DiGennaro and Belous Secure Pre-Answer Dismissal of Complaint

Janice DiGennaro and Todd Belous secured a pre-answer dismissal of the complaint against their client, an attorney who represented plaintiff in connection with severe personal injuries he sustained in a collision with a motor vehicle at a car wash.  The client prosecuted the personal injury claim against the car wash, the owner of the vehicle, and others.  The underlying litigations were settled after mediation.

Plaintiff alleged that our client breached his fiduciary duty to plaintiff by improperly settling and discontinuing the two underlying actions without plaintiff’s consent.  In support of the motion to dismiss, Janice and Todd established that plaintiff was fully aware of the settlement terms in the underlying action and ratified the settlements by accepting the settlement funds without objection and signing the checks.  They further established that the settlement terms were proper because plaintiff risked recovering nothing had the case proceeded to trial because of the potential bar under the Workers Compensation law as the police report indicated that he was working at the car wash at the time of the incident.  It was further argued the claims were time-barred.

The Court granted the motions to dismiss holding that the actions against our client are time-barred and barred based on plaintiff’s ratification of the underlying settlement.