At Stanley Law Offices, it’s always personal. We measure our work by one standard: what we actually recover for injured people across Upstate New York and Pennsylvania. This result belongs to a client we’ll call Frank.*
Frank had done the hard work of recovering. Just eight months earlier he had undergone back surgery, and he was slowly rebuilding his life around that repair. Then he stopped at a convenience store and went to use the restroom.
There was water on the floor. No wet floor sign, no cone, no warning of any kind. Frank slipped, fell, and undid everything his first surgery had accomplished. The fall aggravated his back injury so severely that he needed a second operation: a spinal fusion and a laminectomy.
Cases like Frank’s are where insurance companies feel most confident. Their argument writes itself: he already had a bad back, he already had surgery, so the fall cannot be worth much. New York law says otherwise. A business takes an injured person as it finds him, and when its negligence aggravates an existing condition, it is responsible for that harm. Our job was to prove the difference between the back Frank walked in with and the back he left with, and his medical records drew that line clearly.
Two more things made this case demanding. Frank was retired, so there was no lost wage claim to anchor the damages. And a large VA lien sat against any recovery, which meant the real question was never just what the case would settle for, but what Frank would actually keep. Resolving that lien was part of the work of resolving the claim.
Frank also told us clearly that he wanted his case resolved without a lawsuit. We respected that. We built the claim, presented the evidence, and settled it for $250,000 before the case was ever put in suit. No filing, no years of litigation, no trial. Just a result.
A prior injury does not disqualify your case. In the wrong hands it becomes the insurance company’s best weapon. In the right hands it becomes a documented baseline that proves exactly what the fall took from you.
*Our client’s name has been changed to protect his privacy.
Hurt Because Someone Else Was Careless? Talk to Us First.
Talk to us before you talk to the insurance company. The consultation is free, and you pay nothing unless we win. Call Stanley Law Offices at 1-800-608-3333 or reach us online. It’s always personal.
