83 A.D.2d 531 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1981
Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Chananau, J.), entered on September 17, 1980, permitting plaintiffs-respondents to settle their action against the tort-feasor defendants and directing that the settlement not affect, impair or reduce the rights of the plaintiff Willie Vinson to receive present and future workers’ compensation benefits, unanimously modified, on the law, without costs, to direct the suspension of plaintiff’s workers’ compensation benefits only in the event the aggregate of such benefits reaches $50,000, and then only until the sum of $16,294.54 is exhausted, and otherwise affirmed. On December 19,1978, while making a delivery for his employer, plaintiff, a pedestrian, was struck by a motor vehicle owned and operated by the defendants Berkowitz, as a result of which he suffered serious injuries, including amputation of his right leg at the knee. Plaintiff is presently disabled from employment. Since the accident took place in the course of his employment, plaintiff received, and continues to receive, workers’ compensation benefits from the Hartford Insurance Company. It is anticipated that he will require additional medical treatment and will be entitled to future compensation benefits for such duration as may be determined under the Workers’ Compensation Law. Having sustained a “Serious injury” (Insurance Law, §671, subd 4), plaintiff, a “Covered person” (Insurance Law, § 671, subd 10), commenced the instant lawsuit as authorized by section 673 of the Insurance Law and subdivision 1 of section 29 of the Workers’ Compensation Law, to recover damages for his noneconomic loss. Defendants, through their insurance carrier, offered plaintiff the sum of $25,000, the policy limit of their coverage, in settlement, from which, after deducting attorney’s fees and expenses, plaintiff would net $16,294.54. Plain