Defense Verdict in Limousine Case

Mr. Vitucci obtained a unanimous verdict for the defendant in a case involving a pedestrian knockdown. The plaintiff claimed to have been struck by the defendant’s limousine. The matter was tried before Judge Thomas Aliotta of the Supreme Court, Richmond County. The plaintiff, a doorman for the W Hotel on West 47th Street, claimed that while he was helping to direct vehicles to the side of the road to pick up hotel patrons, the defendant’s vehicle backed into him at high speed, throwing him 15 feet into the road and onto the hood of a car behind them. Plaintiff contended that he sustained various head and back injuries that would require lumbosacral spinal fusion surgery. In finding for the defendant, the jury credited the defendant driver’s account of the accident, that being that there was no contact with the pedestrian plaintiff.