A former San Bernardino County district attorney drove a van through Downtown Redlands, California, returning from his child’s school field trip. Failing to pay attention, he ran a stop sign and slammed into two pedestrians as they crossed the street. The victims, Mark and Linda Self, were a retired couple who loved taking walks together. As they did nearly every day, they were strolling past Redlands’ historic Victorian architecture.

The Selfs were rushed to the hospital, suffering from severe injuries. But, to Mark and Linda’s surprise, the driver denied liability. Instead, he claimed that shadows cast by the nearby trees obstructed his vision. Not only that, he asserted that because there were shadows, the Selfs shared comparative liability because they should have made themselves more visible.

A friend of the Selfs referred the couple to Cory Weck, managing partner of the personal injury practice at McCune Wright Arevalo, LLP. Cory hired an accident reconstructionist and an orthopedic specialist to opine about what happened to the Selfs. In addition, a witness traveling opposite the accident captured the entire event on his dashcam and provided the footage as evidence.

Still, Cory needed to disprove the Defendant’s core argument that the shadows caused enough of an obstruction that he couldn’t see the Selfs as they crossed the street. Thus, he contacted DK Global to create a visual presentation. Exactly one year after the incident, at the exact time it occurred, Cory and DK Global traveled to the intersection where the Selfs were mowed down. Using a camera mounted on a drone, DK Global captured what the scene looked like from the Defendant’s point of view, at his precise eye level.

Sure enough, the shadows from the trees were not dark enough to have obstructed the Defendant’s vision.

During mediation, Cory played the dashcam and drone footage for the Defense. The opposition’s case strategy dissolved. After six hours, they agreed to a $1,500,000 settlement to help Mark and Linda Self with their recovery.

Attorney Cory Weck, a partner at McCune Wright Arevalo, LLP, is a leading trial lawyer in the Inland Empire and is “AV Distinguished” rated by Martindale-Hubbell. Since 2012, Cory has been peer-selected as one of the top 5% of attorneys on the California Super Lawyers list. He has obtained numerous multi-million-dollar results for his deserving clients and has been listed among the “Top 100 Trial Lawyers in California” by The National Trial Lawyers.