Over the past five years, the attorneys at the Law Offices of Stuart A. Kritzer, P.C. have helped clients throughout the U.S. recover over $100 million in awards and settlements.

The attorneys at the Law Offices of Stuart A. Kritzer, P.C. have helped many people, working to ensure that the rights and benefits of injured victims and their families are represented.

Click on the links to the above to read stories*, based on actual cases, that show how the attorneys at the Law Offices of Stuart A. Kritzer, P.C.  have helped their clients.

GARY'S STORY
Gary is a 40-year old man who, on July 5, 1997, had just moved to Colorado with his wife and daughter. After leaving a career with a large, public utility corporation, he was starting a new life of self-employment, working on his 250-acre ranch. To earn extra money, he would frequently cut and bale his neighbor’s fields.

One Saturday morning, the baling twine on his large round baler broke and would not feed itself through the compression rollers. Since this was a critical component of the round hay baler's operation, he was forced to dismount the tractor and walk back to the baler to manually feed the twine into the rollers. While doing this, and despite his vigilance, his left arm was pulled into the belts of the upper portion of the baler, causing both a serious crushing injury and the de-gloving or removal, of the skin from his arm. Although he was eventually able to yank his left arm out before it could be traumatically amputated, the torque of this motion caused his body to twist around, jamming his right arm directly into the rollers held together by eight hundred pounds of compression.

Over a period of approximately ninety minutes, Gary suffered the slow, painful grinding amputation of his right arm, just below the bicep. The only reason his entire body was not pulled into the machine was pure self-determination. The owner of the field came home and noticed the blowing dirt and hay from the stationary tractor in the field. His investigation saved Gary's life. When the emergency medical technicians arrived, it required a “Jaws of Life” and several individuals to separate the compression rollers. As a result of the injuries he received from the baler, our client has no right arm and a left arm with no more than twenty percent function. He became one hundred percent occupationally disabled at the age of 42.

The attorneys at the Law Offices of Stuart A. Kritzer, P.C. filed a complaint against the manufacturer of the baler. The design of the baler in question had defects that created an unreasonably dangerous condition not readily apparent to a user and for which no adequate warning was provided. They also alleged the designer of the baler never conducted a hazard analysis or other meaningful or appropriate safety engineering prior to bringing the product to the market. In addition, the complaint also alleged that from the day the Vermeer® big round baler was created, the manufacturer knew operators would have to place their hands in or about the pinch rollers while they were in operation in order to remedy clogging, baling twine problems and other malfunctions. Over the past 20 years, the company that manufactured the hay baler had knowledge of approximately one hundred similar, horrible accidents like this one. In those 20 years, the company never recalled the machine or put out a meaningful warning to its operators.

TERRI’S STORY
Bob Jensen proudly and ably served in the United States Army in Vietnam. In addition to being honorably discharged, he was a decorated soldier. Shortly after he left the Army, he met up with Terri who became his constant companion and the mother of his two children.
Bob and Terri loved to go riding on Bob’s motorcycle. One night, after attending a birthday party in Denver, Colorado, they got on the bike and headed towards Interstate 70 westbound so they could return to their home. What Bob and Terri did not know was that at the top of the on-ramp to the Interstate, in the dark, was a 76,000 pound piece of road equipment. An employee of the contractor who was in the process of resurfacing the highway had left the equipment there.

The resurfacing effort had shut down around midnight because the company had run out of asphalt. According to procedure, a “flagging” company hired specifically to provide warning lights, barricades, flagging and attendants was supposed to first close off the on-ramp so that no traffic could enter the highway at that location. Then, they were to safely and carefully escort the paving equipment off the road, down the on-ramp and ensure that the equipment was safely parked on the street.

Unfortunately, when the order was given to close the highway, a number of things went wrong. Instead of first closing off the on-ramp, the flagging company had guided one of the pieces of paving equipment to the side of the highway at the top of the on-ramp and left it there. The flagging crew then decided to go up to the next exit, turn around and come back to the on-ramp in order to close it. However, once that crew left, the operator of the road paver decided to back down the open on-ramp, without waiting. Although he was able to do so successfully, a second operator, with an even larger piece of highway equipment decided to do the same thing. The operator crossed the highway with his equipment and started backing down the on-ramp. He stopped near the top in order to lower a part of the equipment so it wouldn’t hit the low-hanging, overhead power lines. Unfortunately, he stopped where one of the street lights was out. From the bottom of the on-ramp, this 38-ton piece of equipment could not be seen.

Bob and Terri proceeded to drive up the on-ramp to a speed of about 45 miles an hour. In a matter of seconds, they hit the unseen 38-ton piece of paving equipment at high speed. Tragically, Bob was killed almost at impact. Terri received serious multiple injuries, including a head injury and fractures.

We helped Terri file suit against the highway resurfacing company, the flagging company and the operator of the equipment that was left on top of the on-ramp. We were able to get the operator to admit that he did not follow orders and had parked the vehicle at the top of the ramp, in a darkened area, knowing that the road was open and that traffic could collide with his vehicle. During his deposition, we successfully obtained an admission from the flagging company’s hired safety expert witness that had the company’s employees first shut the on-ramp before moving the vehicles (following proper procedure), the horrible collision would not have occurred. Fortunately, we also had an eyewitness who was right behind Bob and Terri’s motorcycle.

The attorneys at the Law Offices of Stuart A. Kritzer, P.C. litigated for nearly two years before the case was settled. The settlement paid off all of Terri’s substantial medical bills and left her with enough money for she and the remaining members of her family to live on comfortably for the rest of their lives.

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JAY'S STORY
Personal injury from automobile accidents can have long-term consequences especially when alcohol is involved.

Jay was an eighteen-year old who had just graduated from high school. In the fall, he was going to start a two-year outdoor education program at a junior college. In all respects, he was a healthy and typical young man—athletic, attractive and a life full of promise. He loved the mountains and, that summer after high school graduation, worked at a ski resort. One night, he and nine of his friends went to a private bachelor party at a local bar. Over the course of approximately two hours, the bar served more than one hundred kamikaze vodka shooters to these ten young men, an average of ten per participant.

Jay got into his friend’s car, a fellow attendee of the bachelor party. Jay’s friend proceeded to drive in an irresponsible and reckless fashion, eventually careening off the road and flipping the car within one mile of the party. While the driver walked away unscathed, Jay was flipped out of the car and rendered a paraplegic. His fight to regain control over his body and direction in life is a story filled with courage and enormous hard work.

RUTH'S STORY
One summer morning, after visiting family in Texas, Ruth and Frank set out to return home to Denver in their late model Cadillac. After driving for approximately three hours, they stopped for gas at which point Frank asked Ruth to take over driving. Frank, in the front passenger seat, was reading to Ruth at about noon when, about one mile down the road, a 40-ton tractor-trailer was coming toward them, out of control. Ruth doesn’t remember exactly what happened next, just that she needed to get out of the way of a big truck blocking her lane. The rig ended up driving over the right front and passenger side of the Cadillac, causing it to roll over several times and kill Frank. Ruth survived with a badly fractured ankle and ribs, as well as injury to her respiratory system. She immediately underwent surgery. Tragically, she was unable to attend her husband’s memorial service.

When questioned, the truck driver lied about how the accident happened and the state patrolman “investigating” the matter believed him. Ruth was blamed for falling asleep at the wheel and for being in the wrong lane at the wrong time. The only reason she wasn’t given a traffic ticket, according to the officer, was that he felt sorry for her because she had just lost her husband. Ruth told her story to one attorney who, after reading the accident report and doing nothing more, told her he could not help. She didn’t want to contact another attorney because she couldn’t remember much about what happened and based on what the policeman said, blamed herself for the collision. Finally, after much encouragement from her children, friends and a caring healthcare provider, she was introduced to the lawyers at the Law Offices of Stuart A. Kritzer, P.C.

We immediately obtained a copy of the accident report. The facts of the accident and the story of the truck driver just didn’t add up. Our attorneys went to work contacting witnesses at the scene, the New Mexico police officer and an accident reconstructionist. A woman who had just passed Ruth’s vehicle moments before the collision remembered it well. She was impressed by the condition of the late model car and noted the occupants were alert and awake and driving the proper speed. A gentleman we located who was driving behind Ruth’s car observed the truck ahead of him fishtailing on and off the shoulder of the road, throwing up dirt and dust. He was alarmed enough to slow down and wake up his passenger.

During the truck driver’s deposition in Albuquerque, his personnel records produced at that time noted a prior felony conviction for insurance fraud. When questioned, the driver admitted to burning down his mother’s home for insurance money. After reading his driver logs, we found that he’d been driving since 4:30 a.m. that morning. The “expert” hired by the trucking company admitted that his report made one month after the collision incorrectly placed the vehicles’ point of impact 700 feet away from where it actually happened.
After being confronted with the real evidence, the truck driver’s insurance company ended up settling for a substantial sum of money. It was gratifying for the attorneys at the Law Offices of Stuart A. Kritzer, P.C. to help Ruth—financially and emotionally. Although she lost her husband, she no longer felt responsible for his death.

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