Latest / Coopers' Code / How Coopers LLP Won a Historic $142,000,000+ Oregon Trucking Crash Judgment

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How Coopers LLP Won a Historic $142,000,000+ Oregon Trucking Crash Judgment · Coopers' Code

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There was a crash that occurred on a Fremont bridge in Portland,
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OR. Our client was just heading to a
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doctor's appointment. All of a sudden a large 53 foot
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Freightliner truck behind him does not slow in time, slams
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into the back of our client and creates A5 car pile up.
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When the vehicles came to rest, our client's vehicle was
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unrecognizable, left as a pile of metal.
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Our client had to be extracted, doesn't remember any of the
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details of the crash, and wakes up in the hospital sustained
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such significant injuries. He was a tetraplegic now and
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forever paralyzed from the chest down.
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Howdy and welcome to the show. Today's Cooper's Code is going
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to take a look at a recent judgement that the firm obtained
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in a trucking case. How that judgement was reached,
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the the hard work that was put into it and the long term
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implications for the trucking company involved as well as our
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our client. So without further ado, I'm I'm
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thrilled to have Andrea Posey return to the show.
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She's a partner with the firm and have Cory Jolie, an attorney
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with Cooper's as his first time. Thanks.
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Thanks for joining me today. Thanks for having me again,
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Miles. Thank you so much.
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I'll be here. Andrea, if you could go ahead
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and and help us understand a little bit of the facts of the
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Lockhart case so that we can start talking a little bit about
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how the prosecution was done and and how the case was built up
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ultimately to the the record setting judgement that that the
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team was able to obtain. Absolutely.
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So Miles, we pursue all of our cases relentlessly and try to
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get the best result for our client.
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But this case was particularly close to home for us because the
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plaintiff in this case, our client, it was a close relative
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of an employee in our office. And unfortunately, this case
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involves a trucking case similar to other trucking cases that
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result in very extensive injuries.
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There was a crash that occurred on the Fremont Bridge in
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Portland, OR. Our client was just heading to a
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doctor's appointment, typical morning like any other day, and
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all of a sudden traffic slows down on the Fremont Bridge.
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Our client, wearing his seat belt, doing everything right, is
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breaking, slowing down, coming to a complete stop with traffic.
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All of a sudden, a large 53 foot Freightliner truck behind him
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does not slow in time, slams into the back of our client and
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creates A5 car pile up. When the vehicles came to rest,
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our client's vehicle was unrecognizable, left as a pile
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of metal. Our client had to be extracted,
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doesn't remember any of the details of the crash, and wakes
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up in the hospital sustained such significant injuries.
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He was a tetraplegic now and forever paralyzed from the chest
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down. The significance of this case
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and why I say it's similar to other trucking cases is a lot of
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the time you have truck drivers who are fatigued and we're not
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complying with the federal regulations.
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And this case is no different. And we can get more into the
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truck driver and the truck company's responsibilities.
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But it it left our client with life altering injuries and he
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was only 37 years old. Am I correct that the the
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vehicle that that Richie our client was in was a a Subaru
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cross track? Correct.
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And, and I say that only because when people see the photos,
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they'll understand what you mean when when you say that the the
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vehicle was completely unrecognizable.
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Absolutely. The other pieces that I think
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are are helpful for the folks listening to understand in terms
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of how the case got built was learning a little bit about who
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Richie was before the incident, that that he had been a veteran
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and how he was working on himself at the time that this
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happened. Can you help us understand a
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little bit about who he was at the time that the collision
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happened? Yes, as I mentioned, Richie was
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37 years old at the time of this crash.
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He after high school, he decided to go into the Air Force and he
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had served his country for years.
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Part of that was teaching other members of the Air Force, and he
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particularly loved teaching. He had retired and was starting
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to work, not only heading toward a teaching career, but also
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physical fitness, health and athleticism was really important
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to him. So he was finding himself
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training daily, even doing fitness competitions, also
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teaching people at the gym how to eat healthy.
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You know, his, his life was on this trajectory where he
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realized that teaching was something he really wanted to
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pursue and, and family and friends and everything meant the
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world to him. As the case came in, Andrea, can
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you start to unpack what you did to build the liability case
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against the trucking company based on some of the the initial
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impressions and and some of the things that you start to learn
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about the case? Yes.
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So knowing that this was a trucking case, and I've had
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trucking cases in the past, one of the big things, as I
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mentioned, we run into is the federal regulations that the
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trucking companies don't seem to follow, that the truck drivers
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don't seem to follow. And what I mean by that is
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federal law caps commercial truck drivers at 11 hours behind
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the wheel. The reason for that is because
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fatigue drivers can lead to increased crashes and trucking
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companies and truck drivers are required to report in their
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hours. In fact, they have digital
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equipment to do so. And sometimes they don't do it.
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And sometimes the if they do do it, the trucking company is not
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logging those and checking those and making sure that everything
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is accounted for as it's supposed to.
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So I had suspicions that maybe that was in play as a cause of
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the crash. I've also worked with a trucking
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expert in the past and contacted him for some insight on this
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case and how we would move forward with discovery.
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Of course, we want to get all of the relevant documents,
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including daily logs, meals, breaks, things of that nature,
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training for truck drivers, safety, everything.
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The truck, the trucking company, training for the driver.
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We started to get that and I realized that there was a
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pattern here. And what I mean by that is this
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wasn't just a negligent driver, it was a negligent company.
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The trucking company had 38 tracks on the road and their
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owner couldn't even explain the federal hours of service to me
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after the crash that paralyzed our client.
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The trucking company never even reviewed the driving logs.
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Couldn't remember if he ordered a drug alcohol testing for the
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driver and our truck driver essentially never underwent any
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training. In fact, his response when I
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asked him about training was I've got a driver's license, why
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do I need training? So I was seeing a pattern of
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both a negligent driver and a negligent trucking company.
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So given the the fact that this was a rear end collision with
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pretty clear liability and a lack of safety in the in the
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infrastructure of this trucking company, the real question
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wasn't whether we'd win, it was how we collect.
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And so that became my goal and it shaped every strategic
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decision that we made going forward.
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On the collection side, when I hear a trucking company that has
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38 trucks, let me start by asking some more basic
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questions. Was this trucking company
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located in Oregon? It was not.
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It was a trucking company out of Indiana, and a lot of the
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employees, including the owner and the truck driver, were
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Ukrainian. And I say that only because a
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lot of the employees were actually based out of Ukraine.
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So it's not like things that were happening in real time.
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We're being monitored in real time.
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When I hear a trucking company with with again with 38 trucks,
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collectability doesn't seem like it as as big a concern.
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I would expect an entity that was that large would have
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stacked layers of policies. I I presume the defence counsel
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was was forthcoming and and helpful in terms of turning over
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how much insurance information was there.
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You would think hearing 38 trucks that there would be a
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policy for every truck and sufficient insurance.
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That is not the case. In fact, the rules only require
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that a trucking company have 750,000 in insurance.
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We were at least fortunate that the underlying policy was a
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million through discovery and and as you said, we always hope
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that defense counsel is forthcoming with information
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about available insurance doesn't happen all the time.
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And I'm sorry, I, I want to revise 'cause that makes it
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sound like it's defence counsel. Sometimes it's counsel,
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sometimes it is the defendant. And I, I don't mean to cast any
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aspersions on the defence counsel in this case.
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So my understanding is, is as we've, as we've learned through
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the case that the defendant itself was challenging in terms
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of obtaining information from from insurance to logs to
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etcetera, not just for you but but for defence counsel as well.
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Correct. And I appreciate the
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clarification. Defence counsel in this case was
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actually very nice and a pleasure to work with and had a
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challenging time with their client, the trucking company,
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turning over information. And in fact, even when I deposed
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the owner of the trucking company, he knew he had
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insurance and he thought that he had an umbrella policy, but he
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couldn't remember exactly how much and had to check later and
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get back to me in further discovery.
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So we did learn that there was a 1,000,000 under underlying
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policy. We also learned that there was a
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1,000,000 in umbrella. But we it wasn't until we got
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further in the case that we realized that the owner of the
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trucking company had actually been communicating with his
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broker and was offered an additional 4 million in
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insurance and explained to him that he should have additional
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insurance just given the fact that trucking cases usually can
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be catastrophic. And he asked for that additional
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policy and thought that that additional policy was in place.
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And it turned out that it actually wasn't, which really
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impacted this case, given the severity of Ritchie's injuries.
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And just to to clarify that piece, the owner of the trucking
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company had requested that the policy be bound.
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Thought the policy was bound. Turns out the broker had not
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bound the policy. Correct.
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OK. I think we'll get to that more
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down the road. I want to also explore other
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avenues and, and, and the thoroughness with which the case
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was looked at because there were concerns about collectability.
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Did you also do things in terms of having experts look at the
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truck itself to see if there are any sort of defects or failures
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there? We did.
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One of the things that we did very early on was bring in an
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expert to inspect the Freightliner truck that caused
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the crash. A lot of the time, as I
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mentioned, there's electrical data on there that can be
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extracted that can tell a certain thing.
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So, for instance, we obtained the police report from the
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incident and the driver mentioned that there was an
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issue with the brakes that he had braked in time and there
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must have been a problem with the brakes.
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From from the download of the data from the truck, we could
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tell that that was not the case. It would tell us at what time he
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started breaking. And given how long this 53 foot
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truck was, our experts can say a vehicle of that length would
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take a certain amount of time to come to a complete stop, and he
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simply just did not engage his brakes quick enough and couldn't
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stop at that point. Also in the in the category of,
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of looking at all the potential avenues, my understanding is, is
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there were a fair number of skid marks on the bridge in that
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location that indicated that there was a history of slowdowns
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in that area of rapid slowdowns. And I know that there was an
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evaluation and ultimately an added defendant in terms of the
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Department of Transportation for Oregon.
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That also turned out to be a a more challenging case.
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Two if I understand correctly. You're correct, yes.
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One of the things we did notice in photographs and you know, the
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Google images of the Fremont Bridge, there appeared to be a
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lot of skid marks, scrape marks indicating that there were a lot
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of crashes here. When we dug into that, as you
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mentioned, that's why we brought in Oregon Department of
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Transportation as a defendant. When we dug into that, we
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learned that that was actually the case.
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And it's surprisingly the amount of crashes on the Fremont Bridge
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ranked in the 95th percentile for crash risk statewide,
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particularly rear end crashes. It was more than three times the
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state average. So it just goes to show you that
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a lot of the interchanges there was confusing to driver.
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The signage was such that people were not realizing they had to
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merge until last minute and traffic would back up causing
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crashes. So it definitely was an area
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where there were a lot of crashes and there were not
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significant warnings. So we did resolve the case
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through a settlement with the Oregon Department of
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Transportation. They they definitely bared some
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liability in this in addition to the bulk of the liability being
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on the truck driver on the trucking company.
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That goes back to why they're regulations related to driver
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fatigue and and making sure that there is a well trained
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conservative professional driver.
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And it is because sometimes those drivers are going to areas
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where there's uncertainty on the roadway.
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And in our particular situation, this truck driver had been
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driving for 18 hours and 5 minutes, so well over the 11
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hour period that's provided by law.
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At this point, I'd love to dive into some of the motion practice
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that ended up having to be done and, and how that set the stage.
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And, and Corey, you're nodding along to the extent that you
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were involved in this process as well.
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I, I, I'd love to, to unpack the work that needed to be done to
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help convince the defendant to turn over material, the
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sanctions that were involved and, and, and the way that the
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defendant did a pretty good job of, of pissing off the court.
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Yes, we fortunately we had a great judge in this case and she
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was great because we were dealing with a difficult
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defendant in the trucking company.
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And again a lot of this is because the trucking company was
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just not being response responsive to its own counsel.
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But we would ask for certain documents and we wouldn't get
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those which would then make it difficult during depositions.
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We didn't have the material that we needed to examine the truck
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driver and the owner. So finally, after various
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motions, we started seeking harsh sanctions against the
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trucking company. And the judge was great.
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She would initially set a timeline for the trucking
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company to respond with documents and material.
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And if they didn't meet that, then we would be back in court
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and she would make a harsher sanction.
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So it got to the point where the court ordered that the truck
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driver had exceeded federal driving limits, that he was
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incompetent and unqualified to be driving, and that the
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trucking company was aware of all of this and allowed him to
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drive anyway. And the significance of that is,
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as we'll talk about later, we ended up doing a, a damages
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hearing where the liability had already been decided by the
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court. So we had that part of the case
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nicely, you know, Pendock before we headed into the damages
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hearing. And, and a lot of that was
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because the sanctions or which also put a lot of pressure on on
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the defendants. The discovery motions, request
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for sanctions. These are not the beautiful fund
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motions. They are.
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They're not the ones that you go home and tell your wife about
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and that you're excited about for that day.
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But what's great about them is that they hold defendants
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accountable and they hold defendants accountable,
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particularly when you have a good judge like we have in this
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case. And we came back, we showed the
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judge over and over that we were seeking relevant documents, that
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we were prosecuting our case. The judge saw that and rewarded
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our diligence. And I'll also add that we, we
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asked for monetary sanctions. The main reason is not that, you
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know, the little bit of money that would have been added would
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have really done anything considering the severity of
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Ritchie's injuries. But we, we did get awarded I
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believe around $5000. And where we use that to our
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advantage was we eventually went to a mediation in this case with
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defendants and we had real concern about whether we were
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going to be able to get the defendant, particularly the
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owner of the trucking company, to show up at mediation.
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We knew we would have a difficult time moving the case
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forward in any meaningful resolution without having him at
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the mediation. So we said that we would forego
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the 5000 monetary sanctions against the trucking company if
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he showed up at mediation and participated.
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So that was a little bit of leverage that we got to use and
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he agreed to grow up and he stayed the whole time and
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participated in mediation. So that was also helpful as
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well. As we tie off collectability and
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and various analysis related to the case, I think one of the
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things that that some people listening might, might trip is
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well, you know, it's a trucking company that is operating 38
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trucks. It must own and all of these
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things and there must be some collectability related to the
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entity itself to unpack that. Well, trucking companies
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sometimes on the surface might look like they have things.
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A lot of times it's leases, it's subleases, it's not great pieces
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of equipment to begin with. And and and the collectability
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profile for this company beyond the insurance was was is
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challenging an understatement. Challenging is an
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understatement. Yes, we absolutely looked into
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that when we realized that the insurance was going to be wholly
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insufficient to compensate our client.
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Definitely look into the assets of the company.
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But as you mentioned, a lot of these trucks were leased.
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The company had equipment, it was leveraged, it was they were
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having trouble paying their employees.
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By the time we got to deposition, they had already
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sold off some trucks. Some of their employees were no
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longer with the company. They were, they were headed
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toward a place where the company was going to be wrapping.
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We also uncovered some evidence that pieces of the company were
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being transferred to various other entities and we and the
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company's business property was sold for $10 to a family member.
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So we started to suspect that perhaps there were some
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fraudulent transfers going on, which we also used as leverage
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heading into the mediation. And, you know, there's, there's
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nothing that gets defendants more concerned than the risk of
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periodic damages or fraudulent transfers or things like that,
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that, you know, we're going to come after them outside of the
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insurance. Understood.
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Given the challenges of undoing transfers, given the limited
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value of these properties or marginalized assets that were
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being moved around, the thing that that seemed to have more
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value than anything else was the failure on on behalf of the
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broker. Is that is that fair?
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Correct. So our our plan was to move
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forward with a mediation, see if we could get all available
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insurance, get the case wrapped up with ODOT and then then we
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would pursue a second phase. What, what would be next?
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Part of our settlement was, as I mentioned, not only all the
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available insurance, but an agreement that we would proceed
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to an uncontested prima facie hearing with the trial court
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where the trial court would decide the amount of damages to
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be awarded to Richie for his injuries and the losses that he
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sustained. But along with that is an
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assignment from the trucking company to pursue a claim
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against the insurance broker. So that was all of of what we
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were seeking at the mediation. And I know that was a lot.
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So I'm happy to unpack some of it if you'd like me to.
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I think it's a good opportunity to talk in generalities about
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broker negligence and insurance bad faith cases.
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And I'm saying in generalities because they vary from the state
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to state in terms of how the law works and bad faith and broker
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negligence are are different animals in certain respects in
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terms of statutes of limitations.
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But from from a broad perspective, given that you've
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had a fair amount of experience with the second phase analysis,
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it doesn't happen often. Maybe one out of 51 out of 100
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the the carrier fails to defend, or a broker fails to bind and
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there is exposure for a defendant that otherwise has
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limited collectibility. Am I reciting that correctly?
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Correct. Yes.
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OK. Within that that realm, again,
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speaking generally, the issue in those cases is the
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enforceability of a judgement in the case.
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And, and what I mean by that is if you're going to go into that
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next phase, you don't want to have to reprove the damages or
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have the damages attacked. And the way you do that is by
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having a judicial officer or an arbitrator, somebody who is not
24:06
invested in the process, review the evidence and make an
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appropriate finding as to the value of the case.
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Yes. So following the mediation, our
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next phase was to have this prima facie hearing for damages
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with our judge in Multnomah County, Oregon.
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And it's it's similar to a regular trial where we have to
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go and present our evidence. So we get together experts who
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usually will testify through sworn declarations but are also
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available if the court has questions.
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A lot of the times we have life care plans, we have medical
24:46
experts to talk about Richie's injuries and damages and all of
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that is presented to the core. An important piece of that is
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the non economic piece. So in this situation we had our
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client, his mother, his sister talk about the non economic
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component. And what I mean by that is the
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pain and suffering the the day-to-day struggles that Richie
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has even to date and going forward in his future,
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everything that he deals with and how his life has been
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impacted by this crash. We present all of that to the
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court and then the court makes a determination of what his future
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looks like and how we can best compensate him for the injuries
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that he sustained. Corey, looping you into this
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conversation, to what extent were you involved in working on
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either the declarations from the experts life care plan the OR
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working with the witnesses to help the judge understand the
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full magnitude of the harm that Richie suffered?
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Yeah, absolutely. I will say I was less involved
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with getting the expert witness declarations together, but I was
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involved in prepping the well, we called it a trial brief
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internally because we treated it like a trial.
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What we turned in was named prima facie hearing brief, but I
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was heavily involved with getting our prima facie hearing
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brief together and making the story digestible and impactful
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for the judge because that was the ultimate decider of the
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value of this case and working with the witnesses that we
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chose. Again, as Andrea mentioned, it
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was it was our client, his mother and his sister and
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getting together their stories so that we could let them tell
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it and we could really give them the stage to let the judge know
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who Richie was before the incident and how it impacted him
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in a way that you can't get from words on a paper.
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I think now is, is probably an appropriate time to talk about
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the demand, the request in terms of, of the judgement.
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And, and the reason I bring this up is because one of the things
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that I think might, might get people's attention in this case
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is, is the ultimate outcome. The the the judge, if I recall
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correctly, entered a judgement of 142 million and it was a
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record setting judgement for Oregon, for just Multnomah
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County, or for the entire state. Entire state.
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The entire state. And I recognize that that a
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judgement in front of a judge is not the same as a fully
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contested head to At the same time, any judge who is looking
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at an incident has to stand behind the numbers that the
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judge is putting down on on the verdict form and has to pass
27:51
the, the muster of, of that judge knowing that other, other
27:54
people in the courthouse are going to say, wow, you know,
27:57
that was a big number. How can you stand behind that?
28:00
And so they need the information to be able to do that.
28:03
So can you help us understand why you were willing to to to
28:09
make such a big ask, and why other lawyers who might be in
28:14
the same situation should think about making a big ask if they
28:17
want to get a big result? So as you mentioned are we ended
28:22
up with a judgement of 142 million in this case and my
28:26
recollection was that about 125 million of that was specifically
28:31
non economic damages alone. The economic damage portion was
28:36
pretty simple because we had a life care plan and clearly
28:40
Richie would need a significant amount of care going forward for
28:45
the rest of his life. But the non economic piece was
28:48
significant because he is paralyzed from the chest down
28:52
his entire day. It consists of needing care and
28:57
assistance and the strain that that puts on him, his family,
29:03
especially at a young age of 37. So what we wanted to do was
29:08
explain to the court how we get to that big number.
29:12
And we looked at not only the pain and suffering for all of
29:16
the days in the hospital and the thereafter during some of his
29:20
recovery, but up until the time of our trial, what his future
29:24
looked like for the rest of his years.
29:27
And at 37, that's significant. So we, we broke that down and my
29:32
recollection was it was we figured between around 10,000
29:37
per day for every day of suffering past and future.
29:41
And you know, we did a calculation like that.
29:43
So it was something that the core can sink their teeth into.
29:46
That seemed reasonable. So that's how we got to such a
29:49
big number. And you can use any kind of
29:51
calculation that feels right, but usually it's something so
29:55
that it doesn't seem like you're just picking some arbitrary
29:58
number out of the sky. The number has to have some
30:01
basis so that you could look at the judge in the face and, and
30:05
mean it when you say the bid number, which I believe was 150
30:10
and then reduced. And here we meant it.
30:14
And here there were damages to support every single dollar.
30:18
What we learned was that Richie had grown to a place in his life
30:23
where he was free, independent, getting stronger every day,
30:28
getting smarter every day. And the incident took all of
30:33
that away from him. And what it left was a life
30:37
where he had to rely on his family, his caretakers, and the
30:43
conversations that his family were having weren't centered
30:46
around how excited they were for what stage he would go into his
30:50
life, but rather who's going to take care of him next after mom
30:56
passes. So the number isn't arbitrary,
30:59
but if the damages are there, make the ask.
31:02
Staying with you for for a moment, Corey, this was your
31:06
first opportunity to examine a a witness in like this.
31:13
I have gotten to do some preliminary hearings before as a
31:17
law student, but this was my first and I'm going to say it
31:20
with quotes on my fingers. Trial, yes.
31:24
I think one thing that the other lawyers, whether one is working
31:29
with younger lawyers or 1, is a younger lawyer themselves.
31:33
Any takeaways from your experience of what worked for
31:37
you, what you want to do differently in terms of how you
31:42
approached this particular witness?
31:45
And and and not to to feed you lines, but for example you use
31:49
photographs in the examination. Yeah.
31:52
And so I I will start by saying the one lesson that's been a
31:56
through line throughout my blog career is to listen to the
31:59
people who have more experience. And I'm blessed to be on the
32:03
team where everybody had more experience than me, and I get to
32:07
learn and absorb all of it. But yeah, I think I did some
32:13
really important things with her, with the Witness, which was
32:16
letting her tell her story and giving her that platform.
32:20
And the thing I'm proud of is that she shared with me photos
32:25
of Richie, of him participating in a weightlifting competition.
32:29
And as someone who is very far away from a dumbbell at all
32:33
points in my life is seeing, seeing him shining, glistening
32:40
and strong it, it really inspired me and it gave a nice
32:45
contrast to where Richie was in his life.
32:48
Things I always want to improve on is asking better questions, I
32:53
think. I think I asked good questions
32:56
and I did a good job of anticipating even though there
33:00
it wasn't a contested hearing. I kept in mind the rules of
33:03
evidence, but I think there were questions that would allow the
33:07
witness to tell her story without being tripped up on the
33:11
way I asked it, and it happened only a couple times throughout
33:15
the hearing. But those have stuck with me and
33:18
I will not ask them again in that way next time.
33:22
Coming at it from from a different direction with, with
33:24
you, Andrea, you and your team pulled all this together to be
33:29
able to turn it into a comprehensive, I'll call it a
33:32
package for the judge. If you were to be telling other
33:37
people how to get this kind of an impactful judgement,
33:40
anything, any takeaways for you that you feel really made a
33:44
difference in this case? I always think it's good to
33:49
start with a defendant's bad conduct.
33:52
You've said this to me when early on when we first met at a
33:57
good plaintiff makes for great outcome at trial, but a bad
34:01
defendant makes for an even better one.
34:04
And so a lot of the times and it depends on the case, but
34:06
especially a trucking case, we start with the defendant's
34:09
conduct and then move into the impact on our client.
34:13
And as as Corey mentioned, make it specific so that the judge
34:19
understands the day-to-day of what your client goes through.
34:23
Because when the case it, when we get the judgment, the case is
34:26
over for us, but it's never over for our client.
34:30
And I say this all the time to people, it doesn't matter how
34:34
big the number is. I've never had a client that
34:37
would not give all of that back to go back to a day before the
34:41
crash. We have to always remember,
34:44
don't feel bad to ask for a big, big number when you believe in
34:49
your case and you believe in your client because it, it's,
34:53
it's valid. And so I think in this
34:56
particular case, it was heartbreaking for all of us that
35:00
worked on the case, especially having Richie be around some of
35:04
our ages and knowing, you know, what he's gone through and what
35:07
he's going to continue to go through.
35:09
And as I mentioned, this was particularly a close to home
35:11
case for us. So we really wanted the judge to
35:14
understand just how bad this trucking company was and how
35:21
they made decisions every single day that impacted people on the
35:25
road. And in this situation, it
35:27
absolutely changed Richie's life for our.
35:32
My understanding is that the as a result of your prosecution of
35:37
the the case, the trucking company is no longer in
35:40
existence. That is true.
35:43
Yes. I believe some other companies
35:45
have been created, but they're not trucking companies.
35:48
I I think they're just other, other companies.
35:52
For this particular owner, all the trucks have been grounded.
35:55
They're no longer in operation. As we kind of come into notes on
36:01
this, what is the next phase? What happens with the judgement
36:05
now? The next phase is, as you
36:08
mentioned, a broker negligence case and what happens now is
36:13
Richie becomes a plaintiff once again in this subsequent case.
36:18
So as part of the settlement, the trucking company assigned
36:23
it's right to sue this broker for not ensuring that the
36:27
sufficient insurance was there that the trucking company had
36:31
asked for. So by assigning that right over
36:34
to Richie, Richie now steps into those shoes and gets to pursue
36:39
the broker and the brokerage for the damages which are that
36:45
different of insurance that should have been there and
36:48
should have contributed to his case.
36:50
So we will now be working with a law firm out of Dubuque, IA who
36:58
is going to help us with prosecution of the broker
37:01
negligence case against the broker and the brokerage.
37:05
The lesson here being not stopping with the disclosed
37:09
insurance, but in a catastrophic injury case, making sure that
37:13
you you turn over every stone and and in this case turn that
37:18
judgement into the potential for further collectability for
37:22
Richie so that he is able to take care of himself as he gets
37:25
older. Absolutely.
37:26
And you know, even even what's likely to come from the broker
37:32
negligence case, assuming that it is successful, still in no
37:36
way will be able to provide Richie with the compensation
37:42
that he will need for his future.
37:44
But it's a step further than we were after just our personal
37:49
injury case. So you're right, whether it's
37:52
looking into punitive damages, assets, a bad faith case, a
37:59
broker negligence case, explore every Ave. because it means a
38:04
lot to the client and they need every dollar they can get.
38:09
Any other lessons, anything else that you think our listeners
38:12
should know about this case or or other other things in
38:16
trucking cases? Particularly with trucking cases
38:20
and in talking to our trucking expert, always be cautious of
38:28
trucking companies and truck drivers following federal
38:31
regulations. It seems to be something that is
38:35
is happening in every single trucking case unfortunately.
38:40
And and look for other avenues besides just the insurance that
38:45
they're claiming because there's usually a way and most of the
38:49
time these trucking companies are wholly inadequately insured.
38:55
That was mouthful it. Was.
38:57
To add on to that, I think having a modicum of, or maybe
39:02
even on a healthy amount of intellectual curiosity as you're
39:06
prosecuting the case, as you're going through the documents,
39:09
yes, you probably have a good idea of what the documents are
39:12
going to show, what's going to be in there.
39:14
But allowing yourself not to be taken over by those assumptions,
39:18
I think is one of the things that really helped US find all
39:23
those different avenues that we pursued throughout this case.
39:28
I want to thank both of you and Andrea Corey for, for taking the
39:31
time to come on and and help break down what was done in this
39:35
case. And, and I'm very hopeful that
39:38
it will continue to go well for Richie as as the second phase
39:43
goes forward. So thanks again.
39:47
Thanks for having us. And thank you for listening.
39:51
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39:56
To all of you doing justice out there, happy hunting.