Wrongful Death $765,000 Award – Original Offer $12,500

Terrence Henry St. Anthony (T.H.) was killed in the early evening hours while checking his tire on Route 95 in Milford. The police did a complete investigation of the accident and “concluded” that it was T.H.’s fault because he stepped out into the travel lane of the highway into the side of a truck. His family sought legal assistance, but were told by attorneys that the case was not worth pursuing because it couldn’t be won. Ultimately, they sought the aid of Tremont Sheldon P.C. who agreed to accept the case and bring it to trial.

T.H. was a wonderful young man of 29 years who was ambitious enough to be working at three jobs at the time of his death. On the night of the accident, T.H. had finished his second job with a cleaning service in Milford and was on his way home to have dinner with his fiancée. He stopped his vehicle in the emergency lane of the thruway because of some apparent mechanical problem. As he was squatting by the left front tire of his car, he was hit by a truck which was traveling in the right-hand lane. In defense of their case, the insurance company for the truck relied upon the testimony of two eye witnesses who confirmed that the truck had never left the right lane to move into the emergency shoulder. Their accident reconstruction expert claimed to be able to prove that T.H. had walked back from his car into the side of the truck. So confident was the insurance company of the victory that it offered an insulting $12,500. Paul Tremont and Jason Tremont, who prepared and tried the case, decided that they would use as their major witness Dr. Wayne Carver, the Chief Medical Examiner for Connecticut who performed the autopsy. Dr. Carver was able to show that the only contact between T.H.’s body and the truck was a tiny portion of the fender which stuck out beyond the body of the cab. Therefore, it would have been impossible for T.H. to have stepped backward, but rather he was picked up as he was squatting and thrown into the air. After a two-week trial, a Bridgeport jury found the truck and its driver to be responsible and awarded damages of $765,000 for the case with a reduction based upon the comparative negligence attributed to T.H.

From the beginning, Tremont Sheldon P.C. listened to the family who were convinced that T.H., a careful and responsible young man who was displaying his emergency flashers at the time of this occurrence, would not carelessly walk back into a truck’s path. Tremont Sheldon P.C. believed the family – and the Bridgeport jury vindicated T.H.