On a dark Georgia highway, a semi-truck driver ignored the signs that should have caused him to slow down and proceed with caution. Instead, he barreled directly into the back of a completely stopped box truck driven by an audio and visual specialist named Steve, who was traveling from his home in Chicago to a client in Florida. The collision caused Steve’s box truck to roll off its course and land on its side, leaving him draped over his seatbelt, unconscious. Accident reports showed that the semi-truck driver didn’t apply the brakes until after the collision.

While Steve lay unconscious in a hospital bed in Georgia, his friends and family in Chicago knew they needed a relentless advocate for their beloved son and friend — someone who specialized in truck accidents.

Tim Whiting, from Whiting Law Group, also known as the Truck Accident Attorneys, was out of town at a dinner when he got the call from one of Steve’s friends. Tim immediately left the restaurant and interviewed Steve’s family from his hotel room.

One of the biggest obstacles in the case was the nature of the victim’s injury. The TBI Steve sustained was so severe that he couldn’t remember any details about the accident. In fact, after lying unconscious in the hospital for two weeks, Steve needed to re-learn how to walk and talk.

TBIs, in general, are difficult to litigate because of their reputation as “invisible” injuries. Their complicated nature makes it hard for juries to accurately assess the damage done to a Plaintiff’s life. Steve’s memory loss would be a challenge to establishing the truck driver’s liability.

During the first mediation, Tim was surprised when the Defense presented theories that argued Steve was at fault for the accident. Additionally, they used Steve’s impressive medical recovery against him, arguing that the damages were minor. Tim knew he had to bulk up his case to show the truth of both the liability and the damages. To that end, he hired four experts. On the liability side, he hired an accident reconstructionist who specialized in truck accidents and a truck safety expert who could explain the violations that led to the traumatic accident. He also hired one of the most prominent TBI experts in the country and a life-care planner. Those experts needed to show that despite the Plaintiff’s recovery, he had sustained brain damage that would impact him for the rest of his life.

Tim needed a way to bring all the pieces of critical expert testimony together into a single story that people could connect to. He’d seen a testimonial from a respected colleague about how instrumental DK Global's animations were in a tough case of his. Tim made the call.

With direction from Tim’s legal team and the four experts, DK Global created two presentations. The first set out to establish the Defendant’s liability and disprove their alternate theory with a reconstruction animation. The second animation showed Steve’s damages.

The animated recreation of the accident began with a flyover of the stretch of highway that led up to the collision site. Signage clearly indicated lane closures due to roadwork up ahead. Steve’s box truck merged onto the thoroughfare behind a semi, and both slowed to a stop as traffic bottlenecked ahead. Then, the Defendant’s tractor-trailer came into view, crashing into Steve’s small box truck at full force. Next, the camera shifts to the Defendant’s point of view, replaying the incident to show the clear line of sight he had.

With liability established, the subsequent animation explained the Plaintiff’s damages. The presentation began with a depiction of how collision forces impacted Steve’s brain, causing a coup contrecoup injury as his box truck tipped over and rolled. Then, the animation used enhanced medical scans to walk through the affected areas of his brain. Finally, the animation toured Steve’s brain lobe by lobe, listing the deficits he would endure for the rest of his life due to his traumatic brain injury.

After the first failed mediation, Tim came to the table for a second mediation and shared the animation with the Defense. They quickly changed their tune. They settled the matter for $5,000,000.

Tim Whiting is an attorney and founding partner of the Whiting Law Group, known as the Truck Accident Attorneys. Based in Chicago, their team advocates for Plaintiffs in Illinois and across the country. Tim and his team are specialists in truck accident litigation on behalf of the victims harmed in these horrible crashes. The lawyers of the Whiting Law Group are board certified in truck accident law. They also have their own CDL licenses for a thorough understanding of how to operate a truck safely and the consequences of unsafe truck operation.