Cab firm corrects payoff in suit

Kim Smith

Wednesday, June 6, 2001 | 10:40 a.m.

A 22-year-old Las Vegas woman whose infant son was killed when a taxicab driver veered off the road and struck them three years ago has settled her lawsuit for $4 million, not the $10.9 million reported by her attorneys.

Paul Eisinger, an attorney for the Nevada Yellow Cab Co., said Sarah Sanchez's attorneys were in error when they reported that the company and its insurance agency will be making a total pay-out in the case of $10.9 million.

Instead, Sanchez received a cash payment of $1.9 million, Eisenger said. Another $1.4 million was placed in an annuity to be paid over time.

The remaining $700,000 was placed in annuities for her attorneys, John Lukens and Robert Marshall, Eisenger said.

The $1.9 million will be further reduced when Sanchez pays any attorneys' fees not covered by the $700,000 and provides her son's father with his share of the $1.9 million, Eisinger said.

"I realize that attorneys can look at numbers differently, which is apparently what Messrs. Marshall and Lukens have done in this case in light of the structured settlement," Eisinger wrote in a recent letter.

"However, even Messrs. Marshall and Lukens would have to agree with me that regardless of the figures which Ms. Sanchez may, or may not, receive over her lifetime, the total amount actually paid by Nevada Yellow Cab and its insurance company was $4 million, not the $10.9 million referenced in your article."

Marshall and Lukens reported last week that the Yellow Cab Co. settled its lawsuit for a total pay-out of $10.9 million.

According to documents later provided by Marshall, Sanchez received a cash payment of $2.1 million. Her annuities combined are $1.2 million and will grow to more than $7.4 million over the next 32 years. In addition, the attorneys' annuity will grow from $700,000 to almost $1.4 million by 2021.

All of the figures combined show a pay-out of $10.9 million, Marshall said.

Sanchez was walking to the grocery store with her 3-month-old son, Arthur Gold, on Nov. 24, 1997, when cabbie Joseph Kelley ran off the road near Eastern Avenue and U.S. 95.

Kelley struck the baby's stroller, knocked Sanchez backward and underneath a parked van. The driver then struck and knocked down two power poles.

Kelley pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of failing to maintain a travel lane.