City to Pay $1.45 Million to Car Accident Victim

The city of Palo Alto, Ca. will pay $1.45 million to a man who was severely and permanently injured in a car accident caused by a city worker who was reaching for his cell phone while driving a city vehicle.

Silvio Obregon, a former supervisor for a janitorial services company, was injured in September 2006 when his pickup truck was rear-ended by a vehicle being driven by a city utilities worker, who had taken his eyes off the road to retrieve his dropped cell phone, according to a report on Palo Alto Online.

The accident, which occurred while Obregon was stopped at a red light, left him with spinal-cord injuries and dependent on a surgically implanted electronic stimulator to reduce back pain from peripheral neuropathy, a devastating nerve condition. He remains in constant pain and unable to return the job he had for 20 years, officials said.

Obregon sued the city in June 2007 seeking $5 million in damages. A settlement was reached with the city in September 2009 and finalized last month, according to court documents cited by Palo Alto Online.

Following several mediation sessions intended to settle the matter before a trial was held, the case was disposed of through agreement of the parties at a mandatory settlement conference held just days before the scheduled start of the trial, attorneys said.

Attorneys for Obregon and the city called the settlement amount “fair” to all parties.

The city of Palo Alto paid Obregon $1 million from the city’s self-insurance retention fund. The remainder of the settlement amount ($450,000) was paid by the Association of Cities and Counties Excess Liability fund, which is a joint government-agency risk-pool fund, officials said.

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