The “Most Worthy Cause” Award celebrates an attorney who saw the importance of obtaining justice for their client regardless of the challenging circumstances. Chris Keane of the Keane Law Firm, who has represented the survivors of shaken baby syndrome for the past 25 years, advocated for a baby who was physically abused for months, suffering multiple fractures, a traumatic brain injury / shaken baby syndrome, and retinal hemorrhaging.

Often, proving instances of child abuse can be difficult because these tragedies occur behind closed doors. Consequently, many child abuse cases lack significant evidence or witness testimony an attorney can use to prove when and how damages were afflicted. Further, many cases of shaken baby syndrome result in obvious gross neurological problems such as hemiplegia or quadriplegia, which makes the long-term damage obvious. In some cases, though, the gross neurological recovery can be excellent, but the non-visible neuropsychological damage is still significant, albeit less obvious in a young child. In order to maximize the perception of damages in those cases, it is helpful to highlight the sheer brutality of the act of shaking a baby.

Because child abuse cases often involve a series of escalating acts of abuse, as opposed to a one-time incident, Keane finds it helpful for causation purposes to demonstrate by animation the timing of the various escalating acts of abuse in conjunction with expert testimony on when permanent neurological or neuropsychological damage occurs. This allows those deciding or evaluating the case to actually see when a bruise appeared on the baby, to see when a mandated report could have been made to child protective services, and, ultimately, to see what subsequent damage could have been prevented if a mandated report had been made.

As he has with other shaken babies across the country, Chris Keane was contacted to represent the baby boy in this case. However, to secure enough compensation to guarantee the baby’s future well-being and development, because the boy had an excellent recovery, Chris wanted to show the infliction of his client’s physical damages concurrently with the horrific act of abuse he experienced. Chris shared his evidence with DK Global to illustrate a timeline that detailed when the violence occurred, the pathophysiology of the injuries, and how the failure to report to child protective services led to the failure to intervene before subsequent abuse and damage.

The animation showed the abuser squeezing the baby’s chest, causing him to suffer bruising and broken ribs. A timeline indicated when the first instance of abuse occurred, and, months later, records were displayed documenting that the baby suffered more bruising on his body. The animation demonstrated that no reports were made to child protective services in conjunction with any bruising. Finally, the animation demonstrated the baby’s mechanism of injury: the abuser grabbed him, shook him violently, and caused more fractures, retinal hemorrhaging, and irreversible brain damage.

Chris shared the animation with the Defense. The case was then confidentially resolved before trial.

Chris Keane has advocated for child abuse victims for 30 years and has worked on his first shaken baby case in Michigan 25 years ago. He is consistently rated one of the “500 Leading Plaintiff’s Lawyers in America” by Lawdragon Magazine, is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates and has represented abused and injured children in many states across America. He has served as President of the San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center and loves coaching youth sports.

In 2017, Chris received California’s “Street Fighter of the Year” award by CAOC after an eight-year legal battle in BH v. County of San Bernardino, for a shaken baby whose case was turned down by nine other law firms before Keane took it on. He won a precedent-setting Supreme Court victory and a $7,500,000 settlement for the baby. More importantly, the case permanently changed child abuse reporting across California in every city and county, resulting in the increased protection of all suspected abuse victims in California. Chris, a solo practitioner, has recovered more that $65,000,000 for his clients.