$2.9 Million Settlement in Connecticut Wrongful Death Car Crash
Won by Trantolo & Trantolo.
Keith V. Trantolo of Trantolo & Trantolo secured a $2.9 million wrongful death settlement in a motor vehicle fatality case, placing it seventh on TopVerdict's list of the top 20 Connecticut settlements of 2017.
What happened
A fatal motor vehicle collision in Connecticut left a family without one of its members and set in motion a wrongful death claim that would take years to resolve. The victim died as a result of injuries sustained in the crash. The plaintiff's estate filed suit against Dudley and additional defendants, alleging negligence in the operation or control of the vehicle involved in the collision.
Keith V. Trantolo of Trantolo & Trantolo, LLC took on the case and built the liability theory around the conduct of the at-fault driver. To support the damages claim, counsel assembled evidence of the decedent's financial contributions to the family, the economic and non-economic losses suffered by surviving family members, and the circumstances of the death itself.
The case did not go to trial. The parties reached a $2.9 million settlement, resolving all claims against the named defendants. The agreement provided compensation to the decedent's estate and survivors for the loss of income, companionship, and support the death caused.
TopVerdict ranked the result seventh on its list of the top 20 settlements obtained in Connecticut in 2017, one of only a handful of wrongful death motor vehicle cases to crack the annual ranking that year.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Trantolo & Trantolo
All Trantolo & Trantolo proven verdicts →A Connecticut motorcyclist suffered a skull fracture, traumatic brain injury, and other life-threatening injuries after a limousine driver crossed into his lane; attorney Blake Driscolli of Trantolo and Trantolo recovered the full available insurance limits, $1.25 million, in 2023.
A Connecticut motor vehicle accident victim secured a $1.2 million settlement in 2024, handled by Trantolo and Trantolo attorney Adam Allegro, with a counterclaim remaining on the docket at the time of reporting.
A Connecticut motorcyclist ejected when an Amazon-branded delivery van driver cut a left turn without yielding recovered $1 million, with the case later recognized as a Top 10 Connecticut Motorcycle Accident Settlement of 2023 by TopVerdict.
Related wrongful death verdicts
In December 2011, a Fayette County, Texas jury awarded the family of an 8-year-old Splendora boy $150.37 billion after he was doused with gasoline and set on fire by a 13-year-old neighbor in 1998, two weeks after the same neighbor sexually assaulted him. The boy survived third-degree burns over 99 percent of his body for nearly 13 years before dying in April 2011 of a skin cancer linked to his injuries. The defendant, Don Wilburn Collins, never appeared to answer the civil suit, and the jury awarded $370 million in actual damages plus roughly $150 billion in punitive damages, the largest civil verdict in U.S. history. Attorney Craig Sico, who represented the family, said from the outset that the judgment was not collectible and was intended to pressure prosecutors into reopening the long-dormant criminal case. Prosecutors did reopen the case, and Collins was later convicted of capital murder in a separate criminal proceeding.
A Pensacola jury awarded Cynthia Robinson $23.6 billion in punitive damages against R.J. Reynolds over the 1996 lung cancer death of her 36-year-old husband, the largest single-plaintiff award of Florida's Engle tobacco litigation, but the trial judge called the number constitutionally excessive, an appeals court ordered a full retrial over improper closing arguments, and a second jury returned a complete defense verdict in 2019, so the estate ultimately collected nothing.
Frantz Law Group, representing roughly 5,000 victims, helped negotiate a $13.5 billion PG&E bankruptcy settlement covering tens of thousands of survivors and families from the 2015 Butte, 2017 North Bay, and 2018 Camp wildfires.