Personal Injury Case Results – Over $1 Billion Recovered

After rejecting the U.S. Attorney’s $20,000 top offer to settle, Schechter, Shaffer & Harris attorneys Jonathan S. Harris and Laura De La Cruz obtained a $2.9 million dollar judgment for Jose Acosta, an injured train locomotive engineer.

Our client was severely injured when a boat pulley broke and the cable hit him, knocking him into the water.

Client Received Total: $1,495,577.13

While on stern of tug attempting to hook up a barge, the “L” line became tight, broke, hit our client, cut his leg off and broke his other leg. The Captain had positioned the boat too far down the side of the barge.

Client Received Total: $1,484,862.20

The 4-year-old daughter of a crane operator who was tragically killed in a December 2014 dredging accident will be taken care of for the rest of her life as a result of attorney Matthew Shaffer’s negotiation of a $2.5 million settlement in a mere 60 days. The single father was working aboard a crane barge in Delaware when the barge capsized and 3 crewmembers were thrown into the Christina River.

While working as an A/B seaman aboard a vessel being positioned for dockside mooring, our client was ordered by the captain to take the mooring lines to power. Before the lines could be secured, the captain ordered the vessel’s tug to be let go. A line snapped, causing our client moderate to severe traumatic brain injury; post-traumatic cognitive deficits; vertigo; rotator cuff injury; tibia fracture; chronic knee, leg ankle, foot, shoulder and thumb pain; and chronic headaches.

Client Received Total: $1,277,215.64 plus $84,226 for future medical

This is believed to be one of the largest settlements paid by the United States of America to a Jones Act seaman.