$2.4MRear-end collision causing spinal fusion surgery

Our client was stopped at a red light when a delivery van struck her vehicle from behind at approximately 40 miles per hour. Liability was never seriously contested. The fight was over whether a woman of 38 with a documented history of intermittent back pain needed a two-level fusion because of this collision.

The defence retained a radiologist who characterised every finding on her post-crash MRI as degenerative and age-appropriate.

We obtained her imaging from four years earlier and had both studies read side by side by a neuroradiologist, who identified an annular tear and endplate changes at L4-L5 and L5-S1 that were absent from the prior films.

We then deposed her treating surgeon on the mechanism, and collected statements from her employer and her rowing club establishing that she had been fully active in the months before the crash — testimony the paper review had no answer for.

The carrier moved from a $180K offer to $2.4 million over two mediation sessions once the comparative imaging was disclosed. The case settled without reaching a jury.

She has returned to work in a modified role. The settlement accounts for the fusion, an anticipated adjacent-segment revision, and the earning capacity lost to permanent lifting restrictions.