Dawn crested over Long Beach, CA, as a semi-truck driver rushed to finish his final deliveries after working the entire night. The driver was not only running late because he started his route an hour late out of Fontana but had also overshot the hours that he could legally be on-duty for. Up ahead, a family minivan was waiting to make a left turn, but the big rig driver failed to react and brake in time. The semi crashed into the back of the minivan causing the 34-year-old mother’s head, neck, and back, to accelerate and decelerate injuring her back, neck, shoulder, and concussing her brain.
The concussion, although not resulting in a loss of consciousness, left the mother amnestic and unable to recall the days leading up to the collision. Bruising webbed across her abdomen from the pinch of the seatbelt, and the impact separated her right shoulder. An annular tear in her cervical and also her lumbar spine was caused by the force of the collision causing the liquid in the disc to leak out into her spinal canal and irritate her spinal nerves. Shooting pain and numbness radiated all the way down to the bottom of her right foot, and she required a cane for years after. Multiple surgeries over the next few years resulted in screws into her shoulder and hardware being placed in both her cervical and lumber spine. A spinal cord stimulator was eventually placed 8 years after the collision when all other attempts at curing her pain failed. Doctors prescribed a total of sixteen medications over 8 1/2 years and her post-concussion syndrome worsened, requiring 82 cognitive behavioral therapy treatments in addition to multiple neuropsychological evaluations.
The insurance company offered only low six-figures to her attorneys. The Plaintiff then turned to Nick Rowley, a national trial lawyer and founder of Trial Lawyers for Justice, for help. Nick and his team got to know the Plaintiff and her family and spent time in each other’s homes. Nick could see how the crash devastated the young mother's life and vowed to see the case all the way through if the insurance company didn’t pay. He reviewed the police report, photographs, initial primary care records, and urgent care records. Her medical bills had already surpassed a million dollars. Due to the Plaintiff’s poor medical treatment, Nick and his partners worked to get her seen by leading physicians at UCLA and Cedars-Sinai. However, the Defense attacked the legal team for helping her access higher levels of medical care claiming her doctors were all attorney referred.
Nick attempted to settle the case for $6,900,000, by sending a 998 statutory offer to compromise almost 7 years ago, but the Defense refused to budge past their $5,500,000 998 and instead brought out every page of the Defense playbook Mr. Rowley had seen. Because Leila didn’t remember the collision, the Defense denied liability and frivolously blamed the Plaintiff for the collision claiming the Plaintiff didn’t use her turn signal and unexpectedly slammed on her brakes. The Defense claimed that the surgeries and medical treatment were unnecessary and that the case took on a life of its own because of attorney referred care. The case proceeded to trial, and the Defense brought in witness after witness to call the Plaintiff an exaggerator, a liar, a cheat, and a fraud. Her own treating physician assistant was called to testify that the Plaintiff was “dramatic” for lying down with sunglasses on while waiting in the examination room. What the PA didn’t know was that the Plaintiff’s “sunglasses” were prescription prism glasses that adjusted to light to prevent the double-vision and horrible migraines that had racked her since the collision.
The sneakiest trick the Defense dropped, which Mr. Rowley had seen over and over again when handling cases against Dana Fox, was an investigator’s surveillance video of the Plaintiff walking without a cane and driving and allegedly looking normal and uninjured. Nick knew surveillance videos like this had the potential to ruin injury cases even when the tapes showed nothing of consequence because of the light that it casts a person in. A lightbulb went off in Nick’s head, so he called his allies at DK Global to see if they could put together a last-minute demonstrative to put the surveillance video into context with the soundtrack and concept of what it took to put The Six Million Dollar Man back together after he was injured in his crash. The point was to show everything the Plaintiff went through over eight and a half years to get to the point where she could walk without a cane and drive a car and live a semi-normal life. Nick needed the animation before closing arguments, which meant DK Global only had the weekend to pull it off.
The unprecedented demonstrative DK Global put together opened with a clip of the surveillance video and riffed the secret-agent aesthetics of The Six Million Dollar Man, including the show’s soundtrack. The animation zoomed in and out of a full 3D reconstruction of the Plaintiff. An artificial disc was shown being inserted into her cervical spine. Next, the animation revealed the screw that was drilled down into her dislocated shoulder. Dropping down to the bottom of her spine, the animation showed her spinal cord being pushed out of the way to accommodate the insertions of a spinal cord stimulator, its battery, an artificial disc, metal bars and screws, and the wires that ran up her entire spine. In the next shot, the Plaintiff's body and head were covered in a plethora of syringes, representing the totality of injections she endured. The surveillance video showed the victim walking, but the animation unveiled her pant leg to show the leg brace she was wearing underneath. The shot then zoomed to her brain and displayed multiple captures from her brain imaging, pinpointing the areas of injury. Next, all 82 of her CBT treatments were listed, followed by a list and pictures of all her prescription medications. To drive the point home, Nick requested a flourish: an animation of the Plaintiff walking through a literal downpour of all the medications she required, along with her brain scans and disability placard.
In another animation, DK Global recreated the collision, which repudiated the Defense’s claims that the Plaintiff was the one liable. The animation showed the Plaintiff's minivan turning left on a busy street with her blinker on, as well as the ample time the semitruck had to avert the crash. The big rig was shown colliding into the family vehicle. A replay showed the impact rippling through the minivan. Several more replays zoomed further and further into the Plaintiff’s injuries. They showed what happened to the mother’s neck, back, head, and brain. The camera zeroed into cellular level to show what happens to neurons when the brain is concussed and the cascade of damage to the neurons in the brain in the days and weeks following a brain injury.
During the surveillance video demonstrative, the body language of the Defense’s leading lawyer, Dana Fox, changed from ease to worry. Meanwhile, the jurors were enthralled, smiling and nodding as the surveillance was put into context and the Plaintiff’s rainstorm of prescription drugs cascaded down the screen along with everything else she went through over 8 1/2 years. Through prior expert testimony the day before, Nick’s partner Keith Bruno (who had joined the case with less than a week’s notice to help lead the trial) had introduced the jury to The Six Million Dollar Man, and the timing struck a chord. While the jury deliberated, the Defense offered $9,000,000, which Nick dismissed as being just the prejudgment interest. The jurors returned with their verdict of $21.3 million. With prejudgment interest and costs, the Defense was looking at a Judgment of approximately $37 million. Within two weeks of the verdict, the insurance company decision-makers agreed to pay the full verdict plus additional costs and interest for a total of $34,886,027.84. The case has thus come to a final conclusion that is not confidential. Justice was served to the tune of more than 5 times what Nick’s 998 of $6.9 million had asked for. In talking with the jurors, Nick learned that DK Global’s animations helped bring the case home by demonstrating everything the 34-year-old mother had to go through, and also putting the ridiculousness of the surveillance video into context. After years of pain, surgeries, therapies, and litigation, a young mother whose life was forever changed had emerged triumphant as the $34.886 Million Dollar Woman.
Nicholas Rowley founded Trial Lawyers for Justice, a national law firm dedicated to representing injury victims against insurance companies, the government, and big corporations. He authored and co-authored several books and created Trial By Human, a non-profit trial skills program. His efforts have been recognized nationally with multiple Trial Lawyer of the Year and Outstanding Trial Lawyer awards in multiple states. He was one of the youngest attorneys to ever be awarded Trial Lawyer of the Year by CAALA. His extensive courtroom experience has included 184 jury trials, where he has won over $3.5 billion in jury verdicts and settlements. As an active philanthropist, he has been involved with environmental and educational non-profits within the United States, Africa and abroad.
