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SKETCHES OF COURT: Jury finds against veteran in summary jury car accident trial

September 26, 2018 By Alba Acevedo Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Court sketch by Alba Acevedo
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In this courtroom sketch, Hon. Carl Landicino listens as plaintiff’s attorney Hugh Jasne (standing), of the law firm Jasne & Florio, makes his opening remarks in the summary jury motor vehicle accident trial Francis v. Oyola, et. al. Diane Klein, co-counsel, is seated at center. The plaintiff is seated at left. Defendant’s attorney Eric Fields, outside counsel to the law offices of Longo & D’Apice, is seated at right. 

Francis alleged that her Dodge Caliber was rear-ended in an abrupt impact while she waited her turn behind cars on the approach to the east-bound BQE, at Morgan Avenue in 2012. Francis and the defendant driver exchanged information at the time but declined to summon police. While riding home from the accident Francis suddenly experienced intense pain and reported to a VA hospital. Francis had once been a bosun’s mate in the Navy, who operated a crane to lift torpedos onto submarines. Francis currently is an employment specialist at a homeless veterans’ shelter, after needing to change careers to accommodate chronic discomfort for which she had received treatment. Francis, 51 years old, claims that the accident caused new injuries to her neck, back and shoulders and great exacerbation of symptoms, which Jasne asserted was indisputable in the evidentiary packet of medical records.  

The defendant driver alleged that Francis had caused the accident by coming to a sudden stop. Fields maintained that a low impact collision on an inclined highway on-ramp would not have caused the severity of symptoms that Francis claimed. 

The jury returned a verdict finding the defendants to be 75 percent at fault for causing the accident, but failed to find serious injury in the trial that resolved last week in Kings County Civil Term.

 

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