Workers’ Compensation and Civil Litigation Consultation & Defense
News
Favorable Outcome for Partner, Zarina Hora!
2017-05-23
We received the following great news From Erin Ward-Dugan, Co-Managing Partner in our Long Beach location, “Congratulations to Zarina Hora of the Long Beach office for her stellar work on this claim for our client CNA. Zarina was able to successfully argue that the Trial judge erred in finding that Applicant was 100% permanently totally disabled and entitled to $1,091,920.77 in a present value award and there was joint and several liability amongst three co-defendants. There was also a possibility that the statute of limitations would have prevented the third co-defendant from being liable, and American Casualty Company of Reading Pennsylvania, as administered by CNA, risked having to contribute 67%, or $731,586.92. However, Zarina was able to prevail on this argument as well and reduce liability for CNA even further!
Zarina, being the excellent litigator that we know her to be, immediately filed a Petition for Reconsideration requesting that the WCAB remand this back to the Trial level to issue a decision based on the facts. The WCAB accepted her argument and requested that the parties have an informal settlement conference to discuss the issues and resolve this case so that they would not have to write an opinion.
At the telephonic conference on 1/12/17, Applicant’s attorney demanded $900,000 to resolve these claims. Zarina used her negotiation skills to take the lead and to ultimately resolve the claim for $450,000. Our client’s liability was reduced to only $165,000.
On 5/17/17, The Honorable Judges at the WCAB issued an Opinion and Decision after Reconsideration advising that the settlement was adequate and issued an Order Approving.
Based on her savvy litigation and negotiation skills, Zarina was able to reduce our client’s liability by up to $566,586.92!!! WOW! Great Job Zarina! You continue to make us proud!”