$11 Million Settlement for Victim of Head-On Collision

In February 2008, attorneys Mark W. Tanner and Daniel J. Mann secured an $11 million settlement for the family of Diane Glynn, who was killed in a head-on collision in Salem Township, Pennsylvania.

Dean O’Halloran, 25, of Dunmore was driving a Penske truck eastbound on Route 590 around 9 a.m. when his truck crossed over the centerline and collided head-on with a Dodge Neon operated westbound by Glynn, who was pronounced dead at the scene. According to the Pennsylvania State Police accident report related to the fatal accident, a witness to the accident said that O’Halloran’s vehicle crossed the centerline about five times;  the witness was afraid O’Halloran would run into him, and pulled off the road and observed O’Halloran’s vehicle cross from the eastbound lane into the westbound lane and strike Glynn’s vehicle. The accident report was included in the plaintiffs’ motion to file an amended complaint. Tanner and Mann were subsequently able to locate a hospital blood alcohol test which showed O’Halloran had a 0.149 blood alcohol level two hours after the accident. Tanner and Mann also discovered that O’Halloran had been in a hit-and-run accident earlier that morning in which he swerved into another vehicle then drove away.

The $11 million settlement exhausted the defendants’ policy limit with Acadia Insurance Co./Fireman’s Insurance Co. of Washington, and will provide for Glynn’s three children.

Subsequent to the settlement, Tanner and Mann assisted the children in convincing the Wayne County District Attorney to press charges against O’Halloran, as he had never been charged in connection with the accident, and Tanner argued the failure to charge O’Halloran stemmed from the fact that his step father was an officer with the Pennsylvania State Police.  After Tanner turned over all of the information he had accumulated to the District Attorney, O’Halloran was charged and convicted, and given a prison sentence.