

Cameron, of Moore O'Brien & Foti, clinched the settlement for 61-year-old Bryan Troie of Feeding Hills, Massachusetts. Troie was injured after the bottom of his wheelchair's footrest struck a concrete handicap ramp and ejected him from the wheelchair.

Troie has a spinal cord injury and needs to use a wheelchair. He had been taking his elderly mother to a medical appointment in Enfield in 2016 when the incident occurred. Enfield Medical Associates Inc. owned the wheelchair in question. He filed a lawsuit in Hartford Superior Court in May 2018.

Cameron said Troie's wheelchair was being repaired, so he used one that Enfield Medical Associates provided. But Cameron said the footrest on that device struck the ramp, injuring her client, who landed on his thigh.

The lawsuit alleges that Enfield Medical Associates "failed to properly construct and maintain a handicap ramp with an incline that was suitable for wheelchair use," and "failed to properly and reasonably provide wheelchairs with two adjustable footrests for patients to use in accessing the building."

The incident caused Troie to suffer pain in his head, lower shoulder, right elbow, and lower back, and he fractured his right leg, requiring two surgeries.

Cameron said Troie lost strength and mobility due to his broken leg.

"He is unable to pivot himself from a wheelchair into a regular driver's seat of a vehicle because of the incident," Cameron said. "He had to purchase a special van where the wheelchair is actually the driver's seat. The injury really affected him and made him homebound for close to six months, until he was well enough to get the van."

Michael Riley, a retired Superior Court judge who works at Pullman & Comley,  mediated the case in January. He kept in touch with the plaintiff and defendant side until they both agreed on the $697,000 settlement Monday evening, Cameron said. Of the total amount, $69,700 was paid to Troie's wife, Karen Gula, for loss of consortium. The settlement money will be disbursed within 30 days, Cameron said.

There were two defendants in the case who paid the settlement. The bulk of the settlement was paid via Enfield Medical Associates but Steven Troie, the plaintiff's brother, also paid $82,000 toward the settlement. Enfield Medical Associates had said Steven Troie was also liable because he was pushing the wheelchair that his brother was in.

Representing Enfield Medical Associates is Christopher Acquanita of Hamden-based Law Offices of Cynthia M. Garraty. Acquanita declined to comment for this article.

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