José F. Quetglas has achieved substantial jury awards for mental anguish and emotional distress in cases involving claims for personal injury and violation of civil rights.
Quetglas won a jury award of $770,000 for a pedestrian that was severely injured when struck on the sidewalk by an automobile that had been traveling at high speed down a roadway from which speed bumps had been removed by a construction company, without authorization of the government agency (Reyes v. Rodriguez & Del Valle, Inc., 1996). He also won a jury award of $13,000,000 for to the survivor and the heirs of four fatal victims of a motor vehicle collision. (Ruiz v. Pepsi Cola of PR Bottling Co. (1997).
Likewise, in the civil rights realm, Quetglas has obtained sizeable jury awards for a victim of police brutality and malicious prosecution ($1,025,000, in Ruiz v. Gonzalez, 1991); the mother of a pretrial detainee brutally beaten by correctional officers and left in a cell to suffer a lingering death ($1,000,000, in Velazquez v Morales, 1992); a sexually harassed woman ($1,000,169, in Cabrera v. Sensormatic, 1998); an employee subjected to harassment and retaliation by his employer by reason of his mentally disability ($950,000.00, in Quiles v. Henderson, 2006); an orthopedic surgeon whose contractual relation was terminated by a government agency by reason of his political affiliation ($1,100,000, in Rodriguez v. State Insurance Fund, 2006); a victim of sexual harassment and retaliation ($1,723,186, in Jelú v. Municipality of Guaynabo, 2019). Several of these cases handled by Quetglas have established precedent in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in the areas of hostile-work-environment sexual harassment (Marrero v. Goya, 2002) hostile-work-environment harassment by reason of disabilities (Quiles, supra), malicious prosecution (Hernandez v. Taylor, 2013), and reckless disregard for urgent medical needs of arrestees intoxicated by drugs or alcohol when apprehended (Miranda v. Toledo, 2016).
Quetglas has also negotiated multimillion dollar settlements of claims for personal injury and violation of civil rights. One such action was brought against a shopping center for injuries suffered by the victim of an intended carjacking in its parking lot due to lack of adequate security measures (Silva v. Manley-Berenson Montehiedra Management, 2007). Another was brought by several individuals, wrongfully convicted of murder based on the false testimony of one key witness, against the police officers and prosecutors involved in their malicious prosecutions (Diaz v. Toledo, 2015).
Quetglas has a distinguished practice in complex litigation including class actions for consumer fraud under civil RICO Act and consolidated actions for damages, which have resulted in multi-million dollar settlements or verdicts. Indeed, Quetglas is one of the few trial lawyers in the United States to have successfully tried to verdict a class action based upon civil RICO. Bonilla, supra. This class action was presented on behalf of Puerto Rican consumers against Volvo of Sweden and Trebol Motors Corp., for fraudulent practices in the marketing and sale of automobiles. The jury returned a verdict of $43 million, tripled by the court to $129 million.
Quetglas Law Firm limits the number of cases chosen for handling and is devoted to provide professional services for each case for each client, as if it were the only case in the office.
