Trial War Stories - Punitive Damages with Chris Patno

What if $25 was the key to unlocking millions in punitive damages?

In this powerful episode of Trial War Stories, Andy Goldwasser sits down with veteran trial lawyer Chris Patno to break down one of the largest wrongful death verdicts in Ohio history arising from a fatal highway construction accident.

The case involved a husband and father who was killed in a poorly managed overnight paving project on I-271. The defendants chose to save money by failing to implement required safety protections. That decision cost a man his life — and ultimately exposed the company to punitive damages resulting in a $39 million verdict, including a rare and hard-fought $20 million punitive damages award.

Along the way, Chris shares unforgettable trial war stories, including:

- Preparing a critical cross-examination
- A closing argument strategy so unconventional it stunned the courtroom
- How a $25 property-damage claim unlocked punitive damages
- Why being yourself is the most important skill a trial lawyer can develop
 
You will learn why “protection” became the theme of both liability and damages. How courtroom demonstratives can physically immerse a jury in the scene. The psychological power of authentic cross-examination.      

This conversation is essential for trial lawyers handling catastrophic injury, wrongful death, highway construction accidents, and corporate negligence cases — especially those seeking to hold businesses accountable for conscious safety violations.

If you’re a younger lawyer trying to level up your courtroom strategy, this episode is a masterclass in theme development, jury trust, and punitive damages litigation.

Whether you’re a seasoned litigator, a young lawyer finding your footing, or someone fascinated by how real trials are actually won, this conversation goes far beyond transcripts and verdicts it dives into the pressure, the judgment calls, and the human moments that decide cases.

If you enjoyed this episode, hit the follow button.

00:00:00 – Introduction to Chris Patno & Ohio’s Largest Verdict
00:04:05 – The Fatal Highway Construction Accident on I-271
00:09:17 – Trial Strategy & Division of Roles
00:13:35 – Building a Wrongful Death Damages Model
00:19:11 – Courtroom Demonstratives & Animation Battles
00:23:28 – The Forgotten Trial Bag & Best Cross-Examination
00:28:59 – $19 Million Verdict: Breaking Down Compensatory Damages
00:29:57 – The $25 Strategy That Opened Punitive Damages
00:31:00 – Trusting the Jury Without Explaining Why

Transcript

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You're about to hear from a lawyer with an unorthodox approach who achieves an extraordinary result. Every trial lawyer has that one case, the one that pushed them to the edge, changed how they practice or kept them up at night. This is trial war stories, and I'm your host, Andy Goldwasser. I sit down with great trial lawyers to unpack unforgettable cases the strategy, the chaos, the pressure, and the moments that turn the tide beyond the transcripts and verdicts. And now to the show. All right. Well, what a pleasure it is to have my dear friend with me today, Chris Paterno. Thanks for joining. Chris, I don't know if you remember this, that when we first met, I don't know. It's 5 or 6 years ago. I was going into a medical malpractice wrongful death trial. Of course, I have to start with this, right? Oh. Of course, of course, yes. And I lost my trial partner, and it was the kind of case where I just wasn't comfortable trying it alone. So I come down to your office or actually up. I went up to your office. I sat down with you. You asked the following questions before you said anything about. Tell me about the case. Here's what you asked. Do you have an expert on liability and standard of care? I said yes. You said, do you have an expert on proximate cause? I said yes, you said I'm in. And that's exactly what, what we did. Three months later, I think we tried to case and, had I got to tell you, it was so much fun. It was a wasn't the outcome we were expecting or hoping for, but man, did we have a good time. And there's a lot of funny stories that came out of that trial. Anyhow, thanks for being here. You are really an accomplished trial lawyer, president of every major organization you could ever even imagine. Tried so many cases. It's beyond belief. And when we talked about what case you wanted to talk about you, we bantered back and forth about a few, and we ultimately decided on one that I really am so glad you picked for two reasons. Number one, it's a wrongful death case with, at the time, the largest verdict in Ohio, and that verdict stood for a long period of time. So I want to talk to you about the unique nature of trying a wrongful death case. And the second reason I thought the case was really cool was because it was a punitive damage case, and you had a real unique punitive damage approach at the end of the trial, which we'll talk about. So why don't you tell us a little bit about the case? So the case you're referring to, let's talk about the case that I won versus the case that we tried. Okay. Is. The one you could blame me. For. Well, now, you and I had a great time at that trial. It was beyond difficult. So I would call that the Paterno special. It was a Paterno special. The only downside, of course, is that we had a seven figure offer walking in that we, of course, turned down. Well, we as in, that was not my choice. I just, Anyway, as as it relates to Rochinski, let's move forward to happier times, which is also a sad time. Randy, bro. Kinski was a man in his young 40s who worked for a company called Solar Testing Labs. And, he would go out to the highway repaving projects and would score holes into the new pavement to test to make sure it was at the level required. That's the beginning of the story. Randy had three young children. High school, middle, middle school, aged one boy, two daughters. And, he had just met the second love of his life, Linette Rogan Ski. And they just been married about a year before. And so life was good for Randy Rogan. Ski and the Rochinski family. And he had a good relationship also with his prior wife, Don Rogan. Ski. In July of 2010, he was doing this core work for solar testing labs on 271 South and North Royalton. Okay. And it's a two lane highway in each direction there. Some people might know that separated by a large grass median in between. Okay. The paving project was an overnight project by Odot, Ohio Department of Transportation, where they contracted with a company called the Shelley Company, who would come out and would close down one lane during the nighttime hours, leave one lane open on the 65 mile an hour highway, and would bring in paving trucks, dump trucks filled with asphalt to come down the 65 mile an hour lane, slow down to 25 miles an hour, pull into the paving lane that was shut down to traffic, and back up to the paver. And this is what would occur throughout the night. And in July of 2010, Randy was out there doing his core testing, under the plans. Shelley was required to have law enforcement officers, you know, police cars with lights on them at the start of the shut down and where they were doing the work on the night in question. They just had one at the start, did not have any in the middle. And so when these trucks were pulling in and slowing down to 25 miles an hour and backing up, it created a sudden emergency for cars that were driving at 65 miles an hour in the dark behind them. And we've all driven by these paving sites where there is dust. There are these balloon lights. There's just a lot of confusion going on or just a bunch of flashing yellow lights. And on this night, a man called Anthony Jones was driving his Honda Accord and the right lane. The left lane was shut down. Randy road. Kinski was off in the dark in the berm to the right. Okay. And, dump truck slowed down. Jones did not see it until the last minute, veered off to the right and unfortunately struck Randy from behind and killed him instantly. And that's where the story begins. So I know ultimately you ended up trying the case with a very good lawyer and another good friend of ours, Phil Curry. How is it that you and Phil got together in that case and then ultimately tried it together? Yeah, this is one of the unique areas of our practice. And most people don't realize it. When someone passes away in Ohio, there is only one person that runs lead on the death claim, and that's called the fiduciary. And, I was approached by the former wife, Don Rogan Ski and the children of Randy to look into the case. Phil Curry had the current wife, Linette Rogan ski. And so, as it related to who was going to represent the family, obviously with a second marriage, there were issues, and, Phil and I reached out to each other. We've known each other for years. And, Phil, I would consider the nicest man in trial law in Cleveland. He probably is. And I sometimes have the, personality of being maybe the most aggressive man in trial law. So we put the band together where Phil and I agreed to work the case together. And, the family came together instead of, contentious infighting between the family. We were able to. Heal. That harm and damage early on. You're so right. I mean, that does happen quite a bit in our business with the wrongful death cases. Because when there's a dispute amongst who the lawyers should be, it is so much better when you can get two attorneys who know and respect one another and then agree to work together on the case, and it just brings everybody together on a unified front to maximize the value of the claims. So I'm I'm really glad to hear that you two were able to do that. And it sounds like it was a great trial team because of the different approaches between you and Phil. Is that right? Sure. And some of the best trials I've ever had involve being involved with another lawyer who has a different skill set than I do, and we're able to then work off each other's strengths and also collaborate in bouncing ideas off each other, not only during depositions, but also during the trial itself. And that's that's what essentially occurred between Phil and I. That that's that's great. So I want to talk to you about your approach and I and and but I first I want to talk about the trial itself. Tell us about the trial itself. Where was it? Where did it depend what happened in the case. Let's get into it a little bit. So why did you start from the beginning? Tell us about the trial. So what a lot of people don't realize is, you don't file a lawsuit, and the trial happens in two weeks. We we filed the lawsuit, within, two years. I think it was probably within a year. So around 2011 and litigated all the way through the trial in April of 2014. And the case was pending in front of Michael Jackson in the Court of Common Pleas, Cuyahoga County, for lay people. We call that Cleveland, downtown Cleveland. Yes. And, the trial was about a two week long trial. And, with regard to splitting up the work and who would do what in the case, it was decided that Phil would do the jury selection because he has such a warm, affect and connects with people that much better than I do. All right. I can do it. But that's his strength. And then, opening, cross-examination of witnesses was mine. That's my sweet spot. Expert witnesses with mine. Trial demonstratives. What we were going to bring into the courtroom was primarily mine because of my experience in trying cases. And, we worked with an animator to create a video recreation of this horrible accident. Which at the time, that wasn't done very often. I mean, that's that's a big deal. And I want to talk to you about your demonstratives, because I understand you had that courtroom laid out with different visuals for the jury. So, the case is about two weeks long. The was there any offer or money on the table before you went into trial? It was not like you're in my case, I can tell you that. All right. There was a mediation that was confidential. But obviously it did not resolve the case. Okay. And so, you know, and there was tough liability issues. We we easily could have lost this case on liability. Did you? Who did you have from the family sitting with you if anyone at the trial table. So at the trial table was the fiduciary Linette. And then, we chose to bring in the kids at a certain stage, his ex-wife Don, at a certain stage. And the jury was left with the impression of, here are these two women who are alone, who have three children who have been horribly harmed, and they all are still cohesively together. They all spent time together, even after this. Much more so than before. And they came together for each other. Yeah, it's really a good, good way and a good approach because trying wrongful death cases are so much different, in my view, than, you know, a standard fare case where you have just an injured individual that you're working up and trying with a wrongful death case, you really have to have a model that's designed for the particular family that you represent. What did you have a, an approach or maybe it's your regular approach when you work up wrongful death cases, like how do you present and build a damage model in a wrongful death case? Yeah, and I couldn't agree with you more. Each family is unique. Each term is unique among the members of the family. And, probably not unlike you, I immersed myself with the family, to try to find out what their relationships were, with the person who died. And in this case, we spent an extensive amount of time, interviewing, meeting, finding out what documents, photographs, personal effects, things that connected, the family members to Randy. And in doing so, we were able to take a canvas and paint a picture, that evolved in that courtroom. That was just, so compelling that it just drew the jurors and every family lost has a story. This was a story about protection. And in this situation, Randy Oginski was the protection and the protector not only for his prior wife, but also his current wife. And they had the future that was taken away and the children he was the protector for and the provider for. And they took away the family's protection. And we. Theme. The case for the jury to step into Randy shoes to replace the protection that had been taken. Did you have a trial consultant working with you to help build that? I've never used the trial consultant. I probably never will use a trial consultant. I don't use jury consultants. When I tried cases out of state, I bring in a local trial lawyer who has the experience with the juries. There. That's not to say I never will, or I'm opposed to, but I'm a different cat in the barn, and I like to do things my way, and I like to get the feel personally on my own. Yeah. I mean, I remember from, from our case, you took the lead on doing the direct examination of the decedent's spouse. And it was a difficult direct examinations for reasons that we don't need to discuss on this podcast. But you I remember defense. You sat with her. I mean, it was a it was a long time and it wasn't an hour or two preparation. I mean, you were with her for hours and hours, I think on multiple days. Is that your approach to to when you're trying to build these wrongful death cases that you just really spend a lot of time with the family members? Yeah. Unlike lawyers in large firms of injury matters that have paralegals and teams and numerous staff, I have, my young partner Colin, I have my assistant, Amy, and I have me. All right. And what I tell people I don't advertise is when you hire Chris Paterno, you get Chris Paterno. The initial meeting is Chris Paterno, the follow ups or Chris Paterno. When it comes time to answer written discovery questions that are sent to our clients, most people just turf that off to a paralegal. I never do that because at each meeting you're building that bond, that connection, and you're learning more. Deposition prep. Some people just can't be prepared because they are who they are. Right? And, you know, and that's the truth. Sometimes you may need a video and replay it so that they can see themselves. Some people that you do that for simply don't see themselves. And so all you can do is your best. And, and each case is different. But, but that's what happened in this case as well. Yeah. And I learned a, a lesson from the great trial lawyer Brian Panache, whose approach in wrongful death cases and it seems like it's your approach as well. You don't you can't present for someone what they lost until you know what they had. So by spending time with these people, you're learning not only about who they were, but what they had, what they were about, what they meant to various family and friends. And that's so important when you try a wrongful death case. So to tell me about your opening statement, what did you do in your opening? What do you remember any of it? Yeah. So our focus was protection. That was the theme of the case. All right. Which is a good thing because it works both on the liability phase and on the damages phase. And that's how, that's how we dovetailed it in, as it relates to liability in order to save money. They didn't have the second law enforcement officer. And we got into how much it would cost per hour to have had that law enforcement. Did you do that? Just for people who don't know this in Ohio, when you have a punitive damage claim, the punitive damage phase is bifurcated or separated from the compensatory phase, and you don't even get to punitive damages unless you win the compensatory phase. So were you able to present that type of evidence in the compensatory phase of the case? Talking about motive and, and money and what it would have cost to have another police vehicle there? Absolutely. It it goes to the issue of negligence in the breach of the duty. So the duty was to have the law enforcement officers there. There was discretion as to how much money the company could have. And as a result of that, we were able to utilize that focus point. And those facts, in the compensatory phase. It seems to me Chris and I don't know enough about the case. I'm learning it as we talk about it, but from a defense strategy, it even though it was a liability dispute, sounds to me like they would have been better off just admitting liability. So all that evidence didn't come in? Well, I don't know. And they had a lot of arguments in this case. There was a reason we were trying this case, Andy. Okay. And, you know, they did a very fine job, you know, laying out their arguments. They had their experts that said that they did nothing wrong. They had, you know, their fact witnesses that supported that. So, I don't think that there was an error in trying yet and not admitting liability. Understood. So, we talked a little bit about before this podcast about the extensive visuals and demonstrative evidence that you used in the case. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Sure. The main focus that we wanted the jury to have was an understanding of the whole work zone. And in order to do that, we laid out about five tripods in the courtroom and had about a 25ft long, board that laid out the entire scene. And, I think we even had movable cars and objects on it that you can move down the board. It's amazing. And we could have witnesses come up to the board and move things and explain how the facts evolved in the case. You know, it was about four feet tall, and it literally took up the entire pit in the courtroom. And then we also had the animation, and the animation, there was this huge fight over, you know, who created it, what were the underlying facts? So we had to put our experts on to testify about each and every aspect of how this animation was created. And, and the defense challenged our animator. And when they challenged the animator, the animator said, look, I've been hired down in South Africa on the Blade Runner case. I've been hired on all these murder cases of national recognition. I've worked with Chris a couple times and, you know, this is what I do. And so by challenging him, they actually built his credibility in front of the jury, which was, you know, beneficial to our as well. You know, it's always a concern of mine whenever I use an animation in trial about how am I going to get this in evidence, would the order of witnesses become particularly important, because you can't use the animation unless you lay the proper foundation to, in fact, use it? But I've never had a situation where they actually challenge the animator himself or herself. They? You mean you actually called the animator to the stand right? And the interesting thing was, if I was the defense in this case, I would have just let the animator come in and say, yeah, this is my animation, or just stipulate and let it come in and then just say, this is a cartoon created by Mr. Paterno over there, right, without any substantive basis. But what they did was they created the foundation by their challenge. It's really interesting. And I think it's cool that you had you had all these boards, which is sort of the old school approach. And then you had the electronic animation. Did you just find it easier to do the the scene diagram with boards that would, where witnesses could get off the stand to demonstrate for the jury, was that intentionally done or did you think about doing it on electronic format? We wanted to bring the jury there. All right. Mind you, this was 11 years ago. This trial occurred. I might rethink it electronically now. But maybe not. And in addition to the animation, the video, in addition to the large board of the scene, we also brought in large blow up boards of certain documents in the case. And we also had a photo collage that we ran on a big screen. So when we had the family up, we could bring the jury there. About Randy Rochinski and his life. I love doing that. I call it a damaged wheel, and I always try to create a damage wheel that is circular in my mind, but it does create that family environment. I want to go back to your opening for a moment, Chris. So you have this animation that's being challenged. You have these these large boards in the pit of the courtroom. What did you use if anything, in your opening statement? Boy, you're testing my memory now. I believe, we simply used the large board along with the blow ups, because the judge hadn't really ruled on the animation yet. Okay, so, Chris, I want to. You know, the name of this podcast is Trial War Stories. And there are two trial war stories that I want to talk about that are specific to you and this case. The first is tell us about sort of your key cross examination, your preparation of your key cross for their key witness. Would you tell us about that? Yeah. This was a first ever for me. It's a great story. Yeah, I, I spent the weekend, the, the big engineering expert was going to come on the stand Monday morning on cross. We had called him, and so I had spent the weekend literally in my kitchen, oftentimes with Phil running through my entire cross and how I was going to methodically bring this engineer through to show that they had not complied with Odot standards on what the contract required. I had tabbed exhibits, I had highlighted testimony, I had it all in a compact binder and at 2 a.m. Monday morning, I was done. I was ready to go. The next six hours later, I put it all away in my black trial briefcase that I bring to court. I'm in dinosaur. I like paper, you know. I don't even own a laptop, believe it or not. And so, I wake up the next morning. I'm a little tired for not having much sleep the night before. We're now heading into week two of this trial, I believe. And, I wake up the next morning, get my suit on, get my bag, put it out in the garage. I forgot something inside. I go back inside. I go out to the garage. I get in my car, I drive an hour away from my house, down to the courthouse in Cleveland, and, I look into the back of my car where I always put my trial bag. And it's not there. Of course. So, What a what a horrible feeling that must have been. Yeah, yeah. So you could imagine. And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, should I have someone from my office go get it? Should I do, something else? And instead, I just walked in, to the courtroom, and Phil's sitting there at the table. By the way, was this going to be the first witness? That first. The very first witness. Oh, geez. And, you know, a many hour witness, right. And Phil looked at me, said, are you ready to go, Chris? And I said, I don't know, Phil. I left my, trial bag at home with my entire cross-examination on it, and he looked at me and he thought I was joking with them. And I said, so here's what we're going to do. Let's get our blow ups that we've used in this case, the documents that were blown up on large poster boards. And let's organize them in the fashion that I was going to cross-examine the witness. And I will use them as a mental cue points to go through this. We already had the exhibits had been marked to be used by the witness. And so, it was literally, I believe, one of the best cross-examinations of my life. Isn't that amazing how that happens? You you have every word almost scripted in your outline of your questions for this pivotal cross-examination. You forget your outline and off you go. And it is pristine. Yeah. So, I, I've got to tell you, I got into the moment and, it was fluid without a note and, but it's also because of all the prep I had done the prior two days on this. Well, I think it's I think it's a combination things. Chris. I think first of all, it's your prep. Secondly, it's your experience. I mean, I, I try to case with you, you are so comfortable in front of the jury. I mean, it doesn't faze you one way or the other. And the third thing, and we've talked about this on other podcasts, you know, the rhythm of a witness examination sometimes can't be controlled, and sometimes it just happens when you get into that rhythm with the witness and you're asking the questions and the witness responding, you know, you get into this conversation, it becomes such a better examination, whether it be a cross or direct. And and like you mentioned, Brian, panache. I've, tried a case with Brian and I've tried cases with Fred Levin. Gene. Okay. You know, some of the best trial lawyers in the country and what I've been able to gather are all these little nuggets during each of each case. And I've watched them. And what I've learned from watching them is each of them did it without many notes. All right. And then I've watched the defense attorneys on the other side who are sitting there with the three ring binder flipping pages, afraid that they're going to miss something. And there's a stark difference on the jury perception of who knows the case and who's more credible based on how you communicate that. It's so true. I mean, when the jury looks at a lawyer and that lawyer's flipping through a binder that scripted it, it's it's not natural. But when you have that natural conversation and you're, you're a better listener, by the way, right? Because you're not so tied to the next question. That's really cool. And the other story that I love about your case, your trial itself, is your the punitive damage phase. So as I mentioned earlier, the punitive damage phase is separate. You need to get an award on compensatory. You get your verdict on the compensatory damages. What was that verdict. So this is interesting. The jury came in with a verdict of $19 million. Amazing. And, in Ohio, in order to get to punitive damages, you have to have what's called survivorship damage. So if I walked up behind Andy Goldwasser and I had a gun and I shot you in the head, and you died instantly, there is no conscious pain and suffering. And under the law of Ohio, there can be no punitive damages for that conduct, even though it's horrific. However, if that shot caused blood to fall on your suit and you had a $200 suit that got damage from that, we can make a property damage claim. And, I started with this argument in 1993. In the sheets, we do the railroad grade crossing case, where we utilize jewelry that was damaged and clothing that was damaged in that railroad grade crossing as a bootstrap to get to the right to argue punitive damages. And in this case, it was $25 in clothing that we alleged that. Economic loss was $25 in clothing. Correct. Did you help under the survivorship? There was economic damage for his loss of income in services. That better said yes. So I want to get to that in a moment. But I have to back up so that I understand and the listeners understand you and your your what we call jury interrogatories, which are the questions that the jury is asked to answer. Were there separate questions or interrogatories that went to the survivorship claim? Yes. As it related to the property damage. And and did the jury actually award a dollar amount for the property damage? $25, which is what we asked for. Okay. And did you explain to the jury why it was important that they give you that. We were not allowed to. Say? I mean, that's really that's a tough thing, right? Because you were. Allowed to say it's important that you follow the law. We've requested this, and it's important for us and the family that you award this. I just. I just, you know, I'd be so scared to do that, right? I mean, you're like, am I am I actually becoming like a nickel and dime or because I'm asking for $25 and the jury doesn't know why I'm asking for $25. At that stage. And they trusted me. They trusted that what I was telling them was true. And when I said it was important and I couldn't say why it was important, that's all it took. That's in the verdict was unanimous. That's fantastic. So I want I want to go before we talk about punches, you get your compensatory verdict. Do you remember how long the jury was out? I don't all right, well. It sounds like the jury. Obviously unanimous. They were with you for a while when you did, you stand. Do you remember if you stayed in the courtroom? Do you remember the how. How you like what you were doing when? When the jury was out? No, I don't remember. I just remember it was very emotional for the family. And, Was the whole family there for the verdict? Yes. Okay. And and you get this verdict. You're elated. Families emotional. In Ohio. You roll right in to the punitive phase. Right. So I'm going to tell you a huge mistake that I made in that regard, which is I've been living with for the last 30 years. I got a big verdict against FirstEnergy several years ago,$1.8 million compensatory verdict against FirstEnergy. And I was so excited. And the family was so elated. And it was such an emotional feeling in the in the courtroom that the judge actually excused the jury, said, thank you for your service. You're done. And I didn't think about the punitive phase. So the jury's excuse, the jury goes back to the jury room so the judge could talk to the jury. And I like five minutes later, it hits me like we can't let this jury leave the courthouse. And it became a major issue on appeal. I bring that up only because here you are. You're rolling in almost right away. I think it was the next day. The next morning? Yeah. The next. Morning. You start with your punitive damage phase. I saw you the night between your compensatory phase and your punitive phase. You knew we weren't working very much between the compensatory phase and the punitive phase. Tell us about the punitive damage phase of the case. Yeah. So, in my mind, that's what this trial was about, was about punitive damages. The way the family had been treated by the other side, the way, that, the trial went, from the beginning of the trial, my focus was on punitive damages. And as you know so well, not many cases go to trial on punitive damages in Ohio. And for the ability to have that, is very unique for a lawyer like us. And in this case, during the meeting with the family and more importantly, one of the daughters whose name I'll leave out at this point, I came to learn that not only was Randy Romanski, a veteran who had defended our country for many years, but his daughter also went to Congress to work and to learn about democracy and about. Hopefully one day also serving our country. And so in the punitive phase, my focus even before this trial began was to bring forward the letter from the senator about the service that his daughter had provided and to talk about service to the country. Democracy, the right to trial by jury and the responsibility of the jury. And I empowered them with that theme. In the closing argument, along with some other things that I'm sure we'll get to. Chris, I have to stop you because it's such a your strategy in that case, as I listen to it was so good. I mean, you have this protector strategy theme, I should say. And then now you get now you're slowly, you know, switching it to a service theme that's really good protection and service and how those two themes go together. So I'm sorry to interrupt you. I just have to credit you got to approach. Absolutely. So the, the problem we have obtaining punitive damages in Ohio, even if you have a right to go to that second phase and trial, is the jury never gets told about punitive damages. And so they think that they've done their job. Usually when they award the compensatory damages and they think, oh, we get to go home. We've worked hard, we've done our job. And then lo and behold, boom, now the lawyers are coming back and the plaintiff lawyer was asking you for more money after you've already done your job. More money and more time. Right? So there's an inherent bias against them awarding more because they've already awarded it. So true. And so my focus was to educate them on why it was important under the law, why it was important under the Seventh Amendment, why it was important in this case, in particular, to award punitive damages, which then evolved into the service theme and their responsibilities, along with the defendant, who would send in as a representative of this large national corporation. A worker boots on the ground guy in regular clothes is their representative. Not one officer of the company came in and testified at trial. Not one officer of the company came and sat at the table. And, that was critical also to how I set up the punitive damage phase. Did you do an opening statement in the punitive phase? So, we ended up, waiving, I believe, the opening statement, and we let the defense do their opening statement. So they went in, they did their opening statement. The judge said, Mr. Pat, now it's time for your opening statement. I said, Your Honor, we waive our opening statement. In the opening statement of the defense was, although we disagree with your verdict, we've heard your verdict loud and clear, and things are going to change for the betterment of safety in our company. So you waive opening statement. It's now your turn to present evidence. What evidence do you put on in support of your punitive damage case and how do you approach it? Okay, so this is, a unique style that I use. I usually send out written discovery asking for the financials of the defendant, which can be used in the punitive phase. Usually the defense lawyer objects to it and doesn't produce the financials. And the financials are important because they can cap your punitive damage claim. It's only so many times the company's annual financials. So that's what occurred here. But we're dealing with a national company that paves roads all over America. So in this situation I made the decision to not put on any evidence of our own as far as documents or witnesses on economics. And instead I got up and I called as witnesses to the stand, three of the top corporate officers of this company who not been in the courtroom, and they still weren't there that day when. And so you stand up to call a witness who you know is not there. Yes. Three of them, actually. This is fantastic. All right. What happened? And, so I'd get up, I'd say we call so-and-so, president and CEO of such and such company. To the stand, your honor, let the record reflect. The witness is not here. What was the defense lawyer doing it? He had no idea what I was doing. They, like they were just sitting there watching, just. Stunned. Wondering what's crazy Paterno doing now. Right? And they can't even jump up and down because all it does is bring more attention to the issue. So, I got through three of those and I said, just. Right after another. One. Yeah. I'm calling the president. You're not here calling the vice president, not here. The safety, the person in charge of safety, not here. And then I said, with that, Your Honor, we, rest. Oh, I love that so much. Yeah, that is so great. So, no opening. You call three witnesses that you know aren't there? We're going to show to the jury that what they did was reasonable under the circumstances, but they don't even take the time to come here because they don't care. Yeah. I just wanted someone from their company to come in and say, who has the authority to say and make real changes, that this is what we're going to do. We're we're apologetic. We want to do what's right. So you rest your punitive damage phase or and now it shifts to the defendant, what do they do in response to the punitive damages? They got up. And essentially, I don't remember if they put a witness on, but their position in the punitive was we've heard you we may have disagreed with you, but we will make changes. You have our assurance on that. And and then the the closing argument was the best for us on that. That's what I want to hear. I want to hear about your closing on that. And then in your rebuttal, close right in the punitive damage phase. So essentially that's when I brought in the service and the daughter and Randy and what they had done for the country, and they took their responsibility seriously. And I said, like you, you've taken your responsibility seriously. You may believe you've done all that should be done, but under the law, you're required now to assess punitive damages. And even though you may not agree with that, the law requires you to do so when the facts in this case require you to award punitive damages. And, and so that was the the theme of our closing, punitive damages initially. And then what? And then the defense came in and did their, position on we're going to make changes. And then I got up in rebuttal and just absolutely slammed the door on them. And I said, not only are these the same lawyers that came in and said, we have done nothing wrong for over two weeks in this courtroom, not only are they the same lawyers that made this family have to relive this tragedy and make you come down here to hold them accountable, but these are the same lawyers who said we didn't do anything wrong, and now we're going to make changes. But you know what? They're just lawyers. They're not the officers of the company that could have made the changes. And that's why it was so crucial that we asked for them to come testify. But they didn't have the dignity to show their face in this courtroom to you. So fantastic. That is so, so great. And what a way to put an exclamation mark on that trial. You then get a verdict on your punitive right? That is correct. So what was the verdict on the punitive. So on the punitive, the verdict was $20 million. So we're now at $39 million with part of that is $25 of property damage. That's so that's amazing. And we're going to talk about that. Plus, you're entitled to your attorney's fees, right? Yeah. Plus the the court awarded attorney's fees. And, you know, this is a case that had been pending for many years. You get your interest. The hours in the time that we put into this case was just massive. Andy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you at the end of the day, you could be looking at 40 or $50 million. I would say, that would not be, out of the range. Yeah. That is that's just crazy. So how did you handle the legal argument? Punitive damages because there are caps in Ohio on punitive damages. Correct. And here, as it relates to your survivorship claim, which for those who don't know, that's the claim for when the decedent was alive. Correct? Right. It's $25 and you get a $20 million punitive damage, which really has no relation to the $25 you received on the survivorship claim. So how did that work legally? Yeah. And this was the case of first impression in Ohio. Obviously there hadn't been that many punitive damage awards. I don't even know if there had been any awards at that point. And, the damage caps said that you're entitled to two times your compensatory damages. All right. It didn't say the compensatory damages could solely be the survivorship or the $25 here that occurred before the wrongful death claim. It just said compensatory damages. And so the defense filed a motion to reduce the punitive damage from $20 million down to $50. In mind you, there was also Anthony Jones. Don't forget about him. He was found by the jury to be 35% at fault in this case. All right. And so the defense, asked the jury for an interrogatory, and they found Randy 5% at fault. So whatever verdict we had was going to be reduced by 40% due to comparative and other third party fault. Okay. So I think the $25 got reduced down by 5% for the property damage, but for some reason not the 35% for Anthony Jones. So it was like that on the 2375. So the defense argument was that the only award for punitive damages would be 23.75 times two, which is the cap under the statute in Ohio. Right. And so we had to breathe this. We had to argue this in front of Judge Michael Jackson, who was a very thoughtful, a very kind judge, who gave us a fair trial. And when we argued our position, our position was with the largest paving company in the country, two times 23.75 under$50 will not punish or deter this type of conduct. Moving forward. And that's that's the purpose of punitive damages is to punish and deter in Ohio. And we argued the statute cap as applied to our facts in. This. Case with this defendant is unconstitutional as applied. Judge Jackson, wrote, many page opinion on this that's cited often in Ohio ever since agreeing with our argument that the statute is unconstitutional because he didn't punish or deter with that level. So he upheld our punitive damage verdict. Good for him. I mean, that takes a lot of courage for a trial judge to do that. And I don't know this. I'm embarrassed to say, do you know what the current status of the law is on that subject? It's it's the same, you know, we, we're able to resolve the case finally, to the satisfaction of all. And, so we never got up into the Court of Appeals on the issue. And so the issue died with that case legally. That that is amazing. What a what a really cool trial. I want to sort of end with, how you are in trial and is some of your unique approaches. So first, a huge credit to you. When we tried that case together, you know, I'm a, I, I'm just very intense in trial. You're even know you're a badass. And especially on cross-examination, you're really mellow, like, laid back about sort of what happens during the course of a trial. And you adapt really well. And I'll never forget, Chris. We had like a we had an extended lunch break and I said, Chris, I'm going to stay here. I'm going to continue to work. You like, I'll be back. You ain't got your haircut in the middle of trial. It's just who you are. You're just unbelievable that way. And I think that's one of the reasons why you're so good at what you do. Because you're just really, really comfortable in a courtroom. It. And you also have a unique approach when it comes to experts and the depositions and discovery and work up of an expert. Can you tell our listeners about your approach in that regard? Sure. I want to dovetail on relaxation at trial. I would rather be in trial than on a beach in the Bahamas. All right. I just I enjoy the intellectual challenge. I that's that's my comfort zone of where, where I like to be. And as a matter of fact, I agreed to do a trial. I'm set to go to the International Society. Barristers meeting in Hawaii in March, but I agreed to a trial at the end of February because that's the the only time the judge could move the case to. And, I still haven't told my wife yet that, she may have to find a bunkmate to go out there. Oh, she'll love that. But, a couple of years ago, we had the trial lawyers annual convention in Cleveland. I was the president at the time, and unfortunately, I wasn't able to go and run the whole, program, but, I was able to socially go out at night for the parties to, to mingle with my people and also, I would go over during trial at the lunches to mingle during the lunches. It's amazing. And, it was a very difficult medical case. And believe it or not, people could not believe I was out there. And and we ended up winning that trial. So, and, but it's because I was relaxed. I, I lock my cases in months in advance before I even get close to trial. So mentally I know where I'm going and I'm just so much more relaxed as a younger lawyer, I used to depose experts, to find out what their opinions were, even though I had their reports, and I would, prepare all the way up through, during and during breaks and trial. I've learned the mind needs to relax. You've got to be comfortable in knowing your case. And as it relates to experts, I haven't deposed an expert with a discovery deposition to find out about their opinions and their reports for probably the last 20 plus years. And I've been practicing 35 years, because what I learned is, by doing that, you're creating holes where they know you're going at trial. They plug the holes and you're giving them, easy, quick look of what you're going after or where they may have weaknesses and their opinions. Yeah, it's it's a good approach. It's also a gutsy approach. Right? I mean, so do you you won't even depose an expert if you've never met that expert. And you don't want to know what they're look, what they look like, how they're going to present. I mean, don't you want to do any of that to a deposition, even if you're not getting into the guts of their opinions? So here's what I've done. I've found past depositions, past reports. I use my network of other attorneys. I will do research on these people. I will hire a private investigator to do a background on these people. And then more importantly, I look at the report itself and the report itself. You can usually find 2 or 3 polarizing issues in the report and common sense where they've overstretch or they're just completely incorrect, or they're in conflict with their own prior testimony or their own prior podcast YouTube videos, or their own medical literature that they've created and they don't know you have that. The defense lawyer doesn't know you have that. And so I've synthesized my cross to 3 to 4 points with experts usually. And I go for the gut of the case and the facts. And I look for polarization where the jury is going to look at the expert and say, there's just no way. That's right. Right. Yeah. It I don't like I understand what you do. And it's a it is a great approach and it works incredibly well for you and there for me, there are a lot of cases where that makes sense to do it that way. For me, a lot of times I well, let me back up the danger with. In Ohio, an expert cannot testify outside the four corners of their report. So the danger, of course, is if you take their deposition and now all of a sudden they start talking about things that are in the report. Inevitably, they get that in at trial because the judge is saying, well, you had every opportunity to depose this expert. And he talked about in his deposition, and therefore it's allowable. So I get the rest. So a lot of times, what I like to do, and I don't know if it's a good approach or not, it works for me, is I really just like to ask the expert, are these all of your opinions that are in your report? Do you have anything else? And what is the basis of your opinions? And that's it. I don't fight with the expert during deposition. I don't pull out stuff I'm going to use on cross-examination. I just want to make sure that I have that basis. But I understand your approach, which maybe is a better one. It certainly is for you. Which why open that door? And even with your approach there, I know that will allow the expert to expound upon other issues. Not in their report. Yeah, 100%. There's no way to lock that in 100%. And you have to figure out what's your best angle and and how do you do it. You're so right. And that's one of the things I love about this podcast is you learn all these different tips and nuggets. Chris, I always like to end these podcasts with asking really experienced trial lawyers like yourself, especially one who served in all these leadership roles. Of all these other organizations, can you give maybe the newer lawyers that the not so experienced trial lawyers? Some big takeaways before we end the podcast? Sure. There is one big takeaway, and it's the only one that matters. Be yourself. No matter how many books you read by Don Keenan, David Ball, or amazing lawyers across this country, or you learn something at seminars when you get in front of a jury, be yourself. And everyone needs to try their case their way. And it creates credibility. It creates authenticity because jurors are like dogs, they can smell when you're not comfortable. They can smell when you don't believe in your case. And it's more important than anything you can do factually to build that bond. And the credibility with the jury where they look at you and they say, you know what? I like this person, I trust this person, and I'm going to listen to this person. It's been the recurrent theme on this podcast, the importance of credibility and authenticity and how those two oftentimes go in hand. It is so important. And I love what John Camillus said on the last podcast, which is you can look at all these great trial books and you could read all these amazing opening statements, and they're really unimpressive when you just read them on paper. It's the people that are presenting them. It's the way that they present them and it's the authenticity of the individual that is actually offering the information at trial. Chris, I enjoyed this podcast so much. You learned a lot. You're amazing, a great friend. Thank you for doing this. Thanks for the time here. It's always great hanging out with you, Andy. Thank you so much. Thank you.