On December 27, 2023, an appellate court modified a Suffolk County jury verdict which found in favor of a female passenger in a car struck from the rear by a Suffolk County bus. The plaintiff, who was approximately 70 years old at the time of the accident in 2012, sustained a loss of range of motion in her cervical spine for which she received only medical treatment including, injections in her neck. The jury accepted plaintiff's theory that the accident caused her to suffer a permanent consequential limitation of her cervical spine. At the conclusion of trial in April 2019, the jury awarded the plaintiff $634,000 for 6 years of past pain and suffering and $111,000 for 10 years of future pain and suffering. The appellate court reduced the past pain and suffering to $300,000 resulting in a total verdict of $411,000.

Interestingly, since the appeal delayed entry of a modified Judgment until January 2024, some five years after the verdict, the plaintiff will be entitled to 9% statutory interest on the $411,000 recovery from the date of the verdict in April 2019 totaling approximately $185,000. Thus the appeal was worthwhile for the defense since it clawed back $334,000, though the delay it occasioned cost it $185,000 in statutory interest. But that's still a net win to the defense of $149,000. Angeles v County of Suffolk, 2023 N.Y. Slip Op. 06720