eight years ago, involved a young man that had both legs cut off on a rail yard. Literally, he called his father with his cell
phone holding his legs in his hand. Again it was a situation where the railroad
took the position that it was totally his fault. They manufactured evidence and said that he
had called their office while he was in the intensive care unit.
They managed to put one of his legs back on. He had 36 surgeries in total and indicated
that it was all his fault. Now, of course, he was under the influence
of morphine at the time. We questioned whether that conversation ever
took place but we were lucky enough to have the chief of the burn unit at the University
of Louisville, hospital come in and testify.
And he looked at the jury and told them to
believe anything that someone would say when they are under that load of medication would
be absolutely ludicrous. And again, they did some things to try to
hide evidence which we caught. After we tried it for a week, we beat the
devil out of them. They called me on Saturday afternoon, I was
in my office preparing for a cross examination of their expert witnesses the next week and
this was Zurich Insurance Company, as a matter of fact.
They had one of their reps call me from New
York and say, "Well we're prepared to offer you four million dollars now to settle your case and we'll do whats called a structured settlement which is actually guaranteed payouts over
a thirty year period. And they said, "If he lives to his normal
life expectancy, he will receive 6.4 Million dollars." Well, I didn't think that was enough money. And one of the things that we do, this is
a team approach, I got my client on the phone, I was fully aware of the fact that if the
jury believed the railroad's version of the story, he would be a 28-year old guy with a missing leg, with $500,000 plus medical bills plus more medical bills in the future because he
needs an artificial leg every three years. I told him what I thought.
I said, "I don't think that's enough money." He said, "Well if you don't think that's enough
money, let's keep pressing on." We saw the judge the next Monday and of course,
the railroad lawyers ran in there and said: "Well judge we want you to know that we offered
them four million dollars over the weekend and they better take the money." The judge looked at both of us and he winked
and says: "Boys it sounds like you're in a game of Texas Holdem and you're both all in." The jury returned the verdict in that case of 9.33
Million dollars..
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