Faced with defense counsel offering $150,000 to his client, a pedestrian injured after a car struck him on a busy New Haven street, plaintiff's counsel said he was seeking the insurance policy's full amount of $250,000. He therefore devised a strategy to get there.

That lawyer—Steven Errante, a partner with New Haven's Lynch, Traub, Keefe & Errante—said he decided that an offer of compromise for $250,000 was the best approach.

But there were risks.

"The offer of compromise is not used as often as it should be," Errante said. "You have to be strategic. … Sometimes, it does not make sense to go that route because you might not know the extent of your client's injuries, and doing so might undervalue your case. Also, sometimes attorneys do not file because of laziness, or they are too busy to think about it and sometimes it's hard to get client's to come on board."

Errante filed the offer of compromise Feb. 13, and the defense accepted on March 11.

"I said to them, 'Here is my offer of compromise. It's for the $250,000 policy limit, and we will not take a penny less,'" he said. "The risk to the defense was if they said no, and a jury awarded more, they'd also have to apply all interest accrued since the time of the offer of compromise. The offer of compromise was the ace in the hole. It forced them to make a decision."

The defense decided to forgo a trial, in which the court had moved jury selection from late March to May, because of coronavirus precautions.

The $250,000 will be disbursed before April 10.

Next, for Errante, who said the case is worth $500,000, is to pursue plaintiff Tilman Bartelsmeyer's father's underinsured motorist coverage, which Connecticut law allows.

Errante said a Honda Civic that defendant Janet Yoder was driving struck Bartelsmeyer, who was in a crosswalk on College Street near the Yale University campus.

"She hit him and he rolled up on the hood of the car, and his head hit the windshield," the attorney said. "He then rolled off the car to the asphalt pavement."

Yoder was given an infraction for failure to grant the right of way to a pedestrian. Bartelsmeyer filed suit in New Haven Superior Court in September 2018.

Yoder's attorney is Michael Romanelli Jr. of Wallingford-based Meehan, Roberts, Turret & Rosenbaum. He did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

In court filings, the defense said Bartelsmeyer's "own negligence and carelessness" was "a substantial factor in causing the accident." The pleadings argued that the plaintiff "was inattentive, and failed to keep a reasonable and proper lookout for his own safety."

The plaintiff, a 20-year-old Missouri resident, is an engineering major at Yale. Errante said the student, now a senior, had to leave during his sophomore year following the January 2017 incident.

"His biggest injury was to his head, for which he has not completely recovered from," Errante said. "He had headaches for about a year; had trouble concentrating and his vision was affected."

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