When an inexperienced young driver in a BMW hastily made an unsafe left turn without yielding the right-of-way, he caused a catastrophic collision that changed the life of one family forever. Colleen, a mother, and a nurse was asleep in the front passenger seat of the family car on the way back from a family outing when the collision abruptly and seriously injured her and her entire family. Colleen suffered damage to a cervical disc, with intense pain and radiculopathy, a condition in which the nerves along the spine are compressed, causing pain and numbness to radiate into the arm and hand.

A week after the crash, MCIS Lawyers’ Mark Cunningham – a former insurance defense attorney with over 35 years of experience - took on Colleen’s case to help her fight for what was taken from her, and her family. With his prior experience working for large entities such as Mercury and Progressive, Mark was able to carefully strategize this case around the common defense tactics that he was familiar with, giving his client the advantage of being one step ahead. Knowing how powerful visuals can be in aiding understanding of complex injuries, Mark worked with DK Global to create a presentation that carefully outlined Colleen’s spine injury, how the collision caused the injury, the surgery required to repair the damage to her spine, and the damages she suffered, including her economic loss of her earning capacity as a nurse, and the past and future loss of enjoyment of life.

Effective Counterarguments Conveyed Through Timeline Presentation

The counsel of an insurance company commonly uses three tactics in litigation cases: claiming the plaintiff’s injury is pre-existing, claiming that the plaintiff is faking or exaggerating, and discrediting the plaintiff’s experts by saying that they are overly aggressive with their treatment. Colleen underwent a cervical disc replacement for her neck injury – a procedure that would need to be repeated in the future - and Mark knew the defense would argue that this treatment and future procedure were not even necessary. Mark retained several key experts to aid his arguments, including one who presented a unique rebuttal to the defense contention that future surgery was not needed. Mark retained a professor from Texas who specialized in metallurgy to reinforce that the artificial disc used would eventually erode and wear out, and Colleen would need a future cervical procedure to alleviate her pain.

Each counterargument prepared by the defense was quickly negated and presented within the slideshow that Mark and DK Global prepared. The presentation included an explanation of the mechanics of the injury, a detailed timeline of Colleen’s injuries and rehabilitation efforts, an explanation of the surgery, her current and future damages, including the loss of her current and future income resulting from the crash. After Mark presented the slideshow arguments to the defense counsel before trial, the defense realized that it would be in their best interest to settle the case in mediation. 

Mark received a substantial, confidential settlement for his client during mediation to compensate for all of the harms and losses that she suffered.

Mark is a proud ABOTA member with over 35 years of experience as an attorney. Mark has a unique history of having served as a defense attorney for large insurance companies. Knowing how to be one step ahead of the opposing counsel, his firm has secured just and fair compensation for their deserving clients. Mark has handled thousands of cases, and litigated over 2,500 cases, specializing in severe auto accidents that resulted in catastrophic injuries and wrongful death.