Our client was a seven-year-old boy who had been seriously injured when his mother slipped and fell on ice adjacent to the defendant's property. An immigrant from Laos, his father helped rescue downed American pilots during the Vietnam War; this allowed him—as well as his mother—to come to the United States after the war.

A trial judge held that there was no liability because the accident happened on city property and dismissed the case. Hupy and Abraham took the case to the Court of Appeals and won, which sent the case back to the trial court for jury trial.

We received five settlement offers, each progressively larger:

  • $1 million,
  • $1.5 million,
  • $1.6 million,
  • $2 million, and
  • $2.4 million
     

Each of these offers was rejected.

For the first time in the State of Wisconsin, to our knowledge, the trial court required an unwilling plaintiff to prove liability to the court before he was allowed to have a damages trial. We won the liability trial and in the damages trial, the jury awarded $9.5 million for our client.

Overall, Attorney Michael F. Hupy won three victories in court that allowed him to put together a $22 million structured settlement for our seven-year-old client.

$22,000,000