Source: https://www.schlesingerlawoffices.com/results/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 16:14:39+00:00

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Our Results | Schlesinger Law Offices, P.A.
Schlesinger Law Offices, P.A. is a firm steeped in tradition. For more than 60 years, we have continuously yielded important verdicts and winning results for our clients. View some of our multi-million dollar results below.
Shane McGee was a passenger when the family car was rear-ended. The impact of the collision punctured the fuel tank causing their Oldsmobile to burst into flames. Shane McGee was killed in the fire. The jury found that General Motors placed the vehicle on the market knowing of the potential fuel tank hazard.
Note: After being retained by the McGee family, our firm obtained secret documents that revealed that GM knew it could prevent fuel fed fires with a fuel tank shield that would have cost $4.50 per vehicle. Details of the case were reported in a feature story on 60 Minutes.
Attorneys at the Schlesinger Law Offices convinced a Broward County jury to award $25 million in punitive and $12 million in compensatory damages to the family of Rita Mahfuz, who died of lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris cigarettes.
30 Million Dollar Verdict Tomlian v. Mark S. Grenitz M.D., and Westside Regional Medical Center An unborn baby was in distress with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. His doctor and hospital medical team ignored signals and tests, which ultimately resulted in severe brain damage including cerebral palsy, spastic legs and arms, mental retardation, kidney failure and other conditions. The doctor and hospital were both found to be negligent.
An unborn baby was in distress with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. His doctor and hospital medical team ignored signals and tests, which ultimately resulted in severe brain damage including cerebral palsy, spastic legs and arms, mental retardation, kidney failure and other conditions. The doctor and hospital were both found to be negligent.
A Broward County jury awarded $15.9 million in damages to South Florida resident in a medical malpractice case against rheumatologist.
A 26 years old was forced to undergo amputations of parts of her hands and feet following one week of care under of a physician and a South Florida hospital. The Schlesinger legal team successfully argued that the doctor was negligence caused injuries.
Francis Ziadie v. Dr. Hoang Dinh Doung ?
A Miami-Dade jury has awarded $14.5 million against Geico to a former chiropractor who was severely injured in a highway collision with an uninsured motorist.
Jurors sided with Dr. David Zucker and his wife on Monday in awarding $14.5 million for past and future lost earnings, medical expenses, pain and suffering. Zucker suffered permanent spinal and urologic injuries in the collision near the Golden Glades interchange in December 2004. The award included $2.5 million to his wife and passenger, Carrie Zucker, for loss of consortium. She was pregnant at the time.
The Zuckers were represented by Crane Johnstone and Charles Patrick of the Schlesinger Law Offices in Fort Lauderdale in the trial before Judge John Schlesinger.
Miguel Gonzalez collided with Juan Chirino, who was driving an 18-wheel tanker. The impact sent Gonzalez’s vehicle careening across three lanes of traffic before crashing head on into Zucker’s car.
Gonzalez was uninsured, while Chirino was underinsured. Carrying uninsured motorist benefits, the Zuckers filed a claim against Geico, their insurer. The couple sued after Geico refused to pay.
The jury found Gonzalez fully responsible for the accident, which put Geico on the hook for the award.
A Miramar teen who lost all four limbs as a result of a vaccination error 13 years ago won a $12.6 million medical malpractice award Friday against the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine.
A woman who was admitted to the hospital following a car accident, was left with permanent brain damage after it took staff more than 30 minutes to notice that her respirator had malfunctioned. While in the hospital, she also contracted an eye infection which left her blind in one eye.
$12 million compensatory damage award for one of our clients after we filed a lawsuit against Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds for causing our client’s spouse’s cigarette addiction and fatal lung cancer.
Fort Lauderdale, FL—Jurors awarded more than $9.1 million, including $3 million in punitive damages, to a Florida widow for the role they concluded the nation’s two largest tobacco companies played in a smoker’s cancer and death. Oshinsky-Blacker v. R.J. Reynolds, et al., 2008-CV-025841.
Friday’s punitive award came a day after jurors handed down a $6.1 million compensatory verdict finding R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris liable for the 2000 death of Dennis Oshinsky, 60. Notably, the decision included a finding that both companies were liable on conspiracy grounds, despite the parties’ stipulation there was no direct link between Reynolds cigarettes and Oshinsky’s alleged nicotine addiction, smoking-related cancer, or death.
Oshinsky, a Florida merchant who allegedly smoked Philip Morris’ Marlboro cigarettes for 37 years, died 7 years after being diagnosed with smoking-related lung cancer that spread to his brain, and a month after being diagnosed with a second type of lung cancer not usually associated with cigarettes. His wife, Marilyn Oshinsky-Blacker, sued Reynolds and Philip Morris, claiming they conspired to hide the dangers of smoking she says ultimately hooked her husband and led to his death.
The case is one of thousands of similar Florida lawsuits against U.S. tobacco companies. They arise from a 2006 Florida Supreme Court decision decertifying Engle v. Liggett Group Inc., a class-action tobacco case originally filed in 1994. Although the state’s high court ruled Engle cases must be tried individually, it found plaintiffs could rely on certain jury findings in the original verdict, including the determination that tobacco companies had placed a dangerous, addictive product on the market and had hidden the dangers of smoking. To rely on those findings, individual Engle progeny plaintiffs must establish a causal link between nicotine addiction and smoking-related disease. To establish liability on conspiracy grounds, a plaintiff must prove the smoker relied on fraudulent statements made in furtherance of the conspiracy.
Friday’s decision caps a 14-day, two-part trial involving issues ranging from the circumstances surrounding Oshinky’s death to the tobacco companies’ modern-day conduct.
After the trial, one of Oshinsky-Blacker’s attorneys, Scott Schlesinger, of The Law Offices of Sheldon J. Schlesinger, P.A., told CVN he was generally happy with the outcome. “We were able to show that lies costs lives, that the truth matters, and that the reason they were lying was that it sustained sales,” Schlesinger said.
Neither attorneys for the defense nor tobacco company representatives could be reached for comment.
Central to the week-long trial on Engle class membership were the role Oshinsky’s smoking-related lung cancer played in his death and Reynolds’ responsibility in the case. Although both sides acknowledged smoking caused Oshinky’s 1993 lung cancer, which spread to his brain and was treated with radiation and lung-removal surgery, the sides disputed what caused his death in 2000. Meanwhile, plaintiffs claimed “Marlboro Man” ads touting the safety of filtered cigarettes led Oshinsky to smoke the brand for decades, ultimately causing his first bout of cancer.
During Tuesday’s closings, Womble Carlyle’s Geoffrey Beach, representing Reynolds, reminded jurors the company’s cigarettes were not directly linked to Oshinsky’s alleged nicotine addiction or death. He also challenged the conspiracy charge by noting the Philip Morris “Marlboro Man” ad Oshinsky described never existed. “Plaintiff’s own experts confirmed companies weren’t making health claims on filters,” Beach said.
As to the cause of Oshinsky’s death, Shook Hardy’s Kenneth Reilly, representing Philip Morris, said evidence established Oshinsky’s 1993 bout with smoking-related lung cancer was successfully treated, while physicians diagnosed his 2000 lung tumor as bronchioalveolar carcinoma, or BAC, a type of lung cancer not typically associated with smoking.
However, plaintiff’s attorneys contended Oshinsky’s prior bout with smoking-related cancer rendered it harder to treat his subsequent lung cancer and fatally weakened his immune system. During Tuesday’s closings, Schlesinger highlighted medical records painting a poor prognosis for Oshinsky following the 2000 cancer diagnosis. “His overall sickened condition from smoking-related disease rendered him a very poor candidate for any sort of treatment to fix him,” Schlesinger said.
Schlesinger also reminded jurors of expert testimony concluding Oshinsky died largely because his earlier treatment for smoking-related cancer permanently weakened his immune system.
Jurors deliberated for more than a day before reaching their verdict. The compensatory award was more than half of the $10 million Oshinsky-Blacker’s attorneys requested for her wrongful death claim during closings.
The Punitive Phase: Are Tobacco Industry Changes Enough to Mitigate Damages?
The trial’s two-day punitive phase focused largely on whether the companies had done enough over the last two decades to mitigate against the damage they allegedly caused by concealing the dangers of smoking for much of the 20th century.
But the defense argued a myriad of regulatory and corporate changes over the last two decades ended tobacco’s concealment of smoking’s health risks, helped further youth anti-smoking education, and mitigated against a large punitive award.
Jurors needed about three hours to hand down the $3 million punitive verdict. Notably, the jury’s $2 million award against Reynolds was twice the $1 million in punitives it imposed on Philip Morris, despite the direct link between Morris’ Marlboros and Oshinsky’s cancer.
Garner v. Southern Group Indemnity and Statewide Adjusters ?
While waiting to make a turn, an expectant mother was struck by a careless driver. The victim survived the accident but was in a coma for more than three months of her pregnancy. She suffered severe brain damage, paralysis of her left side and now requires twenty-four-hour care.
At thirty-two weeks gestation, an expectant mother went into the hospital with complications. Attending physicians did not properly communicate with each other over the next critical days with regard to the specifics of her pregnancy. At thirty-three weeks, physicians failed to recognize that she was in labor and the baby was born under duress with a diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy.
A rear seat passenger sustained severe injury when the rental car in which he was being transported could not avoid colliding with a car cutting in front. Cervical injury required fusion at C5-C6 and C6-C7, and the victim can no longer participate in the sports activities that were the joy of his life. The jury found in favor of the victim based on driver negligence.
Michael & Michele Gamsen v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Co.
Michael Gamsen, a Pembroke Pines respiratory therapist, was driving his company’s Dodge van west on Hollywood Boulevard when he was rear-ended on March 11, 2003. The other driver, Murray Kasten, was underinsured. Gamsen’s company, Hollywood Medical Supply, had uninsured motorist coverage with State Farm Fire and Casualty. However, the insurance company did not pay.
Gamsen underwent back surgery in hopes of alleviating pain from the accident in 2004, but the operation made it worse. He stopped working about nine months after the collision. His attorney, Steven J. Hammer, said Gamsen has pain that resonates throughout his body and takes time-released morphine to cope with the pain.
That court reinstated a $4.7 million damage award to Susan Kalitan, who sued North Broward Hospital District and others over complications from surgery, namely that her esophagus was punctured during the administering of anesthesia.
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL, Sep 11, 2015 (Marketwired via COMTEX) — A team of attorneys at Schlesinger Law Offices P.A. secured a $4.5 million jury verdict for Mary Cooper in a Broward Circuit Court trial against tobacco giants Philip Morris USA Inc. and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.
In the Sept. 8 verdict, a six-person jury awarded Cooper a total of $4.5 million for past and future pain and suffering, lost earnings, reduced future earning capacity and medical expenses incurred from an ongoing battle with cancer that began nearly 20 years ago. Born in 1951, Cooper began smoking cigarettes in the early 1960s and remained addicted to nicotine for almost 40 years despite numerous attempts to quit. In 1996, Cooper discovered a lump in her throat that was later diagnosed as laryngeal cancer and resulted in a 2001 surgery to remove her larynx.
The attorney’s Scott Schlesinger, Steven J. Hammer, Jonathan Gdanski and Crane Johnstone represented Cooper in the lawsuit. The case stems from the landmark Engle class-action suit against the major tobacco companies, which were found to have conspired to conceal information about the harmful impact and addictive nature of cigarettes. The Florida Supreme Court decertified the class in 2006, opening the door for the findings in the Engle case to be used by individual plaintiffs like Cooper.
Cooper’s case was originally tried in Broward Circuit Court last year, but that jury was unable to reach a verdict. The retrial commenced last month.
For Cooper, the timing of the $4.5 million jury award is critical. Since the original trial, she found out that the cancer had returned and spread to her liver. Since 2001 Cooper has spoken through the use of an electrolarynx. In 2004 cancer was found in her lungs which required the removal of one lobe.
Sheldon J. Schlesinger P.A., won a $4.34 million jury verdict against two neonatalogists on behalf of a young girl left permanently injured - the result of a viral infection misdiagnosed at birth.
Stephanie Preshong Brown v. Good Samaritan Hospital Inc.
A Palm Beach County jury has awarded $4 million on behalf of a child suffering from severe mental retardation that the family blamed on a delayed delivery in a West Palm Beach hospital more than 11 years ago.
Alvarez v. Nissan Motor Co.
A 35-year-old teacher jerked the steering wheel of her Nissan Pathfinder to avoid going onto the median after coming off a dangerous curve in the road. The vehicle flipped onto the driver's side, resulting in a partial amputation of one arm. The jury found the Nissan could have and should have designed their vehicle so as not to roll over in situations such as this.
Note: Nissan documents from the 1970's were found that discussed how the company could design a car so that it would not roll over as a result of extreme steering. In these documents Nissan called this "Overturning Immunity."
A husband and wife were severely injured in a head-on car collision in Coconut Creek. The 18-year old driver of the other car admitted liability in the accident.?
A 48-year-old baseball fan was watching a baseball game at Joe Robbie Stadium when she was hit between the eyes by a wild pitch coming out of the bullpen. The jury found that the protective screen was too low to prevent the injury, which resulted in a broken nose, chronic migraine headaches, and the necessity for continued cognitive retraining. All the defendants settled confidentially after jury selection, except the Philadelphia Phillies and Robbie Stadium Corp. The trial lasted nine weeks.
Doctors left a 12"x12" sponge inside a woman's abdomen after she underwent a cesarean section and was left for days, causing irreparable damage. She is now unable to have more children.
Seventeen-year-old ballet dancer needed arthroscopic surgery. Surgeon broke two bone shaver instruments inside the patient's hip. Patient now walks with a crutch and is in constant pain. Both hospital and orthopedic surgeon were found to be negligent.
Note: This law firm refused to be pressured into a settlement that threatened a $10,000 decrease in the offer for every day it was not accepted.
Lee v. Bret Whipple, M.D.
A 25-year old Ft. Lauderdale man was left paralyzed after a motorcycle accident. He was rushed to the hospital after the accident, but was then left unattended for 40 minutes. By the time a doctor saw him, he was paralyzed from the waist down. Hospital records indicated he was moving his arms and legs when he was brought into the emergency room.
In a high-stakes case, our firm won a $1.59 million verdict for our 65-year-old client, who spent nearly 6 years suffering from lasting injuries without a cent of compensation. Our client was sitting in a restaurant in an area known for high levels of criminal activity and the shopping center owners in which the restaurant was located took no steps to protect their patrons. Outside the restaurant, a woman was sitting in her car when two men attempted to rob her. In a moment of panic, she drove the car into the restaurant and broke our client’s back and ribs, gave him a head injury, and fractured his leg in multiple places. The property owners previously had a chance to prevent issues like this; either by hiring security guards or installing pipe bollards to keep the front of the restaurant safe from cars. They did neither, and our client paid the price. We are happy he has now received the financial security he needs to support himself, pay for the past and future medical expenses, and enjoy a better quality of life.
Our client was the owner of a 30-unit condo who hired a termite company that promised to get rid of the termites without requiring tent fumigation. The defendant would drill into the wood and inject it with a pesticide allegedly designed to kill termites. However, their methods were ineffective and led to a termite infestation across all 3 floors of the structure—even spreading to the condo units themselves. Our client hired a second termite company to do tent fumigation, but the damage had been done: there was over $450,000 of structural damage to the attic and trusses of the building. Because our client had to take a loan out to repair the damage, the total costs associated with the defendant’s negligence and false promises were over $550,000. The defendant argued that a.) the damage was preexisting, and b.) they had a contract that limited their liability. The jury rejected both defenses and awarded our client $551, 881 in damages, most of which will go toward reimbursing them for the cost of repairs.
Our firm won a verdict of $481,500 for a Fort Lauderdale client who suffered a concussion and orthopedic injuries when he was hurt by a negligent driver. Our client, a former public school construction supervisor, was riding a motorcycle on a clear day when the defendant crossed his path without giving our client enough time to stop. As a result, he struck the driver’s fender and launched into the street. His orthopedic injuries included a separated AC joint (a deeply painful shoulder injury that requires surgery) and a torn rotator cuff. His neurological injuries, however, are far worse. As a result of the concussion, our client has experienced distressing personality changes, vertigo, and memory issues. His jury award will go toward providing him with corrective surgery to his shoulder, ongoing neurological treatment, and reimbursing his medical expenses over the last several months.
While maneuvering to park her motorcycle, Karen Tarte was struck by a reversing postal service van. The collision resulted in a fractured tibia, fibula, neck sprain/strain and resultant major depressive reaction. The court found the postal worker negligent and awarded our client over $350,000.

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