Attorneys Adam Shea and Ryan Casey, of Panish Shea & Boyle LLP, secured a $5 million verdict for the parents of a young man killed in a collision with a tractor-trailer. The driver of the tractor-trailer rear-ended a group of cars, and at no point did he brake or slow down. The victim was driving the first car impacted, and his wife of 6 months was in the passenger seat. Attorneys Shea and Casey obtained black box electronic data from the tractor-trailer, and this showed there was no braking action from 28 seconds before impact with the first vehicle until 10 seconds after this initial collision. Not only had the driver fallen asleep, but he also admitted to taking a muscle relaxer the night before the incident. This left him drowsy and feeling impaired. Mr. Shea and Mr. Casey reached out to DK Global to create an animation explaining how this was not a simple case of someone just dozing off at the wheel.

Proving Liability and Negligence with Crash Reconstruction Animations

The Defendants admitted responsibility for causing the collision early in the case but disputed that punitive damages were warranted. Attorneys Shea and Casey were able to successfully prevail on this matter, allowing the jury to learn what happened. Their biggest obstacle in the case was that the driver appeared impaired right after the collision, but police investigating did not draw blood until approximately 4.5 hours later after they obtained a search warrant. When a blood sample was tested, it was negative for the presence of the muscle relaxer. As a result, the Defense said the driver was never under the influence and had simply fallen asleep while driving. DK Global was able to assist with this issue. We worked with a reconstruction expert to create an animation that showed how the driver did not take any sort of evasive action for 28 seconds before impact. By assembling each of these pieces of data into the presentation, the jury was able to clearly understand the driver’s negligence. The case was resolved with a compensatory verdict in favor of the deceased victim’s parents, and the jury also found that punitive damages were warranted.

Panish Shea & Boyle – The Relentless Pursuit of Justice

Panish Shea & Boyle LLP founding partner Adam Shea is a nationally recognized trial lawyer with extensive experience and success representing individuals and families in catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County, Riverside County, and across Southern California. Mr. Shea has a proven track record of helping those who have been harmed by negligence, wrongful conduct, violations of safety rules, and defective products – including automotive and tire product defects. Mr. Shea also represents injured parties in cases involving commercial truck accidents, trash-truck accidents, airplane accidents, helicopter crashes, train disasters, and governmental liability for dangerous condition of public property. He has achieved over 200 settlements and jury verdicts over $1 million.

Ryan Casey is a trial attorney at Panish Shea & Boyle LLP, focusing his practice on litigating large and complex personal injuries, wrongful death and product defect cases on behalf of injured individuals and consumers in Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Since joining the firm, Mr. Casey has handled complex factual cases involving trucking collisions, auto collisions, construction site injuries, industrial injuries, recreational sporting injuries, and multiple cases from various defective products. In these cases, Mr. Casey has obtained favorable results through trial or settlement and successfully recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for his clients in lawsuits against negligent individuals, public entities, and corporations, including the manufacturers and distributors of dangerous products.