Courtroom Success 2015-29: Boston Partner Joe Yannetti & Associate Peter Foundas

Boston Partner Joe Yannetti and Associate Peter Foundas obtained a defense verdict in an arbitration. The plaintiff, a patron of our client’s car wash for more than thirty years, was injured after exiting his car as it was moving through the car wash tunnel. The plaintiff claimed that the car wash employed a “modified” procedure for washing cars and failed to warn him that he was to remain in his vehicle as it passed through the car wash. He argued that since he was not told to remain in his car, he was reasonable in thinking that it was safe to exit his car after it was loaded onto the conveyor belt. Through a withering cross examination of the plaintiff and his wife and with favorable testimony from our client’s employees, it was shown that the plaintiff was in fact told to stay in his car, told to take his foot off the brake, and told put his car in neutral as it started moving into the car wash. Moreover, our client’s employees testified that in the over 20 million customers serviced in the last 30 years, the plaintiff was the only one who got out of his car as it was moving into the tunnel.