Blanco Wilczynski Wins Jury Trial Successfully Defending Ambulance Company Accused of Running Over Pedestrian

On July 15, 2016, Blanco Wilczynski obtained a No Cause for Action verdict from a jury in the Macomb County Circuit Court, in the matter of Mueller v. Medstar Ambulance.

The case involved a pedestrian-ambulance accident which occurred on August 15, 2013 at the intersection of 15 Mile Road and Gratiot Avenue in Clinton Twp. at approximately 9:30 p.m. At the time of the subject accident, the defendant ambulance was transporting an emergency patient with a broken leg to McLaren Hospital in Mt. Clemens Michigan. The ambulance response was dispatched as a Priority 2 emergency, but the ambulance was not operating lights and sirens at the time of the accident. When the ambulance pulled up to the subject intersection, it came to a stop for a red light and waited for traffic on Gratiot to clear so that it could complete a right turn. When the ambulance was stopped at the intersection, Plaintiff was nearly 70 feet away traveling on foot. He rapidly approached the ambulance on foot and began to pound on the right side of the hood of the intersection to get the driver’s attention, who he believed was illegally stopped in the pedestrian crosswalk. As the plaintiff was just beginning to pound on the ambulance hood, the ambulance was beginning to complete its turn and ran over the Plaintiff’s leg. Plaintiff suffered a comminuted fracture of the right leg which required several surgeries, including the insertion of a permanent metal rod in his leg.

After a four day jury trial, the jury found that the Defendant ambulance driver was not negligent and granted a No Cause of Action verdict in favor of both the driver and ambulance company. The case was tried by Partner Derek S. Wilczynski.