Drivers have a responsibility to remain vigilant behind the wheel. Without the right level of diligence, vehicles can cause irreparable damage — with other drivers or pedestrians suffering the brunt of the consequences. Tragically, one driver was remiss in their attentiveness, and two women were struck and injured on a California roadway. As a result, they suffered intense injuries to their backs, necks, and heads.
The victims sustained traumatic brain injuries, causing daily headaches, irritability, confusion, and a lifetime of pain and suffering. The pair worked with an attorney for more than a year but weren’t getting anywhere against a Defense that didn’t want to compensate them fairly. The women decided to look elsewhere for legal representation.
They turned to Edward Y. Lee, the principal trial attorney at the Law Offices of Edward Y. Lee. A personal injury specialist from Southern California, Lee took the case, recognizing immediately that he faced several challenges. First and foremost, neither of the two injured women spoke English. In addition to the language barrier, the TBIs they sustained impaired their memory and ability to express themselves. Consequently, Edward knew putting them on the stand to testify through an interpreter was not in their best interest.
The nature of the injuries Edward’s clients suffered posed another problem: both looked outwardly fine by the time they came to him. All the damage was internal. Lee understood the difficulty of communicating invisible injuries — especially brain trauma — to a judge and jury. Lee brought in an array of specialists to help illuminate the damages his clients lived through, including neurologists, neuroradiologists, neuropsychologists, orthopedists, and pain management doctors.
Edward knew his case had to be rock solid against an intractable Defense that initially offered a low-six-figure amount to settle — for both clients. He declined their proposal, understanding he would have to demonstrate to the Defense that he was prepared to take the case to trial.
As he prepared for trial, Edward drew on studies and his own experience that showed the limited attention span of juries to listen to arguments. He knew, though, that every time he used visuals, he had their rapt attention. Thus, Lee contacted DK Global to create a 10-minute animation that vividly depicted the serious harm done to his clients.
The video opened with the neck and lumbar spine injuries of Plaintiff 1, followed by depictions of trauma to her right hip, thigh, and foot below the ankle. It then segued to a cross-section of her brain, showing gliosis (lesions) to her right frontal lobe, as well as decreased blood flow to her bilateral frontal parietal and right temporal lobes. The animation was cut with actual photo scans from her medical treatment and graphs that showed brain atrophy. This was all followed by a list of brain deficiencies that the first Plaintiff suffered, associating her symptoms with each injured lobe. These included diminished IQ, lack of focus, irritability, anxiety, depression, cognitive functioning problems, attention problems, memory issues, verbal impairments, and severely impaired logical reasoning.
The video then switched to Plaintiff 2, who also suffered brain trauma and similar injuries. It ended with a rendering of Plaintiff 2’s spinal surgery, which graphically depicted the opening of a hole in her throat, all the way to her back, and how her herniated disc was removed and replaced. The end result was a clear picture of serious bodily harm suffered by Lee’s two clients that was very compelling and easy to understand.
DK Global’s animations helped convince the Defense to settle during the second session of mediation — they didn’t want to go to trial. This time, they offered a settlement more than 40 times their original amount. Lee and his clients accepted, avoiding what he estimated would have been a three-week trial.
Edward Y. Lee has almost thirty years of experience in personal injury law. His boutique law firm, the Law Offices of Edward Y. Lee, is located in Los Angeles and Torrance, California, where he has a staff of more than a dozen. He is a member of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles as well as the American Association for Justice. Lee has ranked in the top ten attorneys by both the American Institute of Personal Injury Attorneys and Attorney and Practice magazine for two consecutive years.
