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SKETCHES OF COURT: Case settles for $950K after partial verdict against driver of parked truck on BQE

April 29, 2015 By Alba Acevedo Special to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Court sketch by Alba Acevedo
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In this courtroom sketch, Hon. Karen Rothenberg listens as attorney Richard Brown (standing), of the law firm Picciano & Scahill, delivers his summation to the jury in the motor vehicle accident trial Gall vs. Schwed, Mike’s Heavy Duty Towing Inc., & Ane Kouassi that took place this week in Kings County Civil Term. At issue in the trial was the determination of liability. 

The collision took place in August 2008 at approximately 1 a.m. as Gall, represented by Joseph Awad (seated, second from left), of the law firm Silberstein, Awad & Miklos, was a passenger in a pick-up truck driven by her brother, defendant Schwed, when their vehicle ran into the back of a car-carrier tow truck parked on the zebra stripes of a service road at the intersection of the Long Island Expressway and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The plaintiff’s brother is represented by defense attorney Michael Buffa (seated, far left), of the law firm Gialleonardo, McDonald & Turchetti, while Brown represents the tow truck owner and driver defendants. Seated to the right of Awad is his paralegal, Antonio Rosas.  

The plaintiff sought to implicate the defendants in a series of poor choices amounting to negligence, including parking the tow truck over the crest of a hill where it wasn’t able to be seen in advance of impact. The tow truck defendants countered that they were assisting a disabled vehicle.  

The jury returned a verdict against the defendants, finding the brother 85 percent at fault and the parked tow truck owner and driver 15 percent at fault. The case was settled for $950,000, after the liability verdict and before the damages phase of the bifurcated trial. 

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