All the wonderful press that the Debbie Shank case was giving Wal-Mart seems to have taken effect. The company has announced that it is retracting from its move to recoup her medical expenses. In short, Debbie will get to keep the money that she received in a settlement with the trucking company that caused the accident.

To recap a bit, Debbie Shank is a 52-year-old woman with brain injuries that she sustained in a truck accident eight years ago. She is confined to a wheel chair, and has memory-related problems and other health issues. Shank, an employee of Wal-Mart at the time of the accident, had the company pay her medical bills for her under their health plan. Two years later, Debbie and her husband Jim sued the trucking company responsible for the accident, and received a personal injury settlement that after legal fees and other charges came up to about $417,477. The money was supposed to be put in trust funds to take care of Debbie’s nursing home care for the rest of her life.

This is when Wal-Mart stepped in claiming reimbursement for the return of the approximately $469,000 that it paid for Debbie’s medical expenses. The move, while despicable, is quite legal. It’s called subrogation, and under this clause, an employer is entitled to seek back the amount spent on healthcare of an employee if the employee manages to receive compensation or a settlement for their injuries.

The Shanks lost their case and appealed but they lost again. As a final measure, they approached the Supreme Court, but were disappointed yet again – the court refused to hear their case. Thankfully for the Shanks, public opinion is still a strong force in this country. The tides of support for the Shanks began to pour in not just from a shocked media and activists, but also ordinary people who were appalled that a company that values itself in the billions could attempt to snatch a measly $400,000 from the hands of a desperately sick woman who will need medical care for the rest of her life. Email donation campaigns were set up to collect funds for Debbie, and angry citizens wrote in to protest corporate greed.

Wal-Mart seems to have finally realized that winning on a technicality isn’t worth losing the good will of the public; they have announced that they wouldn’t pursue reimbursement from Shanks.

For Debbie and her family, this will mean that the money she received in settlement from the trucking company will continue to be used for her medical care. She will need nursing care for the rest of her life, and this money will take the burden off the family. The Shanks have had a traumatic past few years. Jim had to divorce his wife in order for her to receive more Medicaid. He’s also had to battle health problems of his own. They lost their son in Iraq. Now they can pick up the pieces and move on without being hounded for money by Wal-Mart.

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Debbie Shank dies a little every time she hears about her son’s death. Each time, she’s told her 18-year-old son died in Iraq, she cries, and then promptly forgets that’s he’s dead.

And asks about him again.

And when her husband, Jim, gently reminds her they have a child who’s no more, she cries again. And dies a little more.

Debbie Shank is brain damaged. A trucking accident left her with severe short-term memory loss, and she is confined to a wheelchair. The 52-year-old has become a symbol of the malaise in corporate America. She is currently involved in a lawsuit with Wal-Mart over medical expenses that the company paid for her medical care after her accident.

Eight years ago, the 52-year-old was a stocker at Wal-Mart in Cape Giradieu, Missouri, when a truck accident left her brain damaged. The injuries were severe enough for her to have to be admitted to a nursing home bound to a wheelchair. She now suffers severe short-term memory loss.

Debbie and her husband Jim turned to Debbie’s health plan with Wal-Mart to cover her medical expenses. She had signed on for the company’s new health plan, and the company paid out $470,000 for her medical expenses. Two years after the accident, the Shanks successfully sued the trucking company that had caused the accident, and received a compensation of a million dollars. After all legal fees had been paid, she was left with a sum of $417,000, which was immediately placed in a trust fund for her. She needs nursing home attention, and is expected to need it for the rest of her life. Justice was done, it seemed.

Except that Debbie had not read the fine print of Wal-Mart’s health contract. The company had a clause called “subrogation”, that’s becoming common with employee insurance providers, which says that in the event of the woman receiving a legal settlement, the company would be entitled to recoup all medical expenses. Wal-Mart announced it wanted back the amount it had spent on Debbie’s medical bills - a total of $470,000 against the money in her trust fund from the settlement, which was $417,000.

The company sued.

It sued a woman so brain damaged, she has no hopes for a normal relationship with her husband or her children ever again, a woman who will spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair, forgetting the people around her.

There is no doubt that Wal-Mart has a higher legal ground here. It is within its legal rights to demand that the Shanks hand over the money. But laws were designed to protect the defenseless and the weak. What’s shocking is not that Wal-Mart so coldly sues a sick woman, but the way that they defend their actions There is this moral “We are right - she may be really sick, and we feel so sorry for her, but we are right and we want our money” kind of posturing that’s beyond disturbing.

There is something very sick about a $90 billion company snatching a trust fund away from a brain damaged woman. And because the company in question is Wal-Mart, a symbol of corporate America and so closely identified with this country, it casts a pitiful reflection on our culture. As a law firm, we are always staunchly for what the law says, but exceptions could have been made. Wal-Mart says that not pursuing the money would be unfair to the millions of associates who all are part of its health plan. Do they really believe their associates or shareholders would be up in arms about making an exception in the case of a severely injured woman? What does Wal-Mart think Debbie’s going to do with the money? Splurge at Prada?

For the Shanks, the turmoil of the past few years has taken its toll, as now Jim is battling prostate cancer. Their situation is so dire he has had to divorce his beloved wife so she can receive more Medicare as a single woman.

For now, the Shanks have no choice but to go on with their lives. Their last appeal has been turned down, and there doesn’t seem to be any course of action left open to them.

A jury has awarded a 58-year-old woman, left brain damaged after being struck by an MBTA bus, a verdict of $10 million. The total sum of the award with interest comes up to $12.5 million.

The verdict is related to the accident that occurred on February 4, 2004 when the woman, Louise Scialdone, was waiting at a bus stop near McGrath Highway in Somerville, Massachusetts. Scialdone, as usual, was using her walker because of her arthritic problems. The driver of a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority bus lost control, fishtailed onto the sidewalk and threw Louise Scialdone 5 feet in the air. Her head hit a car parked nearby. She was hospitalized for 13 hours and after a few days was hospitalized again.

Since the accident Louisa, earlier an avid reader, has been left with the mental capacity of a 3-year-old. She has some good days and some bad, say her attorneys, and she is in need of round-the-clock care. Her memory constantly falters, and she has trouble maintaining her balance. She is also extremely sensitive to noises and light. In short, her life has become extremely hard. A woman who formerly enjoyed playing with her now 14-year-old grandchild herself only has the mental capacity of a 3-year-old.

One witness to the accident said the driver of the MBTA bus was speeding during icy conditions, always an invitation to risk and danger. Lawyers for the Metropolitan Bay Transportation Authority tried to pin the blame for Scialdone’s extraordinary injuries on her arthritis. That’s plain absurd. There’s no indication that Louise had any other health problem apart from her arthritis. In short, this was a woman who had every right to live out her golden years playing with her grandkids, and living out the retired life. Instead, she can hardly recognize her younger grandchild.

If you thought the driver of the bus that got Scialdone into this shape received fair and severe punishment for her actions, you’d be in for a rude shock. The driver, Tracy Sullivan, was suspended for a grand period of one day before being reinstated to her job. She hasn’t been made to pay for her reckless behavior. If this is the seriousness with which MBTA takes its driver’s reckless driving, it should probably put a “Warning” notice on windshields of all its buses, so everyone who comes in its path can jump out of the way and save their lives. By going soft on the driver, MBTA has sent a clear message to the rest of its employees and the public that it couldn’t care less about public safety.

One hopes that this settlement, while it won’t do anything to reverse Louse’s condition, will at least make her life a little more bearable. She needs $200,000 a year worth of round-the-clock care and now she has a means of affording it.

If you or a loved-one have suffered brain injuries in an accident, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

19-year-old Mauricio Alaniz is a gifted young man – a basketball player at Modesto Junior College, music technician for his church’s Spanish services and deeply involved in his church’s high school group. On Thursday night, the teenager was out in his SUV when it was slammed into by a vehicle driven by a 60-year-old woman. Alaniz suffered life-threatening injuries and is battling for life in the intensive care unit of the Memorial Medical Center.

The next 48 hours will be critical for Mauricio, and doctors have already told his family there is severe brain injury and brain stem damage. There is also swelling in the brain, and a tube has been inserted to drain the fluid. Family members say and they are waiting for him to emerge from his coma.

The woman who crashed into his car, a Riverbank California resident, has also been injured although her injuries haven’t been reported as life threatening.

As soon as news of the accident broke, students, friends and family began gathering at the hospital. Family members are maintaining a vigil praying he’ll come out of the coma, although the prognosis remains grim.

The days following your or a family member’s involvement in an accident can be traumatic and confusing. In cases where you may be eligible for compensation however, claims for damages must be filed as quickly as possible to increase the chances of a settlement. If you’ve been injured in an auto accident, call the experienced California accident lawyers at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation today.