A contractor for a marine terminal operations company attempted to transfer thousand-pound pipes from a flatbed trailer onto a forklift. However, he was unlicensed, untrained, and failed to follow standard safety protocols. On the opposite side of the flatbed, a 70-year-old port captain was speaking with a coworker. Suddenly, the forklift collided and jostled the massive cargo, sending the industrial-grade cylinders careening overhead on top of the captain. He would have been crushed, but his colleague saw the impending catastrophe and yanked the captain forward to save him. While the captain avoided being crushed, he did not escape the incident unscathed.
A 36-inch-diameter pipe slammed into the port captain’s shoulder and neck, knocking him down and smashing his knees into the ground. He had worked for over a quarter-century in port captaincy and only recently exited retirement against his wife’s wishes. An optimal employee, he had nearly perfect attendance and a single record of a complaint about a minor injury. Sadly, this accident abruptly ended his career. The former port captain required years of medical treatment and three major surgeries, one of which he opted not to undergo due to the risks involved at his age.
The captain’s original attorney hit a wall while pushing for a fair settlement, so he referred the case to Brant Stogner of Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Aziz & Stogner, one of the most successful personal injury attorneys in Texas. His wife and partner, Jen Stogner, also worked the case alongside senior associate attorney Christopher Mahfouz. The collective decades of personal injury litigation amongst the three rendered a powerful team to take on the case.
Brant knew as soon as he had viewed the Plaintiff’s radiologic imaging that his injuries were significant. So, firstly, he prioritized that his client receive the medical interventions he so sorely needed. The attorneys were relieved to discover that the accident had been captured on two security camera feeds, but the quality of these videos was poor. Between this evidence and depositions that had already been taken, Brant and his colleagues established a basis upon which to fight for the Plaintiff.
The Defense’s arguments relied upon a cascade of shaky hypotheses regarding the Plaintiff’s injuries: first, that he didn’t have any; second, that — due to his age — they predated the accident; and third, that they weren’t severe enough to rise to a level of payable damages. The Defense also floated what Jen termed “magic defenses”: that the Plaintiff should have taken certain actions at the time of the accident to avoid harm. In effect, they intimated that the Plaintiff’s injuries had somehow been his own fault.
The Defense’s inflexibility drove Brant and his team to stop at nothing to prove the Defendant’s culpability. They hired a small army of experts. Quasi-maritime issues complicated the case, so the attorneys’ initial recruit was an admiralty expert with 40 years of experience. They also enlisted liability experts, surgeons, a biomechanics expert, a vocational rehabilitation expert, a life care planner, and an economist. Despite this substantial support, they still had a major hurdle to clear: showcasing the up-close-and-personal story of how the Plaintiff had been harmed. To that end, they reached out to DK Global for an animated accident reconstruction, which they created in consultation with the biomechanics expert.
The presentation began with security footage of the accident from two distant angles, with selected areas zoomed in to show the location and sample how grainy the footage was. The video then proceeded to a 3D reconstruction of the accident from an angled overhead perspective, clearly showing the port captain next to the flatbed trailer and the forklift on the opposite side. The view panned and zoomed in to show the dimensions of the pipes and their incredible size. The presentation’s perspective then leapt to that of the forklift operator and revealed how limited visibility was from his seat as he steered toward the pipes. The animation concluded with the forklift’s impact dislodging a pipe, which struck the port captain just as he was yanked away. A slow-motion replay followed that paused to highlight with color overlays where and how he was impacted, including the injurious fall to his knees.
Brant and his fellow attorneys introduced DK Global’s presentation during pre-trial proceedings, signaling to the Defense their eagerness to pull no punches if trying the case before a jury. The Defense attempted — but failed — to block the presentation from being admitted into evidence. With only a weekend remaining before the scheduled beginning of the trial, Brant reached an unusual agreement with the Defense: they agreed to refer the case to a mediator of Brant’s choosing and instructed them to reach a settlement between two set dollar amounts. While even the lowest end of this bracket would have been satisfactory to Brant, the Plaintiff was ultimately awarded well beyond the initial offer.
As Texas’s oldest personal injury law firm, Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Agosto, Aziz & Stogner has recovered billions of dollars for their clients since 1951. Brant Stogner earned his JD in 2006, joined the firm in 2008 as an associate, and has since become a partner. In 2009, he received the largest-ever verdict in Texas for workplace safety and injuries (over $20,000,000) and was listed in Verdict Search’s Top Texas Verdicts of that year. Brant Stogner is board certified in personal injury trial law, is a member of ABOTA, and has been named to Texas Super Lawyers since 2011.
Jennifer Stogner has been with Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Agosto, Aziz & Stogner since 2018. In practice since 2006, she has represented both plaintiffs and defendants on cases with values up to $800,000,000. Jen has been named amongst The Best Lawyers in America and Texas Super Lawyers.
Christopher Mahfouz has been in practice since 2014 and joined the firm as an associate in 2020. He has successfully represented clients on a variety of personal injury and complex commercial litigation matters in state as well as federal courts. His primary focus has been catastrophic personal injury cases, including industrial accidents and explosions, trucking and motor vehicle wrecks, and wrongful deaths.
