Bridgeport Superior Court courthouse at 1061 Main St., Bridgeport. Photo: Google

Faced with a defense offer of $30,000 for a client who suffered back injuries in a car wreck but who had never had surgery, plaintiff's counsel Ephraim Fink knew he had to convince the insurance carrier that a jury award could easily be in the six figures.

Fink, a partner with Westport-based Maya Murphy, said insurance carrier Everett Auto Insurance had a "very general blasé approach to the situation, saying my client had got back to most of the activities he was doing before the accident."

Fink, though, felt he'd have an advantage with the jury, if the case went that far. He had a 35-year-old client, Trumbull resident John May, who doctors had said might require chiropractic treatments weekly until "he was in his 70s or 80s."

Surgery in the midback area, where the pain emanated, was too risky, Fink said.

"There is a sympathy factor there," said Fink.

The attorney also felt older jurors would feel a connection to his client's physical disability. May has a 15% permanent injury rating on his thoracic spine and a 5% permanency rating on the cervical part of the spine, Fink said.

"The potential for a sympathetic jury was there," said Fink, who settled the case for $140,000 on April 28. "Realizing my client could have to have chiropractic treatments weekly and for decades would have gotten their attention."

According to Fink and the January 2019 lawsuit filed in Bridgeport Superior Court, May was driving his car on Interstate 95 North in Fairfield, when a three-car collision occurred.

The complaint alleged defendant Steven Morcaldi's vehicle struck another that Paul Bessinger was driving. The impact was allegedly so forceful it caused Bessinger's vehicle to strike the rear of May's car.

The first driver, Morcaldi, was driving a vehicle belonging to his employer, Cisco LLC, which was a co-defendant in the suit.

Responding law enforcement officers issued Morcaldi an infraction for failure to keep a reasonable distance from the vehicle in front of him.

Fink said May, who is an information technology salesman, missed work intermittently for about seven months because of the crash.

The case was mediated in front of Judge Henry Cohn at the New Britain Superior Courthouse.

Defense counsel, Kevin Connolly of Pillinger Miller Tarallo in New York, did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

But in court pleadings, the defense blamed May's "own negligence and carelessness and failure to exercise ordinary care." It argued May "failed to keep a reasonable and proper lookout" and "failed to make reasonable use of his senses and faculties."

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