A 48-year-old woman was leaving a parking lot when she noticed the parking attendants struggling to close the parking gate. She offered her help and was told to wait on the outskirts of the parking lot as they 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 to emergency responders arriving on the scene. The Plaintiff refused medical treatment at the scene and went home with some bruising. Later, she 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 endured a shoulder arthroscopy and debridement, as well as a subcortical decompression bursectomy. Additionally, the treating physician recommended two more surgeries if her pain persisted.

Scene-Reconstruction Utilizing 3D Illustrations and Medical Animations

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 proposed surgeries. 3D illustrations were utilized to demonstrate how the incident took place while animations showed both proposed anterior discectomy and anterior lumbar procedures. The illustrations conveyed the sequence of events highlighting the moment the gate struck the woman. Photos of the Plaintiff’s bruises were added to the presentation - a detail that connected the points of impact and injuries. The presentation concluded with a medical animation which demonstrated the proposed surgeries.

The Defendant blamed the incident on the two church parking attendants for derailing the gate, arguing there were 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 difficult to find fault. The Defense also claimed that the Plaintiff’s back injuries were pre-existing, as she had prior surgeries and no complaints until she was referred to doctors much later. After receiving a maximum offer of $300,000 from the insurance company, attorney Wacker litigated his case all the way to trial. After two and a half weeks into 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 Defendant was 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.