At the Law Office of Todd Drayton, we deem it important to reiterate here, as in our Disclaimer, that the outcome of any litigation will vary depending on the unique facts of the case and the laws governing the particular matter. Because every case is different, the descriptions of awards and cases previously handled by the Law Office of Todd Drayton, LLC are not meant to be a guarantee of success, or of any future result.
Notwithstanding, after nearly 25 years of practice, Mr. Drayton is happy to highlight a small number of his many accomplishments for the benefit of any prospective client seeking to hire an attorney with a proven track record of success and decades of trial and litigation experience.
Among his many victories, Mr. Drayton has obtained a $2.25 million-dollar verdict for a Hispanic single mother, who slipped and fell on black ice in the parking lot of her employer. The client tore the medial meniscus in her left knee, which required arthroscopic surgery to repair, and suffered bulging discs in her lumbar spine. The employer not only ignored the client’s complaints, but denied her worker’s compensation benefits for over a year. Of further significance, the insurance carrier for the premise’s owner refused to offer Mr. Drayton more than a mere $1,300 to settle the case. Mr. Drayton’s adversary contended instead to the jury that the dearth of medical treatment proved that the injuries suffered by Mr. Drayton’s client, if any, were superficial. While the multi-million dollar jury award was itself vindication, it is notable that among the jurors who rendered the award were a claims adjuster for an insurance company and several members who had themselves be defendants in lawsuits in the past.
Mr. Drayton obtained a $750,000 settlement on behalf of a union carpenter who suffered disabling knee, neck and back injuries after falling on ice and snow at Bristol Meyers Squibb. Mr. Drayton prosecuted the case against several of the construction trades responsible for the worksite, the premises owner and the vendors responsible for snow removal. The case was arbitrated prior to trial and compromises were reached with each of the defendants.
Mr. Drayton obtained a $350,000 settlement on behalf of the estate of a widow and mother of five, who died within days of being prescribed a strong anticoagulant while hospitalized at a facility in Somerset County, New Jersey. In this case, the defendant doctor argued that his treatment of Mr. Drayton’s client did not fall beneath acceptable standards of care despite a host of “red flags” that began to appear almost immediately after the surgery. Although the case was successfully tried to a unanimous verdict, the parties reached a compromise only seconds before the verdict was returned and read in open court. Indeed, despite adamantly refusing to settle the case, a juror’s question on day three of deliberations signaled that Mr. Drayton’s client was likely to win, and the defendant doctor capitulated and tendered the settlement.
Mr. Drayton successfully arbitrated a case arising from a plaintiff’s slip and fall in pet urine at a well-known pet supply store. As a result of the fall, Mr. Drayton’s client sustained significant injuries to her right knee, hip and low back, which required multiple surgeries to correct. Following arbitration, Mr. Drayton’s client was awarded $275,000, although same was reduced ten percent under the provisions of New Jersey’s comparative fault law.
Mr. Drayton obtained a civil judgment in excess of $241,000 under New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act, which allows treble (or triple) damages against any party found to be liable for fraud. The case involved a home improvement contractor who performed woefully negligent repairs to a residence in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Mr. Drayton’s clients were elderly and had clearly been taken advantage of by the corrupt contractor. To make matters worse, the contractor abandoned the substantial renovation project after only a few weeks.
In a difficult medical malpractice matter involving a botched bunionectomy, Mr. Drayton obtained a settlement in the amount of $175,000 for his female client. In this case, Mr. Drayton argued medical negligence on the part of the physician, who didn’t just fail to properly repair his patient’s foot, but inexplicably made the condition worse.
One of the practice areas Mr. Drayton has been particularly successful in involves automobile accidents which require the plaintiff to overcome New Jersey’s extremely strong verbal threshold defense. To date, Mr. Drayton has never lost a verbal threshold case. Far more impressive is the fact that all of his verbal threshold trials have ended in unanimous verdicts for Mr. Drayton’s clients. Mr. Drayton has been so successful in this area of the law that he rarely has to try a verbal threshold case.
In years past, however, Mr. Drayton has successfully obtained verdicts of $250,000 in several non-surgical cases where the only documented injuries suffered by his clients were bulging or herniated discs, muscle spasms or range of motion deficits. In one such case, Geico insured the defendant whose vehicle collided with and injured Mr. Drayton’s client. When the day arrived for the trial to start, counsel for the defendant impudently offered Mr. Drayton a mere $350 to settle the case. In less than a day of deliberations, the jury returned a verdict for Mr. Drayton’s client in the amount of $250,000.
Lastly, Mr. Drayton once obtained a $125,000 settlement on behalf of a motorist who was injured in an accident but was forced to bring an uninsured motorist claim directly against her own insurance company, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company. What makes this case noteworthy is the fact that, just before trial opened, counsel for Liberty Mutual offered Mr. Drayton only $1,000 to settle the case. However, after only the first week of trial, an adjuster for Liberty Mutual appeared at trial to personally offer Mr. Drayton the $125,000 he previously demanded to settle the case.
As noted above and in our Disclaimer, the foregoing is intended only to provide the viewers of this website with information about some of the cases Mr. Drayton has had the privilege of prosecuting on behalf of his clients. No aspect of this advertisement has been approved by the Supreme Court of New Jersey. Therefore, one must bear in mind that past performance is not a guarantee of future success.
