Lawyers

About two weeks after my husband passed away, I was sleeping at my daughter Carmela's for a few nights. When I came home I was told some boys had been playing ball on my front lawn. One of the boys fell and hurt his knee on a pipe that was covered over by the lawn. We never knew it was there because when Tony cut the lawn it never bothered the lawn mower. I was told they had to get a doctor and an ambulance to take him to the hospital. While he was in the hospital he got a staph infection.

My husband used to chase them away all the time. He said that if anyone got hurt we would get sued. I would say, “Oh no, they won't sue us.” He was right. The boys' parents sued me for $200,000. I was insured with the Western Insurance Company for $100,000. The insurance company wrote to me and said that they hired a lawyer to fight the case. The boy had said that my grandson, Mark, had invited him to come and play ball. The other boys said that the boy had joined them uninvited.

This case went on for two years. As time went on our insurance company kept bringing the price of suing down. It annoyed me and my blood pressure went up, because every holiday I got a call from the insurance lawyer telling me that we had to go to his office to talk about the accident. One day we all went with my lawyer to the courtroom on the second floor. My lawyer, the boy's lawyer, a stenographer, another man, the boy who had gotten hurt, his father, my son Tony, Carmela and I were all there. The boy that got hurt was called first. He was sort of nervous and got mixed up a few times. My son was called next, then me. They asked me all sorts of questions such as, was it true my husband used to send them home when they came to play on the lawn? Did I see the boy when he got hurt? Who got to the scene of the accident first? I kept telling them I didn't know. I was not home when the accident happened. The stenographer was writing down everything we said. Finally my lawyer came to a settlement and the insurance company paid it.

They weren't too happy with what they received. The boy's knee healed. He rides a bicycle and runs around. I'm happy he got well again. It surely stirred me up plenty.