Verdicts & Settlements

Over the past several years, the following are just some of the Verdicts & Settlements from the Practice of Kardos, Rickles, Bidlingmaier & Bidlingmaier:

* $3,250,000 Automobile Accident

* $3,250,000 Product Liability Settlement; Ex: a woman was burnt by a defective lighter

* $2,000,000 Medical Malpractice

* $1,500,000 Worker's Compensation Claim

* $1,000,000 Medical Malpractice

* $1,000,000 Product Liability Settlement

* $1,000,000 Motorcycle Accident

* $1,000,000 Industrial Accident

And over $6,385,000 in 13 additional claims ranging from $85,000 - $900,000 per settlement. Cases included Civil Rights, Sexual Harassment, Medical & Dental Malpractice as well as Vehicle and Workplace Injuries.

Company Must Pay Multi-Million Dollars In Man's Death

Certified Steel of Hamilton, New Jersey settled with deceased worker’s widow.  The widow of Certified Steel warehouse worker killed by an overhead load of beams killed in 2004 will receive a multi-million dollar settlement in a wrongful death suit.  Marcia Austin, the wife of Wayne Austin, will receive money from a Hamilton, New Jersey steel company, owned by a prominent area businessman.

 Austin had accused the owner of Certified Steel of “playing Russian roulette with his workers lives”, in an unsafe work place.  Austin’s attorneys, Marc I. Rickles and Clifford D. Bidlingmaier, III, of Kardos, Rickles, Bidlingmaier & Bidlingmaier in Newtown, Pennsylvania and Trenton, New Jersey and Robin Lord, Esquire of Trenton,  New Jersey were the attorneys for Mrs. Austin.  Austin, a 47 year old father of four, including thirteen year old twins with cerebral palsy, was killed when a co-worker operating a 20-ton crane, accidentally bumped that crane into a 10-ton crane causing thirteen thousand tons of metal beams to swing and strike Austin in the head. 

 The wrongful death suit accused Certified Steel of operating a hazardous workplace, devoid of safety measures and operated by untrained employees.

 Records show that prior to Austin’s death, Certified Steel had asked the crane manufacture how to prevent pieces of equipment from colliding, but the company didn’t implement the suggested solutions:  Which were installing anti-collision devices and training their employees on how to properly run the cranes.  New Jersey law prohibits employees from suing their employees for accidents that happen within the normal course of a business.  However, when a company’s actions rise from the level of intentional wrong doing, a court is authorized to take action.

 In allowing this law suit to move forward, Superior Court Judge Andrew Smithson said Certified Steel was more than just negligent, “there is no question in my thinking but that the working environment that the Plaintiff found himself in was apparently dangerous”, Smithson said, “it was substantially certain that an accident resulting in a personal injury or death would occur.”  The attorneys for the Plaintiff in this matter did an extraordinary job in succeeding to overcome the workman’s compensation bar in New Jersey by proving to the Court’s satisfaction that the Defendant’s actions rose to the level of an intentional wrongdoing