Trial Breakdown: $373,922 Verdict | Gray Broughton Injury Law

How would you approach arguing a personal injury case where there is very little visible damage, there are pre-existing conditions for the client, and a lot of difficulties in gathering evidence? 

In fact, would you take such a case in the first place?

Our firm Gray Broughton was approached with this challenging car crash case, and despite the long odds, we knew there was an opportunity to get a successful result.

But it would take a lot of adaptability and flexibility, drawing from the skills and experience we have accumulated over years of trial wins and losses.

Trials are not segmented blocks. Trials are stories. And those stories start in jury selection. 

Our conversation today, bringing the Gray Broughton team together to reflect on the process and outcome of this case, ultimately hinges around the importance of jury selection: doing your research and connecting with people on a human level. 

Here we had an individual defendant, a sweet young lady, not a corporate defendant. Would the jury recognize that this was not a personal attack, but simply a question of taking an accident and making it right?

 "You've got to be intentional about setting the stage, and creating an environment that allows people to be comfortable sharing answers to these otherwise very difficult questions." - Sharif Gray

In this episode, we discuss:

◼️ The importance of adapting to jury dynamics in trial cases.
◼️ How you never hear about the less obvious, less headline-grabbing cases, which in reality are the vast majority.
◼️ How to have effective communication with jurors, for better outcomes.
◼️ Why building a strong narrative around the case from the opening statement will influence jury perception.
◼️ The role of a supportive team in navigating trial challenges.
◼️ How the economics are easy, but non-economics are hard.
◼️ The humanization of the client but also the defendant is crucial.

Chapters

00:00 Setting the Stage: Not Your Typical Car Crash
12:48 Challenges in Proving the Case
17:19 Jury Dynamics
28:30 Understanding Jury Perceptions and Verdicts
32:41 Staying Inside the Box: Framing the Jury's Role
36:03 The Art of Storytelling in Trials
40:57 Engaging the Jury: The Power of Visuals
48:57 Humanizing the Client and the Impact of Injuries
52:56 Recognizing Team Contributions in Legal Success

Courtroom Stories & Tactics | RVA Trial Lawyers
Available on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and at RVATrialLawyers.com 

Based out of Richmond, Virginia, Courtroom Stories & Tactics by RVA Trial Lawyers exists for lawyers who try cases to juries on behalf of people. Through our podcast, we hope to learn from them, support them, connect them, inspire them, and preserve their work for future trial lawyers.

If you are willing, we would greatly appreciate it if you left us a 5-Star Google Review by clicking here. Your review will help people find us.

Thank you!

Sharif Gray and Nael Abouzaki

Transcript

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SPEAKER_03 0:33

There were times where I even went to some of the potential jurors and said, listen, imagine yourself back in the jury room and you've got to come back with a number. How are you going to feel doing that knowing that you've got that young lady sitting there? Right? Like, are you going to think, is this going to impact her? We were very forward about what the issues were, about whether these jurors could follow the law. And I think the judge gave us enough leeway to actually have real conversations with these jurors that they felt comfortable talking to us.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

This is Courtroom Stories and Tactics by RVA trial lawyers, hosted by Sharif Gray and Niall Abuzaki.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

All right, before we get into the podcast episode, I want to take a minute or two and introduce you to a friend and colleague, Jenny Shadini. Jenny is a former prosecutor from Baltimore City, and now she works as a settlement consultant. We work with her often on helping our clients really maximize their results. Jenny, it's really great working with you and having you as a supporter of the podcast.

SPEAKER_06 1:38

Thank you, Sharif. Hi everyone. My name is Jenny Shadini and I work as a settlement consultant, which means I work with attorneys and their clients in various settlement planning needs, such as structured settlements, whether or not to utilize a trust, how to protect government benefits, and overall providing financial security to your clients.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

And Jenny, how could people get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_06 1:58

The best way to reach me would be my cell, which is 301-332-1031. Again, that's 301-332-1031.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

All right, we're back. And today we've got a special episode. We're breaking down a trial with our trial team. We had a trial about a month ago at this point, right, Zach? And it involved a very difficult, I would call it a car crash case, but it wasn't much of a crash. It was a side swipe case in Henraiko County. Very difficult case, and if I'm being truly honest. Normally a case that I think I lose or we lose. I've certainly lost these cases in the past, but we were able to get a really heck of a result for a client. And our hope today is to talk about the case, explain what we did with the hope that one, we can learn from reflecting on the case, and then two, hopefully we can share some lessons with our listeners. So if they ever run into a case like this, maybe they have some new tools to potentially use to get justice for their client. But before we get into that, I have to make some introductions, and it's my privilege to do so. Before I turn to our regulars, I want to introduce Katie Robinson. Katie.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Well, hello.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Katie is a paralegal at our firm. She is a rising star, no sense of humor whatsoever. So just a nonstop worker. We are very grateful to have her. She has a friend who at one point thought about coming but decided not to. We will not mention that friend's name. Okay, Katie?

SPEAKER_05 3:37

Okay.

unknown 3:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

All right. But no, Katie actually played a decent role at the trial. So she had just started. Was it that first week?

SPEAKER_05 3:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

That was her first week at our firm. So if you're interested looking for a job and you want a law firm that's like actually gonna take you to trial and give you meaningful work, well, come to us, right? We're looking. But anyways, Katie, you started with our firm and something went out about, hey, we have this trial, and you were like, Well, can I come launch? And I'm pretty sure I said, Well, I'm not in charge around here, so you need to go talk to Laura. And then you went and spoke to Laura, and then Laura spoke with Gray and I, and the answer was yes. And so you came with Zach and myself the night before to the courtroom to test out. We did that little mini focus group with with our friend Brian at the Henraiko courthouse, right? Shout out to Brian. We needed to get him on the podcast at some point. Very useful, very useful. I like Brian. He's the IT guy at the Henry House. Straight shooter. Absolutely. And he's on our team. So, anyways, you came to the Henraiko courthouse with us. You helped us kind of test all the technology and all that stuff. And then you also came back the next day and you watched trial. I remember asking you after the fact, like, how was it? And you're like, that's the most professionally exhilarating thing of my life. And I was like, the sarcasm. I love it. But you were serious.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

I was. I was serious.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

Are you still do you still mean it?

SPEAKER_01 4:55

No.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

I appreciate the candor. Well, let me um let's move on from you. Okay. And let's talk about our other two esteemed guests. So we have Zach Gruba. Zach and I tried the case together. Zach is uh hell of a trial lawyer and works closely with me. I'm sure if I was not in the room, he'd have a lot of fun things to share about what it's like to overhear my phone calls and attempt to work with me. But, anyways, I thought we made a hell of a team. And I genuinely believe that it was one of the hardest cases I think our firm has tried. And frankly, I think I'm very, I mean, I'm just a bias, but the work that you and I did together on this case, I think led to an exceptional and a just result for a very deserving client. And then last but not least, we have Laura Bradshaw over here. It is Laura, like Laura Croft, who I was a big fan and still am a big fan of, both Laura Croft and Laura Bradshaw. Lara was the paralegal on this case. It was the first circuit court trial, I think, that you prepped from inception to go the distance that led to a pretty good result.

SPEAKER_05 6:06

Yeah, I mean, this was a referral case, so there was a little work done initially, but in terms of like once we got it, one of our other paralegals kind of on it at first, and then she left and I took it over from there, probably early on in discovery.

SPEAKER_03 6:21

And Laura's very good at being direct and candid. She has told me before a case that Zach and I will not name, that we had a loser. And we did have a loser, and the jury made that very clear in their in their verdict. But we had to actually, that's uh a story for a different podcast. We actually were able to make something out of that case despite a bad verdict. So that's a technique that we can talk about a different time. But Laura was very clear from the outset, at least in that case, that it was not a good case. And since then, you've kind of called it right. I mean, you you were had faith in us at least for this case, and then had faith in us for the case we tried 10 days after this one. So really happy to have all you guys here on the podcast. I recognize that was a five-minute introduction. I don't think I've ever done that before, but because we have the Katie Robinson with us today, I the I felt like I needed to go the extra mile. Zach, if you wouldn't mind just kind of setting the stage for what this case was about.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Sure, happy to do that. A case like this, it's kind of interesting because you hear about when you're in the personal injury world, you encounter a number of just wonderful case outcomes. You see massive, massive verdicts, and a lot of those cases involve horrific conduct, horrific injuries, other elements that are baked in that you know can inflame a jury. But you never really hear about these cases. And these cases tend to be probably the more common cases. And every personal injury attorney encounters cases like this. And I remember for there's a period of a couple of years where, you know, even working with Sharif, we'd go to different training seminars, and there were always issues around these types of cases where we would say, you know, what is what is the best approach to a case like this? And it always felt like I couldn't get a satisfying answer. We even tried at Lanier, Sharif sent up like a handwritten question like four days in a row, and I and I feel like it got skipped over every single time. So, and and frankly, I think we had to lose one of these cases in many respects to kind of evolve in our approach and maybe learn a different way of approaching this case. And what I'm talking about is a case that involves an individual defendant. So you don't have a corporation on the other side. You've got low to no visible property damage, you've got a treatment gap. I mean, that's essentially the trifecta. Like those are some of the hardest cases to try. So, quick overview of the facts is our client, very likable guy, was actually traveling out of town for a funeral, I think it was, and was on his way back up into Pennsylvania. He was on Route 81 in Virginia, heavy traffic at the time. He was behind the defendant driver's vehicle who was in the passing lane, going at the speed limit, which you know we all know is terribly infuriating. So he was in the process of trying to go around her vehicle and moved over to overtake her. And as he got a little bit ahead of her, she then merged over and essentially ended up clipping the back of his vehicle, which caused his vehicle to sort of rotate. And he was able to then grasp onto the steering wheel and exert some force to bring the vehicle back under control. At which point, you know, what he told us was that he felt or heard an audible pop in his shoulder. Thankfully, he was able to get the vehicle under control. He had his wife in the passenger seat, he had his daughter who was sleeping in the back seat and didn't even wake up, which was which was a great fact for us. Real harrowing collision. She slept through it. Then he pulls over into the shoulder, and those are essentially the key facts in the case.

SPEAKER_03 10:55

Yeah, it was, as you said, Zach. I mean, individual defendant, a nice young lady who certainly had no intent of ever causing this. I I do I even call it a collision or this this I don't even know. I mean, incident. Because I mean, there was almost no damage, right? I mean, we all hear in the personal injury world, oh, minimal property damage. I mean, this was as close to no property damage as you can get because it was basically trading a little bit of paint, right? There was no indentions. There, I mean, it was hard. You, if you looked at the vehicle, you would not have known that there was some sort of incident. And couple that with, I mean, no real egregious conduct on the defense part. And then our client, because he had a pre-scheduled hip surgery that was set for shortly after this incident, he didn't really go seek meaningful treatment for his shoulder for a period of about nine months. Is that right? I mean, I think it was contested at trial, but there was a small tiny note in an urgent care record two days after this incident, in which there's a mention of shoulder. But apart from that, nothing. And so it was very challenging that regard. Also, her client was from out of state, so that led to a lot of issues with getting the appropriate records. His surgeon, who ultimately ended up operating on the guy's shoulder, refused to participate in the case. That led to other issues. Gosh, what else was? I mean, well, why don't you talk about the audio clip? Oh, yeah. I mean, so this was really cool, but it also, I guess it it was interesting. So our client, awesome guy, loves his family, also kind of a historian, in the sense of like when he and his wife and family are on the road for a long time, what they'll do is they'll tell stories to each other about kind of their family history and then they'll record it. And so it just happened that during this incident, he was telling stories and it was being recorded. So we could actually hear the impact or the incident. I I guess you shouldn't really hear the impact, but you could hear sounds suggesting some sort of incident in this audio clip. But I mean, the defense wanted it in because they thought it was actually helpful to them. So that shows you how limited the evidence was. And also the police never showed up for this case. So my gosh, a difficult case.

SPEAKER_05 13:21

Yeah, he also drove all the way back home to Pennsylvania after this happened, didn't get transported in an ambulance, didn't get treatment. And then, like you said, he did go to an urgent care maybe the next day or the day after. And that was our saving grace, honestly, was because those urgent care records said he had a shoulder injury. And then because of the hip issues, they kind of postponed it. And we learned through the trial through the experts that when you have orthopedic injuries, you have to triage. You can't operate on a shoulder and then do a hip because you can't then use crutches for the hip if your shoulder isn't repaired. So they do lower extremities first. So we were able to kind of clarify that in the courtroom with experts, but in the mix of all of that, he also had a ton of other unrelated injuries, uh, health issues in general, post-military veteran, ex-law enforcement, very, very great guy, but not a healthy person. And when you have all that stuff kind of intertwined, it gets a little messy as to what's related, what isn't. So we had to just be like, we're only claiming this shoulder. That's it. But the records and the bills and everything we were getting said otherwise, and it was a lot to sort through.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

It was. Do you want to talk a little bit about what was it like from the paralegal standpoint, just trying to help us get this case ready? I mean, just to even put it in position, because we had to get the case continued once because of lack of the ability to get some of these records. And I mean, there's so many obstacles. And I bet our listeners, especially those who do personal injury work, are probably wondering, like, why the hell did you guys like take this case? Why'd you even do it? And I mean, that's a fair question. I think Gray, who watched the trial as well, was thinking, man, if these guys get like 30 grand, God bless, I mean, that's a good result. Well, tell them about the offer going in too. Well, what I mean the offer was $20,000? Yeah, it was $20,000, right? There was never, and then for some context, I mean, medical bills, depending on the case, can be important. This is a case where we certainly did want to use the medical bills. And I think our medical bills were north of $100,000, $150,000, $150-ish, maybe even $170.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

So they did dwarf the initial offer in this case, so we decided to add some economic damages.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

Oh, there was almost no negotiations. I mean, they the adjuster thought we were just out the launch on this case, uh, as frankly, and probably rightfully so.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Well, and to your point, I mean, that's part of the reason why the case got tried, right? Sometimes the defense just will force your hand and you've got to be willing to meet the moment when that happens.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

And we had a client who was willing to take that risk, right? I mean, one of the things I loved about that client is that he had full for good or bad, he had faith in us. I mean, and me, and I'm I'm included in that. And so, like, which is crazy for someone to trust me. But, anyways, he was willing to do whatever we thought was best. So he was an amazing client to work with, super, super trusting of us, believed in what we do. So, like to get that result for him. And ultimately, I I mean, I'm not trying to bury the lead, but $20,000 offer, $373,000 something. And to the penny, I don't remember the penny amount, dollar verdict, right? In Henraiko County, Virginia. But, anyways, very difficult case. But Laura, can you talk a little bit about kind of just the workup and what that was like?

SPEAKER_05 16:38

Yeah, I've never had such an issue getting records for a case ever. And when I realized defense had the same issues, that was why it got continued. It was in October originally, but it was like impossible to get these out-of-state records and to really have a full picture of his treatment. And it impacted my ability to draft up expert opinion letters for the orthopedic doctor we hired because he was missing a portion of the story as well. And it just caused a lot of delay. And like you said earlier, the surgeon was in Pennsylvania, called him. He wasn't willing to do litigation in Virginia, and we can't subpoena him. So then our hands are a little bit tied with that, and we had to have another route, which was to hire an orthopedic expert. So we had to do that. And then I had a hard time kind of giving that doctor everything he needed because I wasn't able to get it. So it was just kind of a lot of hurdles with that. Then it also, like you said earlier, there was no police response, no EMS. There wasn't a lot to the case with kind of like other witnesses. It was really just his family. We didn't call hardly anyone to the stand for this. It was just the family members and the doctor was a dependent essay, he couldn't be in person. So that was another challenge. We didn't have a lot of photos or anything for you know demonstratives that were really compelling. So kind of the things you noted earlier, we had this video where it was like this could really backfire because it really didn't sound that impactful. It was kind of like, okay, this seems underwhelming. But I think the key to this case, and we had talked about this a lot during prep was nailing down the mechanism of the collision and explaining that to the jury. And I think you guys did an incredible job with that. You ended up using your kids' toy cars to explain in I guess the opening what really transpired, because it's a very confusing collision. And it, like you said, there was hardly any damage to the cars. And it was all about that overcorrecting of a vehicle that's going at highway speeds and understanding how that can result in a torn rotator cuff. And once you nailed that down, I think the jury bought into what was happening in this collision and how this really could have happened.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

My kids were very reluctant to let me borrow their toy cars for the day. Don't lie, those weren't your kids' toy cars. Shh, don't tell anyone. The Katie Robinson. The first jury trial you've ever seen, correct?

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Yes.

unknown 19:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

Tell us what was it like sitting there watching the thing?

SPEAKER_01 19:12

It was like Sharif mentioned earlier, I did, and he is quoting me, I did say it was exhilarating, probably one of the most exhilarating moments of my life.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

Sorry, say that again.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Never. And I think I completed that task with the biggest smile on my face. I was so excited to do it. And it was really cool. Like I'm finding their social medias, I'm finding, you know, what their address is and what their houses look like. Are they in, you know, a high-income neighborhood? Like just figuring out as much as I could to help decipher which way we think they would go when it came time to deliberate. And I think the biggest thing for me was actually being in the courtroom. I found that I was staring at the jury a majority of the time. And I was trying to guess, like, oh, who's I wonder who that one is. Like, because I knew all of this information about them. And you could kind of tell, like, you know, we ended up talking to the one juror afterwards to get like feedback on how she thought everything went and like where we lost points, where we gained points. But I remember specifically actually when I was feeling pretty confident and you guys were like, I'm not feeling that great. And I'm like, no, guys, it's fine. Like, it's great, it's great. Because every time you guys would say something, she would literally just be like nodding her head, like, mm-hmm. And I'm like, oh, they've got this in the bag. Like, we're fine. We're literally gonna be so great. But I just think being there in general, like I have plans to go to law school, and that is like ultimately what I want to do one day. And so I think something seems like so unrealistic until you're doing it, and then you can see yourself doing it. So I think it was more so that I was just so excited for myself in the future.

SPEAKER_03 21:10

Thank you, the Katie Robinson.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Of course.

SPEAKER_03 21:12

No, but it actually was great having your help. It was great having you on the side also watching and then being supportive because Zach and I, I don't know what's happening. Like, I mean, frankly, we didn't think we were gonna get a decent result until the jury asked for a calculator during deliberations, right? I mean, I mean I I was fully expecting, not expecting, but I I thought it was within the realm of possibility we would have gotten a defense verdict, which would have been the equivalent of like a zero dollar verdict.

SPEAKER_05 21:41

I think one thing from my perspective that really benefited us was they hired this orthopedic doctor as their expert to kind of say this injury isn't from this collision, right? And one of their approaches was to allege that because our client had this hip surgery, he used a walker, and the use of this walker actually contributed to the the tear of his shoulder that this was a pre-existing injury, and this just did admit, right? So we actually ended up borrowing my parents' walker as uh a tool for the trial. And I think just that visual as well, like you know, here he is using a walker where you're supposed to have equal balance on two shoulders, but that's what tore his shoulder, not the collision. I think that was a compelling part of the trial, personally.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

Yeah. Zach, I think we should talk about the lessons we learned from the name the case that will not be and shall not ever be named on this podcast again, right? And how we applied those to this case.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

Sure. Some of the, well, I will say, and this is just a challenge that we encounter in Virginia in general, and that is when you walk into a courtroom, your void dear process is going to be different almost every single case and with every single judge. And that can be very frustrating at times. And in the case we shall not name, we were more restricted in terms of what we could do in Vladier. So that makes things challenging. But it wasn't just that because I mean we we had to call a number of audibles in the case where we had success and we pivoted from some of the lessons that we were able to take from that original case. But for starters, in the case where we didn't have a great result, one of the things that We just didn't, I would say maybe do effectively, or we just didn't really know how to properly frame was how to deal with the individual defendant in the case. I mean, the courtroom setup in the first case that didn't go well was a little bit odd in that the defense table and the plaintiff's table were actually perpendicular to each other. They weren't side by side, they weren't on the same plane. And the defense table was such that they literally just got to face the jury the entire time, which was a little bit weird, but they had the defendant just sitting at this table looking all sad and pitiful, just staring at the jury the entire case. And we just didn't have a great strategy for disarming that sympathy to a certain degree. So that was one lesson that we took from the first case. And one of the first things we did in the case where we had success was we, even in Voidir, and I think in opening, we just said that the defendant is not a bad person. We're not here to punish the defendant. We're not here. That is not the purpose of this. We're not saying she's a bad person. In fact, she's a very likable person. That's not what this is about. This is about when you hurt somebody and you, you know, you're in a collision and that causes harm. There has to be responsibility for that. But we're not saying that it's about punishment or that she's a bad person. So we immediately tried to disarm that. And I think we did that effectively in our framing. And that was something that we just weren't able to do in the first case, frankly, because I don't know that we really knew how to address that issue yet. And that's an issue that came up a lot, and we were constantly thinking about how do we get ahead of this when you've got an individual defendant who's likable and it's not a punitive case. So that was one important lesson.

SPEAKER_03 25:13

It's especially difficult with the individual defendants, right? Because at the end of the day, as much as we hate the word accident, it was an accident. The person, for whatever reason, had a momentary lapsed judgment and that led to this incident, right? And one of the things that I've done and maybe done too much, which probably contributed to the cases that didn't go well, is I've always tried to like look to villainize the defense, like or find a way to get the jury angry, right? And it really didn't. Well, we didn't even try and do that in the case we lost, but at the same time, we didn't compensate for not doing it, right? And so we took the opposite approach here, just like Zach said, and we got ahead of it, I think starting in Voidir. Voidir in Virginia is very open on paper, it is very restricted in practice. I still don't understand necessarily why. I expect it's just lawyers don't really push the envelope. And we filed a motion on the Voidir topic. We actually converted the bench brief to a motion requesting meaningful voidir consistent with the law. And why did we do that? We did that because judges, please close your ears. But unless it's a motion, they typically don't read it, right? Because I mean they're busy, they've got stuff, and so we made it a motion and we dealt with it pre-trial. We explained exactly what we were going to do and what we intended to do. Everybody gave us thumbs up, which was great. I mean, we were limited to some extent, but for the most part, we got the green light, which was, I think, hugely helpful because we knew before stepping into the courtroom that the judge would be receptive to what we were doing because we had already dealt with the issues in advance. And unlike most trials, we didn't do opening statements until after lunch, if I remember correctly. Yeah. Right? Like we had voidir all morning. I handled the questions, did the questioning, and Zach handled the tracking of the answers and all the challenges for cause. And I mean, we had you had at least like five. I think we had five in the case. Right. And we went on, we dealt with very important issues. I think in Zach, I mean, it's hard for me to remember because I was the one doing it, but I think there were times where I even went to some of the potential jurors and said, listen, imagine yourself back in the jury room and you've got to come back with a number. How are you going to feel doing that knowing that you've got that young lady sitting there? Right. Like, are you going to think, is this going to impact her? And I don't know what words I used exactly, but we were very forward about what the issues were, about whether these jurors could follow the law. And I think the judge gave us enough leeway to actually have real conversations with these jurors that they felt comfortable talking to us. And because of that, we were able to learn a number of things that led to, I think, five fairly clear challenges for cause. And before I turn it over to Zach on some more stuff in Voidir, one thing I think was hugely helpful was because we filed that motion, and because we were so, at least I believe, appeared to be prepared for Voidir, when it came time for the challenges for cause, the law was in front of us. Judge, based on our motion on this point, this point, this point, and for these reasons, they've got to go. And so for anybody in Virginia, or frankly, anybody anywhere, if you'd like a copy of that motion, obviously we're happy to share it. Because it I think it at least helped give the perception that we were the authority in the room when it came to what the law was. We knew what we were doing, and I think it worked. I I mean, and I'm certainly biased, but I think what we did was consistent with the law. So before I, is there anything else on Voidir that you think is important to mention before we move on?

SPEAKER_02 29:03

Yeah, what I would say is, I mean, to Sharif's credit, he's exceptional at doing Voidir. He's got a great ability to connect with the jurors. He's he's very credible, he's very uh conversational. And I think he's doing the hard work because he's got to surface the issues. I mean, making the arguments to strike the jurors is not hard when you've got somebody who's doing an excellent job surfacing the issues. But I know there were three things in particular that we talked about that I think really, really were helpful in forming the panel in this case. And we identified folks that were just inflexible on these issues. One of the things that we did right in the outside of the case in Vaudir is we talked about money damages. I think we actually said the amount that we were seeking in the case, but it was many millions of dollars. And we were able to, or Shrief was able to identify the folks where essentially, like just hearing that number, is there anybody on this panel that thinks I don't care what the evidence is, there's nothing you're gonna be able to show me, there's nothing you're gonna be able to tell me that would ever justify, you know, a $10 million verdict or whatever the number was. And you're always getting, if you can ask that question, you can't ask it every time. We've had cases where we have not been permitted to ask that question. But when you're able to ask that question, there is always going to be a couple of jurors that are gonna raise their hand and basically say, I don't care what you present, I'm never going to award millions of dollars. So we talked about the economics. The other piece that we talked about was non-economics, which is similarly important. And essentially the question was Is there anybody in here that thinks, you know, that the intangibles that you're gonna have trouble quantifying or putting a value on non-economic damages? You know, I think Sharif said, look, the economics are easy. We can hand you a calculator for that. That's we did it. And we did. We gave you a calculator. Oh, the court did. That's not what we need your help with. The hard part is the non-economics and the non-quantifiables and the intangibles. Is there anybody here that thinks that they're they just can't do that? You're gonna have a juror or two that's gonna say, I can't do it. I don't believe in it, or I just don't think it's possible to precisely lay out a figure for that. And then the final thing that we talked about in Voidir was staying in the box. And you know, if you want to talk about that, please. But I think that's a very important piece, particularly when you've got an individual defendant.

SPEAKER_03 31:26

Yeah, I can talk about staying inside the box. And one comment I do want to mention, because I think it's very, very important. It's minor, but it's freaking critical. Hear me, the Katie Robinson?

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 31:37

Thank you. I'm just joking. I'm having a lot of fun having you on the podcast. So thank you for uh for gifting us with your presence today.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Absolutely. I will have the invoice walked down to your office at the end of the day. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. We asked open-ended questions. It was never does anyone have an issue with this? Does anyone have a problem with this? It was how do you feel about the prospect of blank? What are your thoughts about this? Tell me more. Thank you. I recognize it's not easy to raise your hand and share that in an open courtroom with a stranger. I appreciate your candor. Would it be okay if I ask others how they feel about this issue? Yes, go ahead, sir. How do you feel about this? Right. And so why am I mentioning that? And I've learned everything the hard way. Talk to my wife. I continue to learn everything the hard way. True story. And I'm sure that Katie Robinson would probably agree. But, anyways, if you don't set the conditions to get meaningful answers from the panel, you'll never get them, regardless of how good the question is phrased. And so the rapport that you build, the manner in which you invite answers, the willingness to not just ask questions, but to be there, to be present and to truly listen. Because none of us really are good at listening. Again, talk to my wife, I'm not good at listening. But like, but what to really like stand there and when the person is giving you an answer to actually like listen, that's how you, and there's more that goes into this. And for anybody who wants to learn more about Voidir, our firm is always happy to share and will always be ready to assist somebody and teach, whether you want to work with us on a case or not. But also, another caveat is none of this is new. We've learned all this from everyone else. We've come up with our own way, but it's nothing special. Other people are getting good results for their clients, they're all doing this. You got to be intentional about setting the stage and creating an environment that allows people to be comfortable sharing answers to these otherwise very difficult questions. But let's talk about staying inside the box. So I learned this from Chris Finney, who's a friend of mine, he's a trial lawyer in St. Louis, and he talks about, and hopefully I don't butcher this, but he basically he'll either use an image, which we'll do sometimes. Actually, we do use that image. And I don't know, did we use a PowerPoint in voidier this time? I don't think we didn't. We didn't. Okay. I've used PowerPoint in voidier before just to kind of help keep everybody on track. I've kind of gotten away from that lately because I want the connection more, and I don't want there to be anything in between me and the people that I'm questioning. But, anyways, the image and this me describing the image, I think will might actually help kind of frame what I'm about to share. But the image is of it's like a clip art picture, and it is a judge in the judge's chair, whatever that thing's called, and then there's a jury in the jury box, and we have a red kind of box around the jury. And we go to the jury and we say, Your job is inside this box. And so for a case like this, because there was a last minute admission of liability, meaning a last-minute concession that, yeah, they're negligent. The only thing at issue here is the amount, the damages amount. The only thing for the jury to decide in that case was were the injuries related, were they a proximate cause of the negligence of the incident? And if so, what is the value? And so we may were very explicit and say, that's your job, right? Who pays the verdict, when it's paid, how it's paid, if it's paid, by whom it's paid, all of that stuff. Those are issues outside of this box, those are issues for the judge. Do we all trust that the judge will be able to handle those issues? What are people saying? Of course. Yes, yes, yes, yes. How many of you here thinking, you know what, I get it, I understand what you said, but in the back of my head, there's just no way I'm gonna be in that jury room and not want to know who's gonna have to pay this thing. Silence. And then you get that hand, right? Sir? And then they start talking, right? And then you get to the next person, and that is a massive issue. And the reason why it's a massive issue in cases like this is because we've got an individual defendant. The reality is this this individual defendant had a lot of insurance money backing this person. She didn't pay a dime in defense costs, she didn't pay a dime of the verdict, right? The insurance company handled everything. She didn't have any say in actually how to defend the case, right? Yet the perception of the jury is they see sweet young lady on one side and our client on the other. And so it's it's natural to assume wrongly, right, that that person's gonna have to pay. But at the end of the day, a defendant's capacity to pay, I'd argue, outside of a punitive damages request is irrelevant, right? And so we had that conversation with the jury, and a lot of people were struck because of that very conversation. And that conversation didn't just end in void director, it carried on throughout the case. And I think that's what if there's anything that someone's gonna take away from this episode, it's that. Trials are not segmented blocks, trials are stories or a series of stories, and they're conversations, and they start in jury selection. In fact, they probably start before you even show up, right? They start with us and how do we appear and how are we gonna frame the case and how are we presenting this case to the judge? What is our demeanor like when the jury walks in for the first time? But more particularly, the stay inside the box, they heard it during jury selection, they heard it during opening statement, they heard it during closing statement, they heard it during rebuttal, right? The damages amount, they heard it again throughout. The expert witnesses, one thing that we do is we say, listen, ladies and gentlemen, at the end of this case, the judge is going to tell you that anybody who takes that stand over there, raise the right hand, swears to tell the truth. It is up to you to decide, are they telling it like it is, or are they pushing a little bit too hard for the side that that that brought them here, right? They're the side that hired them. Credibility, right? And so we do that in void director, guess what? We want jurors who are gonna follow the law and are gonna feel comfortable making the determinations, even if the person who takes that stand has 40 years under their belt and 15 different degrees. And that's a conversation that again we have throughout the trial. So I recognize I just went on for a number of minutes about voidier, even though my intent was really for us to move on to open. But I think it's excited right now. I'm very excited.

SPEAKER_05 38:30

He's losing his mind.

SPEAKER_03 38:31

I'm losing my mind. But oh, I have to share one thing.

SPEAKER_05 38:36

Go for it.

SPEAKER_03 38:36

And this is completely out of it. But one of my claim to fame right now is I can get the jury to close her eyes.

SPEAKER_05 38:43

Yeah, we didn't notice.

SPEAKER_03 38:44

Let's not mention that until after we talk about the opening statement.

SPEAKER_05 38:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 38:49

I'm gonna toss it up. Do we want to get Lara involved? Yeah, let's get Laura involved in the opening statement.

SPEAKER_05 38:55

I mean, that's fine. I would like to just preface it with saying that Katie and I were not allowed in Voidir for this case, which was unfortunate. I really wanted her to see that. We were raiding the vending machines.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Yeah, we were.

SPEAKER_05 39:06

We had a lot of snacks.

SPEAKER_02 39:07

Equally important.

SPEAKER_05 39:08

But I've I've had the privilege of seeing Sharif do Voidir and Zach as well. And I know how good they are at it and how much it just kind of transitions right into the rest of that trial. So then going right into opening on this case, I love that you guys have a visual PowerPoint because I think that most people, while they're listening to you, they're also visual learners. And I think that it helps them comprehend kind of everything you're throwing at them. The trials I've been to where they're just standing up there with a piece of paper and rambling on, I'm like bored, I'm not engaged, and I'm sure the jury feels the same. So your opening statement, it's organized, it's visually impactful. They look like they're paying attention. You're funny and you're, you know, you guys are just likable to begin with, and you're young and you're Can you say that again? You're really hip.

SPEAKER_03 39:55

Sorry, what was the whole thing about likable?

SPEAKER_05 39:57

Zach. I was talking about Zach. Okay. I'm just kidding. Um, but anyways, you you know, there's that going for you to begin with, and that started obviously in Voidir, but it carries over. And then when you talk about that individual defendant, there were visuals that went along with that, and you are good at articulating that. So, for example, you have this visual of a busted window from a baseball, and you talk about how some kid throws a baseball and smashes the neighbor's window, and he didn't mean to do it, but what's the right thing to do? The right thing is to tell his mom and then the mom or dad or whoever to go over and and make it right to fix the window, not just tape it up, but actually pay for that window and get it repaired. And it's things like that where you get the jury hooked about the purpose of why we're even there and what we're talking about in a very basic human level where they can comprehend it no matter what their background is. And you have to think of that with a jury where everybody's coming from a different background, education level, you know, they all have different experiences. So when you kind of break it down with a visual and a simple explanation, such as that that baseball hitting that window, everybody's like, oh, okay, I get it. This was an accident, but we got to make it right.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

About carrying the conversation forward from void director, one of the things that I was very happy that we did during opening statement was I remember there was times where I would look at the jury, like there was one lady in particular who during Voidir, we learned that she was involved in a T-bone crash, pretty severe. And so when we were actually when we're using my kids like um your toys, yeah, the Hot Wheels things, right? I think I had three of them, right? But anyway, if I remember correctly, and Zach correct me if I'm wrong, or the Katie Robinson, if you remember. I remember looking at that juror and saying, hey ma'am, it wasn't like what happened to you. Like this was different, right? And so why do I mention that? Why is that important? Because again, it shows that juror that like we care, we talk to you, we remember. I mean, we're here to be the guide for you, right? And so hopefully they trust us, and hopefully on those close calls, they go our way. It's not pandering, it is being intentional about teaching the right thing, about being the right guide for the jury. So, but can we talk about the eyes closing thing now? Pretty, please.

SPEAKER_02 42:17

I'd love to. I mean, you're what? This is three.

SPEAKER_03 42:19

Two in a row. Two in a row now? You're right. No, wait, I did one in a focus group too. You're three, you're three in a row now. All right.

SPEAKER_05 42:25

This is your podcast. We're just here. Understood.

SPEAKER_03 42:28

Does the Katie Robinson know about the eye closing?

SPEAKER_05 42:31

She does not.

SPEAKER_03 42:32

Did because that happened in Wadir? I thought that was it happened in opening. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about it. Remember that?

SPEAKER_05 42:39

Yeah, because you weren't allowed to show certain things for both the trials as well as I will I will explain.

SPEAKER_03 42:46

Yeah. So during an opening statement, we had a slide, and I think it was like the image of instruction. We put a number with uh associated with the medical bills, and there's an objection, whatever. And and so the defense was I I don't know if I agree with the objection, but whatever it was. And I think the judge was like, All right, move on, move on. I was like, okay, everybody, close your eyes. And to my surprise, the jury actually closed their eyes. And then we had another trial, what like was it like 10 days later, two weeks later? Yeah, essentially. Yeah, and all a blur. Also, during an opening statement, there was some issue and objection. And then I remember I said, guys, just close your eyes. And the jury closed their eyes again so they could get to the next slide.

SPEAKER_02 43:25

So now it's a thing now uh that Sharif does every time we engage with regular people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:30

But then during a focus group, after that trial, what was the next week? There was something where I think I did the same thing. Just close your eyes. And they all close their eyes. So, anyways, do you want to ask the listeners to yeah, please close your eyes? Close your eyes.

SPEAKER_04 43:43

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 43:44

Anyways, um, but uh trials going forward. I'm gonna continue to continue to see if I can get that through. It's a good luck charm now. It is a good luck charm, it's worked out well. So, I mean, opening statement as we talk about at our firm is incredibly important. It's our roadmap for the case. It's important to use visuals, it's important to be there and connect with the jury in a meaningful way. It's important to be real and to explain things in a real way. One of the things I remember being most proud of that opening statement was my the first slide. We had the mascot from the University of Arkansas with a knife and a fork. Do you remember this, the Katie Robinson?

SPEAKER_01 44:21

Yes, because the day before, that's the first thing I saw. All right, explain, please. Came up on when I was with Sharif and Zach, and we went to the courthouse and we were doing a test run of everything. That is the first picture that came up on the screen, and I started laughing. And I look around and neither Zach or Sharif are laughing. And I said, Oh, I'm sorry, this is seriously what you're gonna show the jury. And they said, Yeah, why? And I said, It's beautiful. Thank you so much. Please proceed.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

Can you share with our listeners what it actually was?

SPEAKER_01 44:51

It was, if I remember correctly, a Thanksgiving dinner setup. Not even like Thanksgiving, just dinner setup, I think, in general. And it was the mascot from Arkansas sitting with the knife and the fork.

SPEAKER_03 45:05

There's a turkey.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

There was a turkey. There was a festive. And it was another. I'm like so deeply disturbed by that picture. I actually can't. I think you described it perfectly. I think that was largely it did.

SPEAKER_03 45:19

And the relevance of it was this all happened, this incident happened because the defendant was driving what was 11, 13 hours that day back from Arkansas after thinking. Thanksgiving, right? And so, like, I don't know, just storytelling, right? Like, I had a good idea.

SPEAKER_05 45:35

We just was set in the stage. That's right. But no, we had a good time.

SPEAKER_03 45:38

We had a good time. Well, I want to go to how we were able, I think, to find leverage in the case. And Laura commented on that earlier with The Walker. Zach, would you mind talking about like how we went about approaching the expert that the defense hired? Uh, because they did hire an expert who came out and made it very clear that what happened was not related to the incident and made a number of strong arguments that I think very well likely could have gone in against us. Can you talk about how we framed that, Zach, and that approach?

SPEAKER_02 46:14

Yeah. Candidly, this was a very difficult cross for me for a number of reasons. I can kind of go into some of the ingredients. But for one, it was not an ideal situation because both of our experts were records reviewers, which meant that they had never met the client, had never treated the client. That's always a great leg up from a credibility standpoint. If you can attack the defense expert and say, you know, you've never met our client, but we've got the doctor who treated him, who's going to come in and be able to talk to you, that he went hands-on with the client. So we had a situation where both experts were records reviewers, neither had met the client. The defense expert had actually reviewed more records than our doctor. So that wasn't helpful either, because it kind of took away from some of the negative space work that you would normally do with an expert like that, where you're starting to explore things that they didn't look at and that they think people that they didn't talk to, and and you didn't do this, you didn't look at that, you didn't look at that. Well, in this case, he'd looked at more than our doctor. We didn't have the financial bias to be able to attack because both experts were similarly situated. They had both been paid to look at the records in the case, and neither had treated our client. So it was a very difficult cross. I didn't have the ammunition that you would want normally, but there were a couple things that we had to play with. And one of them was the saving grace and our hook in this case was the fact that our client went to an urgent care like two days later, and as Sharif mentioned earlier, noted some shoulder pain. The defense doctor did not want to acknowledge that at all. He did everything he could to try to say, well, you know, sure, it's in the shoulder that he ended up needing surgery on, but it's not in the right place. You know, it's on the back of the shoulder, it's not the same thing. He just did not want to address that two-day report that two days after the incident, he just refused to. And so I had to walk him through that. I had to get into the records and get him to acknowledge that there was a report in the case. The other piece, too, and this one may have been more important, and Laura's already kind of alluded to this a little bit, that sometimes in the case, it's not about what you can prove as much as it is what the defense's excuses are. Because at the end of the day, it's a battle of credibility. And this doctor, he didn't have to, he didn't have to opine on what he thought caused the injury. He could have just left it as this guy didn't treat for nine months, and the type of collision here would have never injured his shoulder. But they offered up an explanation that was so patently absurd that I think it hurt their credibility in the long run. And what that was was essentially that it wasn't the collision, or you know, we call it a collision, but it was really sort of a pit maneuver, but at 45, 50, 60 miles per hour. That had nothing to do with the shoulder injury, even though we reported it two days later. No, it was the use of a walker after his hip surgery. That is what caused the shoulder surgery. So I focused on that. And I think at the end of the day, that was sort of the linchpin in reducing their credibility because their theory was so patently absurd that their defense almost helped us more than it helped them.

unknown 49:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:32

No, and that was incredibly important. You did a good job with that, and that's the thing. In these cases, I mean, one of the things we're always looking for at our firm is where do we find the leverage points? And because I think it's fair to assume, I could be wrong, but that when we walk into a courtroom, it's natural, I think, for people to just automatically uh conclude that we're here because we're greedy, we're here because we wouldn't settle, right? I think our main job is to be able to shift that and show we're not in this courtroom because of us, we're here because they're unreasonable. And this is why. We can't say that explicitly, but by being able to figure out what the defense is actually claiming, where is the defense lie, and isolate that and make it very clear for the jury that they're not here to accept full accountability. They're not here to actually truly repair the window that they broke. I think that's when you can start getting real justice for your clients.

SPEAKER_05 50:28

I think you guys are also really good when you call up your lay witnesses or even your client to talk about all the ways their life has been impacted outside of just surgery and recovery, right? Like this particular client can't hold his granddaughter. And that made him almost cry talking about it. If not, he was crying after the fact when his daughter was testifying that, you know, he's an incredible grandfather, but he can't play with my daughter the way I'd hoped he would be able to. And I don't know if he'll ever be able to do that. And I think those things are really important to note in a case like this, because the jury can sit here and say, wow, like okay, yeah, yeah, to have this expensive surgery, but what's the price of not being able to hold a granddaughter? And then that gets them thinking, like, this could be me. This could happen to anyone. And these things I can't put a dollar amount on. And that's the hypothetical, right? But when they go back to that jury room and they look at those jury instructions, that's something they're gonna think about. You can't expect them to consider something on a jury instruction that was never brought up to begin with. If they don't know how their life has been impacted outside of medical bills and records and treatment, then they can't think of those things. So when you guys give actual examples of the ways that your client has been forever changed by these things, then it humanizes it for the jury. And then they're able to think of those things when they go back to deliberate.

SPEAKER_03 51:56

Impact on health and quality of life, without question. And that's the stuff that matters, right? I mean, and that is the important stuff. And frankly, I think that's some of the most we get to advocate on behalf of quality of life. And when you stop and you think about like, wow, we get to talk about what that's worth. Like, that's pretty cool. Guys, I've had a lot of fun. I'd like to close it out, but before we do, I want to end with the Katie Robinson. If there's one takeaway that you would like our listeners to hear about this trial, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 52:30

I would say probably the humanization of our client and also the defendant. I think when you make it less about a battle of right and wrong and acknowledge that they're both people and that we're all just people, you know, these random jurors were called to serve and they probably were groaning about it, the fact that they had to not go to work or not do these things, you know, but it gives them a chance to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And ultimately, I think, you know, when you had our client on the stand and you know, he's getting like visibly upset, like frustrated that people like aren't understanding why he keeps having to explain what he went through and why that sucked and why that was awful. I think that that does a lot. So I just think the humanization of everybody in the room made it to where it was a peaceful trial. And even like in between, like you were just like having a laugh with the defense attorney. Like, you know, take a break for five minutes, the jurors would go back and you guys would be laughing and talking, and then you know, they come back out and it's okay, back to business. Like I just think that was cool. Like that's what I took away. You guys may take away something different, but well, I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 53:50

Not only that answer, but for you gracing us with your appearance today.

SPEAKER_01 53:53

I'm always happy to give back to my community. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 53:56

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_05 53:56

Can I can I also share something from post-trial takeaway that I think for the attorney listeners? So after this verdict, both Gray and Sharif did a LinkedIn post about it, and in that they they tagged me as the paralegal that worked the case. And it was really nice to see that. And I did a follow-up post about what that means when you include your paralegals and your support staff in the victories and acknowledge them for their efforts and how these verdicts don't happen just because they happen, but because I helped behind the scenes for a year. And if you do that as an attorney or a supervisor or a senior owner, whatever, it matters and it gets people to a level of feeling like their work matters just as much and that it'll be loyal and they'll be hardworking. And I put that out there and it and it really had a lot of comments and and like, oh wow, this is this is really cool to see. And it was really important to me and it really made me feel good. My hope for all paralegals is that they also feel valued. So thank you guys as attorneys for always valuing us and having us on things like this because we're a team at the end of the day, and I know that's not the culture for most firms or some firms. And I think that I urge all firms to consider doing that because it matters.

SPEAKER_03 55:17

Well, thank you, guys. This has been fun.

unknown 55:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 55:20

Thank you for having us here.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

Thank you. Thanks for listening to Courtroom Stories and Tactics by RVA Trial Lawyers, hosted by Sharif Gray and Niall Abuzaki. Please subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or any major podcast platform. Together, we're building a tribe of trial lawyers to remind the world what human life is truly worth. One verdict at a time.