A 48-year-old woman was leaving a parking lot when she noticed the parking attendants were struggling to close the encompassing gate. She offered her help and was told to wait on the outskirts of the parking lot as the attendants attempted to shut the 750-pound gate. Suddenly, the gate derailed and fell on the Plaintiff knocking her down to the ground. She immediately lost consciousness and woke up when the 911 personnel arrived at the scene. The Plaintiff refused medical treatment at the scene and went home with some bruising. She then claimed that the gate falling on her caused multiple injuries to her knees, shoulder, neck, and back. During the next few days, she was diagnosed with multiple spine protrusions and had to endure a shoulder arthroscopy and debridement, as well as a subcortical decompression bursectomy. Additionally, the treating physician recommended two more surgeries if her pain persisted.

Attorney Ted Wacker of Law Offices of Ted B. Wacker, reached out to DK Global to create a presentation that illustrated the incident and the future proposed surgeries. 3D-stills were utilized to demonstrate how the incident took place and to show both the proposed Anterior Discectomy and the proposed Anterior Lumbar surgery the Plaintiff would most likely have to undergo in the future. The illustrations allowed the viewer to follow the sequence of events, highlighting the moment the gate impacted the woman’s shoulders, knees, and neck. Photos of the Plaintiff’s bruises were added to the presentation, a detail that connected the points of impact and the injuries for the viewer. The presentation concluded with a medical animation which demonstrated the future proposed surgeries.

The Defendant property owner and tenant blamed the entire incident on the two church parking attendants for derailing the gate. They pointed to evidence of no problems with the gate in 30 years. Unfortunately, the church had no insurance and the parking attendants then lied about what happened, making it very difficult to find fault with the property owner or the tenant. The Defense also claimed that the Plaintiff’s back injuries were pre-existing as she had prior back surgery and she had not claimed back injuries until she was referred to doctors much later. After receiving a maximum offer of $300,000 from the property owner/tenant insurance company claiming all fault was with the church employees, attorney Wacker litigated his case all the way to trial. After two and a half weeks in trial, the Jury reached a verdict of $929,000 with $804,000 plus all costs against the property owner/tenant. The total judgment against the property owner/tenant will be in excess of $900,000 – over three times the insurance company’s max offer.

Attorney Ted Wacker of Law Offices of Ted B. Wacker has been a trial attorney involved in litigating cases for nearly 25 years. He specializes in catastrophic injury cases including individual personal injury cases involving accidents, medical malpractice, elder abuse as well as mass tort pharmaceutical and medical device cases. Mr. Wacker was selected as a California Super Lawyer for 2013 – 2017.