Paula Slaughter and Sandra Hagen – Turning a Contested Stroke Case into a $3.2M Verdict
Paula Slaughter gathered a polished, prepared team – starting with co-counsel Sandra Hagen – to represent a 74-year-old man who suffered a stroke seven months after his vehicle was rear-ended. Unpacking the case with host Keith Fuicelli, the team reveal their surgical approach to trial teamwork, including Paula's voir dire method that doesn’t involve questionnaires and Sandra’s meticulous research into the defense expert’s past. After they exposed an unprepared defense and a “Parade of Horribles,” the jury responded with a verdict of $3.2 million.
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Episode Snapshot
- The team’s client suffered a triple cardioembolic stroke seven months after his vehicle was rear-ended. The crux of the case became whether the crash caused the stroke.
- Sandra showed that the defense neurologist's opinions were "historically absurd" by walking the jury through his prior cases — including one where he found no concussion after a warehouse dock door fell on a man's head.
- Sandra and Paula revealed that every single ER systems check — including elder abuse and fall risk — was completed in four minutes.
- Paula used Expert Radar to pull prior reports, depositions, pharmaceutical payouts, and a letter in which the defense neurologist himself complained about the bias of defense doctors.
- Barred from asking a specific non-economic dollar amount by a motion in limine, Paula closed with: "This is his final chapter. This is his only chance. This has to be enough" — and the jury came back saying she hadn't asked for enough.
The information contained in this podcast is not intended to be taken as legal advice. The information provided by Fuicelli & Lee is intended to provide general information regarding comprehensive injury and accident attorney services for clients in the state of Colorado.
Transcript
Welcome to the Colorado
Trial Lawyer Connection,
Speaker:where Colorado trial lawyers share
insights from their latest cases. Join me,
Speaker:Keith Fuicelli, as we uncover
the stories, strategies,
Speaker:and lessons from recent Colorado trials
to help you and your clients achieve
Speaker:justice in the courtroom. The
pursuit of justice starts now.
Speaker:Welcome back everyone to another episode
of the Colorado Trial Lawyer Connection
Speaker:Podcast.
Speaker:Amazing episode up ahead where we are
thrilled to have Sandra Hagen and Paula
Speaker:Slaughter on to talk
about just an amazing $3
Speaker:million plus verdict
in El Paso County on a
Speaker:fascinating medical causation case.
Speaker:So we are thrilled to have first time
attendees, Paula and Sandra on the show.
Speaker:Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker:Thank you, Keith. Thanks for having
us, Keith. Excited to be here.
Speaker:I'm so excited.
Speaker:And the one thing that I learned before
you all jumped on is both of you have
Speaker:tried between you each
between like 35 and 40
Speaker:civil trials.
Speaker:I just want to say that is
amazing and kudos to you.
Speaker:How is it that you both
are obviously very young.
Speaker:How in your short years of practice
were you able to try so many cases?
Speaker:That is phenomenal.
Speaker:I had my own law firm for over a decade,
Speaker:and so I was front row
to all of those trials.
Speaker:So that part made it really exciting
to try cases from intake all
Speaker:the way to verdict. I was really
young when I started my law firm.
Speaker:I think I was like 29 or 30
and had nothing to lose and
Speaker:everything to gain. And
so that's how I started.
Speaker:And now I'm at Wilhite Law Firm
with Sandy and we are high volume.
Speaker:So we get a lot of opportunity to try
really interesting cases with interesting
Speaker:fact patterns around the state.
It's cool to get in there and do it.
Speaker:Yeah. And the cool thing about
Wilhite is yeah, you're high volume,
Speaker:but you're also trying a lot of
cases. So sometimes I feel like, oh,
Speaker:high volume means no trials. And I
think oftentimes the opposite is true.
Speaker:Sandra, has that been your
experience at Wilhite,
Speaker:that you're just trying cases
left and right? Seems like it.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:I initially started as Rob Wilhite's
paralegal way back in the day.
Speaker:He's always been very supportive of,
Speaker:if the insurance company isn't going
to play, let's just go try the thing.
Speaker:As long as our clients are on board
with it and the way our firm is
Speaker:structured, we have litigation team. Our
litigation team is very trial focused.
Speaker:When you pick up that
case from pre-litigation,
Speaker:you're planning for trial from day one.
Speaker:So it's a very encouraged thing
that we do in our lit department.
Speaker:Yeah. And I just think when you try a
lot of cases and your results speak for
Speaker:themselves, which they do,
then it just trickles down.
Speaker:And then you're getting better offers
in pre-lit and everything just moves
Speaker:better. So what a great world that
you have grown up in, if you will,
Speaker:as attorneys to get to try so many cases.
Speaker:And let me start with you, Sandra.
Speaker:Did you always know that you wanted
to be a trial lawyer? I mean,
Speaker:I'm guessing that you're
working in the trenches,
Speaker:then all of a sudden you're like, wait
a minute, I'm going to become a lawyer.
Speaker:How'd that come about?
Speaker:Actually, law was my second career.
My first part of my adult life,
Speaker:I was in restaurant management.
Speaker:Then I had my daughter and
decided to go back to school.
Speaker:I initially went back to become a
teacher. And then somewhere along the way,
Speaker:I was like, "Maybe I want to be a lawyer."
And so I figured we're already broke,
Speaker:so let's just go for it. And so I
did. And when I started law school,
Speaker:I actually went in thinking I just
want to be in house somewhere and write
Speaker:contracts. That was my goal.
Speaker:And I ended up interning with
a criminal defense attorney.
Speaker:My very first foray into the courtroom was
Speaker:arguing a case in front of the
North Dakota Supreme Court as a 3L.
Speaker:Wow. So what was that experience like?
Speaker:Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.
Speaker:I think there's an audio of it out
there somewhere and I'm just afraid to
Speaker:listen. I don't want
to know. I didn't win.
Speaker:But you still argued in front of the
North Dakota Supreme Court. I mean,
Speaker:there is something to be said for
that. So congratulations there.
Speaker:And then how did you end up doing
plaintiff's side trial work?
Speaker:Well, when I moved
here, I wasn't licensed.
Speaker:And so I was looking for paralegal work
and I had applied a bunch of different
Speaker:places. And this is back
in the time of Craigslist.
Speaker:And so I had an ad out and Rob
Wilhite was in his, I think,
Speaker:second year of practice. So
he reached out, interviewed,
Speaker:and the rest is history.
Speaker:So you started as Rob's paralegal?
Speaker:Yes. Yeah. And then about two
or three years later, he said,
Speaker:"You got to go take the bar." He's like,
Speaker:"You're just wasting your time here."
So he encouraged me to take the bar.
Speaker:I did. And here we are.
Speaker:Wow. That is so fantastic. I think that
you mentioned that you had a daughter,
Speaker:I guess not too long ago,
part of this process.
Speaker:And your daughter now, I think you
told me off air, is 30 years old.
Speaker:You must be very proud knowing
that she must be so proud of you
Speaker:to have done all that you have
done with a young child. I mean,
Speaker:just tell our listeners a little
bit about what inside of you
Speaker:kept you going.
Speaker:Once I got fixated on the idea,
Speaker:it was more about taking
it one day at a time,
Speaker:sometimes one minute at a time,
because if you back up and you look,
Speaker:it's too much and it's too
overwhelming. So you just say, "Okay,
Speaker:what do I have to do to get through the
next hour the next day?" 10,000 hours
Speaker:later, I got a few trials under my belt.
Speaker:Wow. That is fantastic. And
kudos to you. Kudos. Paula,
Speaker:tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker:How did you come to be a rockstar
plaintiff's trial lawyer?
Speaker:I just wanted to go snowboarding.
Speaker:I got out of college and was a real
estate broker for a little bit.
Speaker:Didn't really want to stay in that
lane and came out to Denver to visit a
Speaker:friend, got some snowboarding in,
visited DU law, and I was like,
Speaker:"I think I could do this. " So
applied to a few law schools.
Speaker:DU gave me a lot of money to go there.
Speaker:I got out and still didn't know
I wanted to be a trial attorney.
Speaker:Did some tax work. And
then in my late 20s,
Speaker:started a law firm and got into
the courtroom and loved it.
Speaker:I remember waiting for one of my
first verdicts and it felt like
Speaker:b know it inches up and I'm
a first row rollercoaster
Speaker:person and you know you're inching up
and then your feet start to dangle cause
Speaker:you're about to drop. That is the feeling
right there of being at that table is
Speaker:the few seconds right before you go.
Speaker:When you get that phone call and the
clerk says the verdict is in, I mean,
Speaker:I'm getting goosebumps just telling
you the story right now that you go and
Speaker:you're sitting there and you're waiting
and it's just this buildup and this
Speaker:buildup and you are watching
the judge get the envelope and
Speaker:read the verdict and
there's nothing like it.
Speaker:There's absolutely nothing like
that feeling. Win or lose, honestly.
Speaker:That is a very good analogy.
Speaker:Now I see why you have done so well in
trial because your analogy skills are
Speaker:second to none.
Speaker:They are on point for sure. I'll.
Speaker:Tell you what, I am a little bit
nauseous hearing you describe it because
Speaker:what I have experienced, I don't
know if you all disagree. For me,
Speaker:sort of one of the best feelings is
when you're just waiting on the verdict
Speaker:because you're like, "You know what?
I'm done. I can finally relax. Candidly,
Speaker:I like to go find a place and have a
beer because I don't drink like a week
Speaker:before. I don't drink during trial,
Speaker:so I need a beer when I'm waiting
for that verdict." I got to ask you,
Speaker:you are wearing a sweatshirt
that says Clever Bully.
Speaker:That is an awesome sweatshirt. Tell
me a little bit about Clever Bully.
Speaker:What's that?
Speaker:Oh, thanks. So Clever Bully is a
brand that I came up with my husband.
Speaker:I had gone through a few
years where it was a rough ...
Speaker:I had come out of a really
big divorce and it was a lot.
Speaker:And so I was feeling a little
beat down by the system.
Speaker:Family law can be really hard.
Speaker:Shout out to the family lawyers out
there because I could never do that.
Speaker:I learned that you have to be clever and
sometimes outsmart the problem and come
Speaker:out on the other side on top of the
things that were like really burying you.
Speaker:And so we kind of came up with this
like, you can be a clever bully.
Speaker:You don't have to be a bully. You
can be somebody that's clever.
Speaker:And then I thought about that and it
kind of bled into how we deal with
Speaker:insurance companies is you
just, you have to be clever.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I almost feel like I want a clever bully
t-shirt to wear underneath a suit when
Speaker:I'm in trial. Sort of like that
armor to go into battle. I.
Speaker:Will get you one because it feels.
Speaker:Good to wear this. Offer
accepted. Offer accepted.
Speaker:So let's talk about this amazing result,
Speaker:three plus million dollars
in Colorado Springs.
Speaker:Just absolutely amazing.
And before we do that,
Speaker:I know in speaking off air that you
both said that you try a lot of cases
Speaker:together. So tell us a
little bit about that.
Speaker:And specifically for this case,
Speaker:how do you as a trial team go
about dividing up responsibilities?
Speaker:With any case, when you're assigned a
case at our firm, you're the lead counsel,
Speaker:it's your case. And we
work pretty independently,
Speaker:except for in rare occasions we'll double
up early on. But for the most part,
Speaker:you get the case, it's your
baby. And if it goes to trial,
Speaker:then you start wandering around the
hallways looking for who wants to
Speaker:co-counsel with me on this trial. This
was actually Paula's case. She took lead.
Speaker:And so she asked me about a
month out, I think. She said,
Speaker:"This one's going to go. " And I'd
had a case recently settled, so I did.
Speaker:Yeah, that was going to be my question.
Speaker:So you start to sort of figure out who's
going to do the case with you about a
Speaker:month or so out. Is that true for you,
Paula and Sandra, about a month out?
Speaker:You have a feeling at that
point, mediation's done,
you know the case is going,
Speaker:that's when you go get
second chair, if you will.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And the other thing that's neat about
our firm is we have enough litigators who
Speaker:are pretty seasoned.
Speaker:So if there's a particular
area of damages,
Speaker:say TBI or something like that,
Speaker:some of our attorneys are
really great at certain things.
Speaker:And so you look at it and say, "Oh, okay,
Speaker:this is a case maybe where I want Zack
Elsner on because he's great with the
Speaker:neuropsych stuff." Or in this case,
Speaker:and what I do when I'm lead is we
usually divide up the case by issue.
Speaker:So if there's engineering, if there's
medical, if there's lay witnesses,
Speaker:depending on how many counsel we have,
Speaker:we kind of put everybody in the same box.
Speaker:That's what Paula did
in this case as well.
Speaker:Yep. And we had tried a TBI case together
like four years ago- It was before.
Speaker:COVID.
Speaker:It was right.
Speaker:After COVID.
Speaker:Yeah, we tried it four years ago
together and we got a wonderful result.
Speaker:I think you got a $990,000
or something like that.
Speaker:And we just worked really well together.
Speaker:I think when you have a trial partner
that you've worked with before,
Speaker:you have a lot of faith in each other
that they're going to get their part done
Speaker:and they have faith in you that you've
done that work to get it to verdict and
Speaker:that they can sort of drop in where
they're asked to be dropped in. Yeah.
Speaker:And we just naturally
work really well together.
Speaker:Who did what in the trial?
Speaker:So how did you divide up voir dire opening
and those various parts of the trial?
Speaker:So for this trial, optics
were really important to me.
Speaker:I really wanted us to look like a very
well prepared, female driven team.
Speaker:I also really wanted to make sure that
we were kind of in and out surgically
Speaker:with the jury. So we had two experts.
Speaker:We had our plaintiff and we had one
lay witness, our plaintiff's brother.
Speaker:And so the way that I divided
it, and they had two experts.
Speaker:We had a neurologist, they
had a neurologist. We had
like a musculoskeletal MD.
Speaker:They had the same thing,
an orthopedics guy.
Speaker:And so basically we divided it
between neuro. Sandy did the neuro,
Speaker:and then I did the
musculoskeletal witnesses.
Speaker:That played out really great in terms of
preparation because Sandy could really
Speaker:focus on just the neuro. She did the
lay witness, our plaintiff's brother,
Speaker:and then I took everything else.
Speaker:I was really excited about this case.
I really was.
Speaker:The defense team wasn't paying attention.
They weren't taking it seriously.
Speaker:And so I knew Sandy had been
really busy. And so I said, look,
Speaker:let me do voir dire, opening, closing.
Speaker:I've really doubled down
on voir dire lately.
Speaker:It's something for the past two years
that I've focused on pretty heavily is
Speaker:voir dire. And so I just
wanted to keep going with that.
Speaker:So Paula, you were sort of,
I guess this was your case,
Speaker:your baby from the get-
go. How did you divide up?
Speaker:How did you and Sandra decide
who's doing what during trial?
Speaker:So this case for me, I really
wanted us to look really prepared,
Speaker:really ready and to really tighten up
our story and be surgical about how we
Speaker:presented it to the jury.
Speaker:Sandy and I had done a TBI trial
together before a couple of years ago.
Speaker:And so I really wanted her to
take the neuro on this one.
Speaker:She's just really gifted at getting
really beautiful pieces of testimony out
Speaker:from direct examination of our doctors
and then her cross-examination. I mean,
Speaker:to watch Sandy cross any expert, but
to cross a neuro is like a masterclass.
Speaker:And I had seen her do it in
Arapahoe County when we did
a TBI case together four
Speaker:years ago. And when I asked
her to do this trial, I said,
Speaker:"You have to cross their neuro.
Speaker:You have got to be that guy that's going
to go in and bruise them up." And she
Speaker:did exactly that.
And I knew she had been really busy.
Speaker:So one of the things that we try to do
that I've kind of said before is you want
Speaker:your second chair to really drop in really
easily and without too much pressure.
Speaker:And so I told her, "Look,
I'll do the rest of the trial.
Speaker:If you can do the neuro portion,
do our neuro, cross their neuro,
Speaker:and then take a lay witness,
I'll do everything else.".
Speaker:Okay. So did you do voir dire in opening?
Speaker:I did. I've really been
focusing on voir dire.
Speaker:I've kind of doubled down on voir dire
in the past two years. I've gotten into,
Speaker:sorry, Delamot, I don't know if you're
familiar with her, Hostage to Hero,
Speaker:12 Heroes, One Voice,
Speaker:and that's kind of where I've been
putting the focus of my trial work.
Speaker:Everybody does things
differently, but honestly for me,
Speaker:doubling down on voir dire
is what's worked for me.
Speaker:I've noticed that my verdicts have gotten
bigger and bigger and bigger as I've
Speaker:started to really double down on
voir dire and employ what I've been
Speaker:learning through these books and podcasts.
Speaker:I went from smaller
verdicts to like 750,000,
Speaker:600,000 and now 3.2 million
from really focusing.
Speaker:On it. It's marvelous. And I will
give a plug to sorry de Lamont.
Speaker:I went out and spent three days doing
her trial lab on a big case that I had
Speaker:where three days on the opening, it was
very, very useful. I'm sort of with you.
Speaker:I feel like for me, voir dire
is always an evolving process,
Speaker:but one of our core values is
better tomorrow than today.
Speaker:And I do feel like as long as we're
better tomorrow than we are today,
Speaker:then life's moving in the right direction.
Speaker:Sounds like you're emboldening that
and embodying that. Amazing. Love it.
Speaker:I have to interject
something because she and I,
Speaker:while we're both pretty chill and
that's why we work pretty well together,
Speaker:she didn't want to look at any
of the juror questionnaires.
Speaker:And I just couldn't even wrap
my head around doing a voir dire
Speaker:without having looked at
that. And she's like, "Nope,
Speaker:I don't want to look at it. " She doesn't.
Speaker:She goes in cold and builds
her tribe and I love it.
Speaker:Oh, that's amazing. So Paula, tell us a
little bit about the facts of this case.
Speaker:And then I want to get into the cross
of the neuro and some of the sort of
Speaker:fascinating medical issues
that arose in this case.
Speaker:Absolutely. So our
plaintiff is Anthony Carter.
Speaker:This crash happened on December 7th
of: Speaker:He had been a tile master for his life,
Speaker:had done a lot of like hands-on work
and he was fishing down at the reservoir
Speaker:with a friend of his.
Speaker:He's coming back up on I- 25 northbound
and there's all that construction right
Speaker:around Colorado Springs. And
so he comes to a dead stop.
Speaker:He's driving like a 1990, 1991 Mercedes,
Speaker:the kind that used to be made out of
metal. The bumper was fully metal.
Speaker:Everything in the car is metal.
Speaker:And then defendant Matthew Monday is
driving this Ford Transit van and he's
Speaker:driving it for this weed
farm called Montefiore.
Speaker:And he's going about 65 miles
an hour. He'll never admit it.
Speaker:He said he looked down for a second,
Speaker:but I have my suspicions about what he
was looking down at. He hit Mr. Carter at
Speaker:65 miles an hour.
Speaker:Wow. And you said weed farm,
like marijuana farm or?
Speaker:Yeah. So the van was just full of weed
products that he was delivering to these
Speaker:various dispensaries.
Speaker:The property damage was
significant. I mean, the collision,
Speaker:the forces of the collision were enough
that the metal bolts of the driver's
Speaker:seat in Mr. Carter's car broke and
came undone. His headrest broke.
Speaker:He was dazed at the scene,
Speaker:but obviously concerned about anybody
else that was involved in the wreck.
Speaker:And so he was transported by
ambulance, so was Mr. Monday.
Speaker:And basically what that
led to is at 74 years old,
Speaker:he started having some
AFib, atrial fibrillation.
Speaker:And then after about seven months,
Speaker:he suffered like a triple
cardioembolic stroke,
Speaker:which I'm going to let Sandy talk to you
about because she's got it dialed in on
Speaker:the neuro. But the crux of the case was,
Speaker:did this crash cause these strokes or not?
Speaker:And he had some significant
musculoskeletal injuries
as well. He had a T2,
Speaker:T3 compression fracture, but I
really think that the case was,
Speaker:is this person significantly
and permanently injured.
Speaker:So client gets AFib that
then eventually leads to the
Speaker:stroke. So help me understand how,
Speaker:what did your neurologist, I
understand it was Dr. Gray.
Speaker:What did she tell the jury
how one thing led to another?
Speaker:Honestly, I had never heard
of this before either.
Speaker:So I got a big education in
a very quick period of time
Speaker:on this.
Speaker:So how she explained it
was obviously this crash
Speaker:is hard enough and the forces are hard
enough for whether he hits his head on
Speaker:the headrest or it's a whiplash.
Speaker:I don't think it really mattered because
there was certainly enough force there
Speaker:to give him a TBI. When
he's taken to the ambulance,
Speaker:and an interesting fact is that
he doesn't really talk to anybody
Speaker:super early on because there's
three cars involved in this.
Speaker:And one of the cars, that guy
had a warrant out for his arrest.
Speaker:And so there was like a whole thing.
Speaker:By the time he's actually
talking to someone,
Speaker:there's plenty of time that has passed,
probably close to a half an hour,
Speaker:I think. Whatever he's feeling,
Speaker:he's feeling a little dazed and
confused right after it happens,
Speaker:but doesn't report it to anybody. And so
he goes to the hospital and because of
Speaker:his age, they did a head CT, but
didn't diagnose him with a concussion,
Speaker:didn't diagnose him with
a TBI. But interestingly,
Speaker:they didn't find the compression
fracture either. So there was a lot of,
Speaker:not necessarily missteps, but a
lot of things missed at the ER.
Speaker:And I'm assuming the
head CT scan was normal?
Speaker:Correct. Okay. Yeah, it was.
All right.
Speaker:Which is important because we're not
seeing any of the indications for the
Speaker:ischemic strokes that he
has then down the road.
Speaker:So he has a TBI.
Speaker:He gets his treatment and he's
reporting headaches and some
Speaker:irritability and the usual
cognitive type stuff.
Speaker:But he lives with his brother.
Speaker:They're both in their late 70s and
nobody's really thinking about this.
Speaker:They're treating the physical
side of it. And like Paula said,
Speaker:about seven months later,
he has this stroke.
Speaker:So Dr. Gray explained it to
the jury that he has this TBI,
Speaker:which starts sort of this
cascade. He's put into,
Speaker:for lack of a better
term, fight or flight.
Speaker:So he's operating at this sort
of high level called sympathetic
Speaker:overdrive.
Speaker:So your parasympathetic system
is just idling really high.
Speaker:And then that is creating
Speaker:these heart palpitations
and leading to the AFib.
Speaker:Then the AFib starts running
its course through the heart.
Speaker:Those little clots are making
their way to his brain.
Speaker:So he ends up having,
Speaker:I want to say it was five areas of
ischemic stroke, seven months later.
Speaker:Okay. So it's making a little more sense
to me because I'll sort of confess my
Speaker:ignorance when you're talking
about an ischemic stroke,
Speaker:that these are micro strokes, if you will.
Speaker:So this isn't one big blood
clot going to the brain.
Speaker:These are small little blood
clots over time. Is that right?
Speaker:Yeah. They don't happen. And
the way Dr. Gray explained it,
Speaker:these don't happen overnight. That was
another piece of the causation was, well,
Speaker:if this was going to happen, it should
have happened more immediate. Well,
Speaker:it didn't because it's a whole
cascade of symptoms that lead to this
Speaker:ultimate result.
Speaker:And so the defense doctor blamed it on
Speaker:Imbruvica because he had-.
Speaker:Cancer.
Speaker:Yeah, he had leukemia and
so he was on Imbruvica,
Speaker:but we were able to show the
studies he'd been on this for years.
Speaker:And so with Imbruvica,
yes, it can cause AFib,
Speaker:but it typically causes the AFib within
four months of starting the medication.
Speaker:So you usually know pretty early on if
the Imbruvica is going to be an issue.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:I want to do a little more of a deep
dive into this medical issue for the
Speaker:education of our listeners and
strategically ... And first of all,
Speaker:tell us a little bit about the defense
neurologist, Bruce Morganstern.
Speaker:I think you can look at it two ways.
Speaker:You can either look at as a
curse or a gift because he's
Speaker:going to stick to his guns.
Speaker:He has testified far more times
than I've ever been in trial.
Speaker:And he's got his script and
he's very polished when he's
Speaker:talking to the jury. He also,
Speaker:what I found was kind of aware of the
traps that he could be walked into.
Speaker:So he wasn't fighting me on things because
I think he realized I had the goods.
Speaker:So he knew to just sort of caught
to things, if that makes sense.
Speaker:So it was kind of more like,
Speaker:I have to show the jury
basically that your
Speaker:opinions are sort of absurd and
that they are historically absurd.
Speaker:We had audio taped his Rule 35 exam,
Speaker:and so there were inconsistencies between
the tape and what was in his report.
Speaker:So we highlighted those.
Speaker:We had the tape ready to roll
if he were going to try and work
Speaker:around it, but he knew.
Speaker:He did this comprehensive cognitive test
and the three words and you wait five
Speaker:minutes. And I'm like, "You didn't wait
five minutes, did you? " He's like, "No,
Speaker:it's probably a little less." Half.
It was two and a half minutes.
Speaker:And two of the words he'd
actually repeated in another test.
Speaker:So you're dropping the
hints along the way.
Speaker:So he was interesting. He was tough.
Speaker:He wouldn't keep himself contained
to a yes or no and things like that.
Speaker:But I think after a period of time, I
think the jury just kind of realized,
Speaker:this is insane,
Speaker:he had found no concussion
in some pretty clear
Speaker:cases,
Speaker:a warehouse doc door falling on
someone's head and a pretty significant
Speaker:electric shock. My own
colleague, Anastasia Evans,
Speaker:had a client and she had a big hematoba
on her head and he had done that report
Speaker:saying no concussion. So I think it
was just showing the jury absurdity.
Speaker:Jerry didn't.
Speaker:Like him.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I was going to ask sort of how you went
about finding these prior examples of
Speaker:absurdities.
Speaker:Were those just in office cases or did
you reach out to the Listserv or other
Speaker:ways to get those examples?
Speaker:So I did pull a fair amount
of stuff off of the Listserv,
Speaker:but Paula had also been working
with Expert Institute and
Speaker:they had done a trial.
And so she said, "Hey,
Speaker:look up what you can find on Dr.
Morganstern through here." And it was
Speaker:crazy the amount of
information that was available,
Speaker:not just prior reports, prior depositions,
Speaker:but things that his messages on
different message boards throughout
Speaker:the medical community,
Speaker:there was a listing of all of the
pharmaceutical payouts he had taken,
Speaker:letters that he'd written back in
Ohio regarding malpractice claims,
Speaker:including there was one that had
just this absolute piece of gold
Speaker:saying- Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker:The problem with these malpractice
cases is the bias of defense doctors.
Speaker:I mean, you can't make it up, right? It's
Speaker:little drops of gold. So.
Speaker:Paula,
Speaker:tell us a little bit about the service
with the Expert Institute that you use
Speaker:and we've heard some of the amazing
information. Was it easy to use?
Speaker:Is that something you do a
lot of cases going forward?
Speaker:So I had never done it before. I said,
"All right, let's give it a shot.
Speaker:It's called Expert Radar and it's like
ops." They get all the ops on the other
Speaker:guy and it was incredibly
easy to use. I mean,
Speaker:they did a really quick turnaround
for me. It was like 24, 48 hours.
Speaker:They kind of walk you through it. It looks
kind of like a Filevine system maybe,
Speaker:and you can click through
all the different tabs.
Speaker:So you can go into a tab that gives you
the general overview of how many times
Speaker:he's testified for the defense
versus plaintiff's work.
Speaker:It'll give you where he's
testified in the country.
Speaker:And then you can go on a tab and
it'll have all of his employment.
Speaker:They have a miscellaneous tab where I
think it's where Sandy found that he had
Speaker:written this letter to this
newspaper while he was being sued for
Speaker:malpractice about the bias of
these defense experts. And so what
Speaker:an awesome tool. I am going to use it.
Speaker:I'm going to trial again in June and
I plan to use it on all three experts.
Speaker:I have Allison Fall, Dr.
Chen and Peter Himpsel.
Speaker:Oh my gosh. Yeah, the big three.
Yeah, I was going to say the trifecta.
Speaker:God. So Sandra, how did you,
Speaker:this nugget, this golden nugget you
have, did you lead your cross with this,
Speaker:the concern about the bias of defense
doctors or where did you place that in
Speaker:your cross?
Speaker:Honestly, Keith, I have to
be honest, I didn't use it.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:I didn't use it. I had planned
to and sort of the way,
Speaker:the trajectory of how the cross went,
I ended up pulling back on some of it.
Speaker:I thought that we had already gotten
there and I don't think it would have
Speaker:mattered at that point.
Speaker:I want to dive a little bit into that
because I'm hearing you say that,
Speaker:and I know from talking
a little bit offline,
Speaker:is it you got to a spot where you felt
like the jurors were on your side,
Speaker:you had accomplished what you wanted to,
Speaker:and you didn't want to like beat
them up anymore and like go too far.
Speaker:Is that kind of how that
went down in your mind?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think at one point the cross examination
got a little bit heated to the point
Speaker:where the judge had to intervene,
Speaker:he called a break and at that
point I just felt like, "Okay,
Speaker:let's recalibrate." Actually, honestly,
Speaker:I can't remember if I brought out the
Parade of Horribles before or after the
Speaker:break, but once I had done that,
Speaker:I think out of the corner of my eye I
could kind of see the jurors kind of doing
Speaker:that like, "Yeah,
Speaker:we're done here." And I try and as much
as I can take my cues from where the
Speaker:jury is done with it, so we wrapped
it up pretty quickly after that.
Speaker:With the Parade of Horribles,
Speaker:is that the prior cases where there was
an obvious concussion and he was saying
Speaker:no concussion?
Speaker:Yeah, multiple of those, but yeah.
Speaker:Walk the listeners through sort of
how that played out practically.
Speaker:Do you remember this case
and would he admit, "Yes,
Speaker:I do remember that case." Would he fight
you on the individual facts of those
Speaker:cases or give us a little bit more
about how that particular strategy of
Speaker:showing absurdities in other
cases, absurd opinions,
Speaker:how you practically
put that into practice?
Speaker:So, and this is where I'm saying he
seasoned enough to know what I was doing.
Speaker:I would say, we would switch gears.
Speaker:We were talking about something where he
hadn't found a concussion in our case.
Speaker:And I said, "Well,
Speaker:I want to switch gears a little bit and
ask you about a few other cases you've
Speaker:testified in.
Speaker:Do you recall testifying in a trial
called whatever the name of the trial?"
Speaker:And he's like, "Oh, I'm
not sure." And I'm like,
Speaker:"Let me give you a few facts." And then
this was a case where this gentleman was
Speaker:delivering candy to a Walgreens and the
warehouse dock door fell on his head.
Speaker:Do you recall that? And then he
was like, "Oh yeah, I think so.
Speaker:" He didn't fight me on it
because I think he realized
Speaker:I was going to be ready
with the testimony.
Speaker:I guess that's my question is because my
mind is spinning about how we're going
Speaker:to do this in the trial we have next week.
Speaker:Did you have the report ready to go to
refresh his memory if he waffled at all
Speaker:or the deposition? What did you have?
Speaker:Absolutely. I had the deposition.
Speaker:I had copies ready for defense
counsel and the judge if he were going
Speaker:to ... So I walked in
Speaker:the binder about this big of
his cross But like I said,
Speaker:this is where you can tell probably
more of the seasoned experts,
Speaker:he didn't fight me
because I think he knew.
Speaker:And it was easier for him to
sort of downplay. He's like,
Speaker:"Yeah, yeah, I think I might. Yeah. Well,
Speaker:there was other things going on. " And
he would be very wishy-washy about it.
Speaker:But again, what I wanted for
my purposes was to just ...
Speaker:I didn't want to get into
the whole situation of it.
Speaker:I wanted the optic of garage door
falls on somebody's head and you're not
Speaker:finding a concussion. Okay, next.
Speaker:And so his excuse was, "Well,
Speaker:there's other facts that you're not
covering." And you're just like, "Okay,
Speaker:let's move on to the next case."
Is that kind of how it went down?
Speaker:Right, right. And I think with
the electric shock, he's like,
Speaker:"That's a good one. Well,
Speaker:how many volts or whatever?"
And I think it was 120 volts.
Speaker:What does he say? A hairdryer
or an outlet or something?
Speaker:I can't remember what it was.
Speaker:It was like that was sort
of his back and forth to it.
Speaker:Do you believe that, because
as you're explaining this,
Speaker:I'm thinking on the one hand,
Speaker:it sounds a little bit of a difficult
causation of tying the strokes
Speaker:to this crash.
Speaker:And you have Dr. Gray explaining
physiologically how that occurs.
Speaker:And then on the other hand,
Speaker:you have the defense doctor
going almost too far.
Speaker:And so I almost wonder if the
fact that that doctor took such an
Speaker:extreme position of no concussion then
Speaker:resulted in your verdict. Do you have
an opinion on if that's what happened?
Speaker:I think it very well could
have. Again, with Morganstern,
Speaker:we spent so much time on the TBI itself
versus the stroke because he wasn't
Speaker:finding the TBI in the first place.
Speaker:So that I had to show the jury
that his opinion on the TBI
Speaker:seemed to lack credibility.
Speaker:And then they can pick up where
Alison Gray was and then run the
Speaker:ball to the end zone on.
Speaker:That. Talk to us a little
bit about the difficulties,
Speaker:how difficult it was to establish the
existence of a concussion given the 30
Speaker:minute delay, the negative CT scan.
Speaker:I'm assuming that the
neurologic examination in
the emergency room was fine,
Speaker:totally intact, no issues whatsoever.
Speaker:So how did you overcome that piece to
establish the concussion occurred here?
Speaker:A couple of things. First
of all, there is nobody,
Speaker:he's not speaking to anybody
in the first nearly half hour.
Speaker:And so it kind of came down to a, "Well,
Speaker:if a tree falls in the forest," and
I think those words actually came out
Speaker:of my mouth during my
cross. Second of all,
Speaker:we went through very
meticulously the ER records.
Speaker:There was a timeline in the
nursing notes of when all of
Speaker:these evaluations were to have occurred.
Speaker:The neurologic exam
was ... Well, actually,
Speaker:I think every single systems check,
including the neurological exam,
Speaker:was four minutes fine.
Speaker:Four minutes.
Speaker:Something like that.
Speaker:Every single check, including
elder abuse and fall risk. I mean,
Speaker:we walked them through in your
cross of Morgan Stern in Dr. Gray,
Speaker:and then I did it with Hailey Burke,
Speaker:that timeline of look at how many
tests they're doing and it's four
Speaker:minutes. And that was
their complete assessment.
Speaker:So the timeline,
Speaker:was that on the actual records or did
you have to get the medical audit,
Speaker:the medical metadata to find
those timelines of what occurred?
Speaker:No, it was right in their medical
records. It was in the nursing notes.
Speaker:So in the ER records,
Speaker:they would put timestamps next to the
different things that were happening.
Speaker:So I think when we were preparing, I
was like, "Paula, look at this. This is.
Speaker:Ridiculous." Yeah. I
was just going to say,
Speaker:it's one of the things I love about
doing this is I'm learning something new
Speaker:myself because I recall
some of these ER records,
Speaker:like I have seen those timestamps,
Speaker:but not always for you to be able to
look at that and say, "Wait a minute,
Speaker:to be able to prove
something that we all know,
Speaker:which is that these ER examinations
are very quick, very cursory.
Speaker:And so you're able to look at it and say,
Speaker:look at all these things that they did
in four minutes and they want to have you
Speaker:believe that this is some kind of
comprehensive neuropsychological or
Speaker:neurological assessment."
That is brilliant.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And Hailey Burke was great at really sort
of digging in on what the point of the
Speaker:emergency room is. It's not to do
all of these assessments. It's,
Speaker:are you going to die? Yeah.
Speaker:Quick practical question on that
because I love that testimony
Speaker:and Dr. Burke testifies for the defense
often as well and can be devastating on
Speaker:the defense side, as I think we all know.
Speaker:Did you include in your expert disclosures
that Dr. Burke was going to talk
Speaker:about what normally occurs in
the emergency room and that
Speaker:it's designed to save your life,
Speaker:but they're not doing sort
of a full blown assessment.
Speaker:And the only reason why
I asked that question is,
Speaker:is that something that our listeners
need to be aware of finding out if
Speaker:a treating doctor is going to testify
about that and actually putting in the
Speaker:body of our expert disclosures or A,
did the defense not object? And B,
Speaker:if they did object, are
you sort of like, "Look,
Speaker:this is just part and
parcel of the underlying.
Speaker:Opinions." So it wasn't in our expert
disclosure and it wasn't in her report.
Speaker:And I was really surprised at how much
we got in. Overall, broadly speaking,
Speaker:I don't think, and the
defense team was very gifted.
Speaker:It's Brandon Freedy and Jason Mellakar,
they're both gifted attorneys.
Speaker:I just don't think they
took this case seriously.
Speaker:And so there were some parts that they
weren't paying attention to. For example,
Speaker:Sandy does this beautiful direct
of Allison Gray, and at the end,
Speaker:she moves to admit Dr. Gray's records
because Dr. Gray was our hybrid
Speaker:treater/retained. There was no
objection to those records coming in.
Speaker:And so in my closing,
Speaker:I urged the jury to read the
first eight pages because it
Speaker:had a records review in there.
Speaker:There had been some letters that Mr.
Carter's treating cardiologist had
Speaker:written about the AFib and another
treating doc in there. And so Dr. Gray had
Speaker:kind of gone through all of that.
Speaker:And when there was no objection to
it coming in, and I told the jury,
Speaker:"You should read it. " Our colleagues
on the other side after that said,
Speaker:"Wait a second, that came
in. " And we were both like,
Speaker:"You didn't object." And then
Judge Prince said, "Yeah,
Speaker:you didn't object." And then you could
just sort of see the color on their face
Speaker:was like,
Speaker:"Uh-oh." So there were just some things
that trial kind of gives you as a gift
Speaker:of them just not really taking this
case as seriously as I think we took it.
Speaker:And in speaking to the jury
afterwards, that is what came through.
Speaker:And the jury did tell our friends on the
other side that we were very much more
Speaker:prepared and polished, not only ourselves,
Speaker:but also our doctors and
that their team didn't have
Speaker:that same presentation.
Speaker:You mentioned at the beginning that you
really wanted the optics to be prepared
Speaker:on the right side.
Speaker:Tell us a little bit more about
your thinking and preparation of the
Speaker:optics piece of this and
what our listeners can learn
as they're getting ready
Speaker:to march into trial.
Speaker:Absolutely. So anytime a
case is assigned to me,
Speaker:the first thing I do is I think about
what am I going to tell a jury in my
Speaker:closing argument? And then I
build backwards from there.
Speaker:How do I want this to look?
Speaker:As I was taking depositions
and kind of building this case,
Speaker:I was realizing that what we really
needed was just a really prepared,
Speaker:polished team because these were going
to be really complicated neurological
Speaker:things that I don't think your average
juror was going to be able to understand.
Speaker:And so I wanted,
Speaker:we already had Allison Gray on the
case because she was already a treater,
Speaker:but I brought Haley Burke in because
she absolutely demolished me in Adams
Speaker:County a few years ago. And I was like,
"I'm never going to have that again.
Speaker:I want her on my team." Because she can
explain things in this really beautiful,
Speaker:polished way to the jury that
they really grab onto. I mean,
Speaker:she was 80% of the reason that when
she demolished me in Adams County,
Speaker:it was admitted liability and we got a
defense verdict because she just wiped
Speaker:us. And so I wanted us to have
this team and Sandy comes with it.
Speaker:She is so prepared. She's
so polished. She's so ready.
Speaker:She knows every medical record in and
out because that's how she prepares for
Speaker:trial. And I wanted that look. I
liked the look of having four women,
Speaker:no offense to the men out
there, no offense to you, Keith.
Speaker:But I wanted this look of this team
where we were really taking care of this
Speaker:older gentleman who is
a cute little old man.
Speaker:And he's got this team of like legal
folks and medical folks that are here to
Speaker:be able to tell a story and take care
of him. And then on the other side,
Speaker:we had these two defense attorneys
who weren't taking it seriously.
Speaker:We had two male doctors who also
weren't taking it seriously.
Speaker:In fact,
Speaker:Philip Stull got on the stand and
said that he wasn't sure why he
Speaker:was there because he was only supposed
to talk about the shoulder and didn't
Speaker:know he was supposed
to talk about the back.
Speaker:I just kind of rolled into that
and cross of him. I was like,
Speaker:"You don't even know why you're
here." It was this whole other team.
Speaker:The defendants never came, so they
also didn't show up for trial.
Speaker:So it was this whole other team of
folks not taking our client and his
Speaker:very, very serious injuries and
permanent injuries seriously.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:Did you know that Stoll was going to
say that he only thought it was the
Speaker:shoulder before trial? I mean, that was
just like a gift that was given to you.
Speaker:It was a gift. A gift. I think we looked
at each other and we're like, "What?".
Speaker:His whole report was about
the compression fracture.
Speaker:His report only had a little paragraph
about this big about the shoulder.
Speaker:So when he said that, I thought,
Speaker:"Gosh." And then you have these moments
after you've tried a bunch of cases,
Speaker:you realize the jury doesn't
know what's in his report.
Speaker:I'm going to capitalize
on this. "Hey, jurors,
Speaker:you don't know that the report that I'm
holding in my hand is eight pages of
Speaker:compression fracture. "So this
guy gets up there and says," Oh,
Speaker:I don't even know why I'm here.
Speaker:"He was very cutesy about it
and my cross was less than
Speaker:maybe 10 minutes. I mean,
Speaker:I didn't have a lot to say after he got
up there and said," I don't know why I'm
Speaker:here.
Speaker:"Does that come with experience when you
have accomplished what you need to and
Speaker:then just do sit down?
Speaker:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker:Don't open the door to redirect.
Speaker:You don't. And so you learn
that as you go along, right?
Speaker:And the only way to learn
that is to actually be in
trial and have those moments
Speaker:of, " I think I need to sit down now.
Speaker:We've done the work here and we've left
the impression we want to leave with the
Speaker:jury and in speaking with them afterwards,
it absolutely played out that way.
Speaker:So I'm kind of glad that my trial
instinct was I want this trial to be about
Speaker:optics.
Speaker:And that's exactly what the jury told
me at the end was what did it for them
Speaker:and why they awarded so much money.
Speaker:And what foresight you
had about the optics,
Speaker:not just of having the female team
against to help this older gentleman,
Speaker:but of being super prepared,
having everything inside and out.
Speaker:And then the defense walks in
and puts up a doctor that's like,
Speaker:" I don't know why I'm here. "It just
makes the defense look incompetent.
Speaker:And you couldn't have predicted that, but
it played out perfectly. Kudos to you.
Speaker:Thank you. It was a fun trial.
I mean, admittedly, Keith,
Speaker:in my closing, I only asked
for 900,000. I did not.
Speaker:Ask. I was just about to ask
for the damage ask and how ...
Speaker:So let's talk a little bit about your,
Speaker:because you both have so much
experience trying so many cases. Sandra,
Speaker:let's start with you.
Speaker:Talk to us a little bit about
your philosophy on impairment,
Speaker:non-economic damages,
Speaker:and what sort of you have found works
and what doesn't work and what can we
Speaker:learn from you?
Speaker:Well, I actually was going to defer this
back to Paula because we did have an
Speaker:interesting quirk with
non-economic damages in this case.
Speaker:But in cases now,
Speaker:I'm trying to do my best to get actual
impairment doctors because I think that's
Speaker:historically for me been the hardest
category of damages to quantify to
Speaker:a jury and explain. We've had it,
Speaker:I think the last few trials I've
had, the impairment has come through.
Speaker:The juries have really sort of
grasped onto what that's about,
Speaker:but I'm going to defer to Paula
actually on the non-economics because,
Speaker:like I said, they're a
little quirk in this case.
Speaker:Well, and let's talk about that
because I know from your writeup,
Speaker:it has to do with responding to written
discovery where they're asking you to
Speaker:quantify impairment or
non-economic damages.
Speaker:So give us the setup
and how that played out.
Speaker:Sure. So in the CMO, we didn't
put a range. We just said TBD,
Speaker:which under Rule 26, that's fine.
Speaker:But then they propounded written
discovery and our answer in written
Speaker:discovery to how much are
you going to ask for non-ec,
Speaker:it's going to be determined by a
jury. I didn't put a range in there,
Speaker:which now I have ... I'm not sure if I
learned was a mistake or not, honestly,
Speaker:but that was what our response was.
Speaker:And so they filed a motion in limine to
preclude us from asking for any specific
Speaker:amount.
Speaker:And so we duked it out in motions practice
and ultimately Judge Prince said,"
Speaker:You can ask for non-act,
Speaker:but you may not give them
any formula number nothing.
Speaker:You can just say that non-ec exists. "Now,
Speaker:most of my voir dire is based on damages.
Speaker:So I like to talk to the jury really
early on about versus non-ec versus
Speaker:impairment and kind of get their
feelings on as we're building that tribe,
Speaker:what can you do with this squishy
concept of non-ec that you have to go in
Speaker:and decide,
Speaker:right? So I felt comfortable that we
had a jury pool that was going to work
Speaker:together. I wasn't allowed
to ask for an amount.
Speaker:I couldn't give any sort of formula.
I couldn't do anything. In fact,
Speaker:Judge Prince interrupted me in my closing
without an objection from the other
Speaker:side. He interrupted me
in my closing to say,
Speaker:as I was starting to talk about
non-economic damages on the verdict form,
Speaker:he said," You're not going to do what
I think you're going to do, are you?
Speaker:"And I said," I'm not doing anything.
Speaker:I'm just telling them that there's
a bucket here called non-neck.
Speaker:"And then he told me to move on.
Speaker:Well, before we talk about
their actual award, in response,
Speaker:I just want to put out this,
Speaker:this is what we're doing right now
and I want to get your thought on it.
Speaker:When we are getting interrogatories
asking for specific amounts of
Speaker:non-economics and impairment, what I did,
and I just did this I think last week,
Speaker:so I haven't seen this play out, but we
responded with the typical objection,
Speaker:the rule doesn't require
it. And then I put in there,
Speaker:if counsel for defendant disagrees,
Speaker:we ask that you please raise this with
the court now because I don't want to
Speaker:come in. I want to have that as if you
don't raise it, I don't want to have ...
Speaker:And I think maybe I read your ...
Speaker:I think that actually I'm going to thank
you because I read your trial report on
Speaker:the Listserv and saw that and I was
sort of concerned. I'm like, " Look,
Speaker:if they're asking that question, I
don't want to just say objection.
Speaker:I want to say objection and if you
disagree, raise it with the court.
Speaker:So we'll see how that plays out. Now,
Speaker:I guess based on what happened
to you before you heard that idea
Speaker:from me,
Speaker:are you now answering with a range when
those questions are coming in or what
Speaker:are you all doing?
Speaker:I'm giving a range and my range
typically is at least the underlying
Speaker:economics up to double the cap.
That's kind of the range I live in.
Speaker:And I usually note that it's too
early in discovery to determine a
Speaker:precise number.
Speaker:And we have a whole objection that
we use firm wide on that as well.
Speaker:The other thing too, and I think
if you're going to do that range,
Speaker:I think then it's incumbent upon
us as well to do motions in limine,
Speaker:basically stating defense can't stand up
in their opening or voir dire and say,
Speaker:they're going to ask you for $2 million in
Speaker:non-economic, because I
think that's where it goes.
Speaker:They want them to show this
absurdity right out of the gate,
Speaker:and I think we need to temper that.
Speaker:So if the court's on one hand
going to make us give a range,
Speaker:they also kind of, I think,
Speaker:need to protect the outcome
of how that range happens.
Speaker:Wow, that's a really
good way to handle that.
Speaker:So you sort of object saying the
rule doesn't require it, number one.
Speaker:Number two, it's early in discovery.
Number three, this is for the jury.
Speaker:And then without waiving said objection,
the range is between here and there.
Speaker:And then if defense counsel believes
that we need to provide additional
Speaker:information, raise it with the court,
Speaker:and then eventually
file a motion in limine,
Speaker:how have you seen that play
out during depositions?
Speaker:Have you found defense attorneys
aggressively trying to get
Speaker:testimony in depositions from your
clients about both non-economics and
Speaker:impairment? And if so, what are you
doing to prepare your clients for that?
Speaker:Essentially, it's something that
as an attorney or as attorneys,
Speaker:we need to have that
conversation with our clients.
Speaker:That I believe enters into a
privileged conversation in a
Speaker:deposition, particularly if we
haven't had that discussion.
Speaker:And so my clients typically are saying,
"I need to talk to my lawyer about that.
Speaker:" I don't know. That's
kind of where it's been.
Speaker:I don't know if I've had any
clients who've actually spit out.
Speaker:A number. Have you ever had to
instruct your client not to answer,
Speaker:sort of aggressively asserting
attorney-client privilege on that?
Speaker:I'm trying to think if I have
or not. I did have one counsel.
Speaker:We ended up almost calling the court
on it because I must have said not to
Speaker:answer, but I'm not recalling it
off the top of my head. But yeah,
Speaker:I absolutely can see a scenario
where that happened. So.
Speaker:All right, Paula, back to you're
not allowed to ask a number,
Speaker:but I thought I heard you say earlier
that the jurors said you didn't ask for
Speaker:enough.
Speaker:So help me understand sort of how that
practically played out in terms of what
Speaker:you asked for and what the jury awarded.
Speaker:So I wasn't allowed to ask
for non-ec. For economics,
Speaker:we asked for the meds, which
was a little over 186,000,
Speaker:and then I asked for an extra 100,000
on top of that for future care because I
Speaker:had a slide in my closing.
Speaker:Allison Gray had given us monetary
values for her future care
Speaker:recommendations. Hailey Burke did not.
Speaker:So we had a slide where we had
Dr. Burke's recommendations with
Speaker:no dollar figures and then Allison
Gray's with dollar figures.
Speaker:And I figured $10,000 a year for 10 years.
Speaker:So that's why I only asked for 100,000.
Speaker:I was being really careful because El
Paso is a conservative jurisdiction.
Speaker:You don't want to walk in there and just
start asking for all kinds of stuff.
Speaker:And then for permanent
impairment, I asked for 650,000.
Speaker:I had thought about more
the night before. In fact,
Speaker:I had always valued this case at about
three million in my mind. We work a lot
Speaker:with Steven Padway with
Elite Trial. He's awesome.
Speaker:So I had been on the phone with
him for about an hour and he said,
Speaker:"I think you should ask for 2.7 million
in permanency." And so I had that in my
Speaker:closing and then I don't know, 20
minutes before I said, "I can't do it,
Speaker:put in 650,000.
Speaker:I have to be able to say a number that
I can get behind." So that's what we put
Speaker:in and the jury decided otherwise
they thought that it wasn't
Speaker:enough is what they told me.
They said that in my closing,
Speaker:I had talked about how this is,
Speaker:it was my rebuttal and I had talked
about how this is his last chance at
Speaker:any sort of closure and any
sort of chance of having
Speaker:an award to him to take care of him for
the rest of his life. This is his final
Speaker:chapter because our friends on the
other side, their closing had been,
Speaker:"When is it enough? When is it
enough?" And I said, "This is it.
Speaker:This is his only chance.
Speaker:This has to be enough." And I
talked about how the mortality table
Speaker:says he has 10 years left
of his life and that's it.
Speaker:And so they went back and one of the
jurors told me that it really made her,
Speaker:what I had said,
Speaker:think about her own mortality and her
families and what it would look like to
Speaker:have to fund medical care in this economy
and with these soaring medical rates.
Speaker:And so they all kind of thought
about themselves a little bit.
Speaker:And then they said,
Speaker:"What you asked for wasn't enough." And
then they came up with these numbers.
Speaker:Yeah. And sorry, Delamot says that you
want your juries to come back and say,
Speaker:"Can we give them more?" And that has
been a goal of mine for two years. And so
Speaker:it was really exciting to have this
jury say, "You didn't ask for enough.
Speaker:We needed to give him more." Yeah.
Speaker:And I do have to shout out because when
Jason Mellicar did the closing and he
Speaker:did, he sort of was like, "And this
and this, then when is it enough?
Speaker:Ladies and gentlemen, when
is it enough?" And again,
Speaker:because she's brilliant and experienced,
Speaker:but she walked right into that
and just it was a brilliant
Speaker:rebuttal. Absolutely brilliant.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Yeah. No, it was. Again, she just ...
Speaker:I don't know if that's what she
was planning, but when she got up,
Speaker:it was just raw and it
was beautiful. I never.
Speaker:Know what I'm going to say
until I get up there sometimes.
Speaker:I'm just so impressed that
you have accomplished all
these bucket list items for
Speaker:me that I'm not sure will ever occur,
Speaker:including can we award more than was
asked for and can we have a calculator?
Speaker:None of those have ever. Maybe someday.
Speaker:Last question before we wrap this up,
because I'm a little bit confused.
Speaker:You weren't allowed to
ask for non-economics,
Speaker:but you were allowed
to ask for impairment.
Speaker:What was the reasoning
behind that difference?
Speaker:It.
Speaker:Was the interrogatory.
Speaker:Yeah, it was the interrogatory. They
only asked for the non-act piece.
Speaker:And the motion in limine also was only
about non-economics because they didn't
Speaker:take this seriously.
Speaker:They didn't even think that they had to
talk about permanent impairment, right?
Speaker:Because they thought never in a million
years are they going to tie this
Speaker:permanent stroke, this permanent
thoracic fracture to the crash.
Speaker:So we're not even going to worry about it.
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:I'll tell you one thing that
I have learned after doing
a bunch of these podcast
Speaker:episodes,
Speaker:which I love because I learned so much
is that so many of these great results
Speaker:are as a result of mistakes made by
the defense. And for whatever reason,
Speaker:we live in this world where all
we do is catastrophize our own
Speaker:cases, our own abilities, and we're
always thinking about what can go wrong.
Speaker:And we don't spend enough time
thinking about, "Well, you know what?
Speaker:What can go wrong with the other side?"
When they come walking in and their
Speaker:doctor comes up and says, "What?
I'm here to talk about the shoulder.
Speaker:What are you talking about? "
Compression fracture. And you're like,
Speaker:"Okay." And to be present enough, Paula,
Speaker:there's two of those in trial gifts that
were given to you that I'm hearing you
Speaker:handle just masterfully.
This shoulder issue,
Speaker:no talking about the compression fracture,
Speaker:and then this when is enough enough so
that you are present probably as a result
Speaker:of your experience or just
your brilliance to listen and
Speaker:respond is just amazing.
Kudos to you and Sandra,
Speaker:what an amazing result. So thank
you so much. And with that,
Speaker:we'll wrap this up until the next
episode. I am just so inspired,
Speaker:truly inspired by the amazing work
that you and your firm is doing.
Speaker:So thank you both so much
for coming on the show.
Speaker:Thanks, Keith. Thank you for.
Speaker:Having.
Speaker:Us. We loved it. Let's go get them.
Let's get them some more. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Go get more and come back on and tell
us what we can do and what we can learn.
Speaker:So thank you so much.
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker:Keith.
Speaker:Thank you for joining us.
Speaker:We hope you've gained valuable insights
and inspiration from today's courtroom
Speaker:warriors, and thank you
for being in the arena.
Speaker:Make sure to subscribe and join us next
time as we continue to dissect real
Speaker:cases and learn from
Colorado's top trial lawyers.
Speaker:Our mission is to empower
our legal community,
Speaker:helping us to become better trial lawyers
to effectively represent our clients.
Speaker:Keep your connection to Colorado's
best trial lawyers alive at
Speaker:www.thectlc.com.
