An international private security company was hired to patrol the parking lot of a small shopping center. While an employee of Allied Universal Security Services idled inside a grocery store, a dangerous parolee and his drug dealer met in a parking stall outside. Nearby, friends unexpectedly ran into each other while running errands and gathered in conversation. An hour passed, and the parolee suddenly opened fire on the drug dealer. The group of friends was caught in the crossfire. One of them, Christopher Wilson, Jr., was struck in the chest. The bullet pierced his heart. He collapsed, struggling to breathe. He was gone within minutes. The security guard arrived too late to make any difference.
Christopher was a family man and father of six children. He worked at Catfish Corner, a local historic restaurant that was famous for its namesake food and pies. Christopher was in the parking lot that day delivering leftover pies to his friend — at no charge. As he reveled in companionship with his friends, none of them were cognizant of the violent altercation brewing right behind them until it became lethal.
When the local attorney who had been working the case realized that he needed more legal muscle, he contacted Darrell Cochran and Alex Dietz at Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala. Darrell and Alex have consistently refused to let merciless organizations dodge accountability for the harm they enable. Because the shooting occurred in a parking lot attached to several businesses, they had to delineate whose fault the lapse in safety had been.
Darrell and Alex turned the multiple culpable parties against one another. They were faced with a simple and harsh reality: anybody who refused to settle would be attacked by all other parties in trial. The strategy pried substantial settlements out of every Defendant except one: Allied Universal.
As they prepared for trial, Darrell and Alex fleshed out how the security company had failed to do its job. Establishing a precise timeline of events would be difficult. After the shooting began, potential eyewitnesses fled the scene, and the only security footage of the shooting was blurry and distant.
Darrell and Alex homed in on the stark contrast between the Defendant’s marketing claims and their actual practices. The company had promised patrols every 15 minutes and the use of advanced technology to anticipate risks and deploy security. But surveillance footage from inside the grocery store revealed the guard missed four scheduled patrols — clear evidence of negligence. Next, they turned to the heart of the case: Christopher’s injuries and how he died. In a late development, a traumatized grocer came forward as having tried to resuscitate Christopher. The harrowing details of her testimony were key findings for the duo’s forensic pathology expert. However, describing the full weight of her testimony was nearly impossible without visuals. In a surprising move, the Defense helped overcome a pre-admission rule by preparing rudimentary visuals of their own. Knowing the Defense would be unable to object to their own presentation, Darrell and Alex reached out to DK Global. Under the pathologist's direction, they condensed days of trial testimony into a seven-minute animated reconstruction of the incident.
DK Global's presentation opened with an overhead view of the shopping center. It transitioned to an animated overview of the area where the shooting occurred — the locations of the perpetrator, victims, and other bystanders just before the incident were highlighted. The presentation returned to the overhead view to showcase everyone's movements throughout the preceding hour. Overlays included a timer, a timeline of who was where and when, and surveillance footage of the security guard not doing his job. After a pair of summary statements, an animated reconstruction of the shooting played. One of the bullet's trajectories was displayed in slow motion, entering the victim's body and passing through vital organs. The presentation concluded with a short animation of the victim dropping to the ground and a summary of statements about his death.
Pre-trial settlements with the landowner, grocery store, liquor store out of which the drug dealer had operated, and Washington State totaled $14,500,000. When Allied Universal finally came to the table at mediation, they offered a paltry $200,000. Darrel and Alex refused this lowball offer, called DK Global, and vowed to get the security company in front of a jury. Not long after opening statements in the ensuing trial, they showed DK Global's presentation, which insurance adjusters in the courtroom also saw. After just two weeks of proceedings, the Defense offered $2,500,000 to resolve the case. To Alex, getting twelve times the initial settlement offer was a good reminder that investing in trying a case is worth the effort.
Darrell Cochran is an acclaimed trial attorney and founding partner of Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala. With over 30 years of experience, he has earned a national reputation as a fierce trial lawyer, defeating some of the most powerful corporations, religious organizations, government agencies, school districts, and other entities. Darrell is a leading expert in child sexual abuse litigation, having secured hundreds of millions in settlements for survivors and helping to pass landmark legislation eliminating the statute of limitations in Washington State. He has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, and has served as President of the Washington State Association for Justice and as an adjunct law professor. He has been named one of America’s Best Lawyers and a Super Lawyer for over 25 years.
Alex Dietz is a partner at Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala, a personal injury firm based in Washington that has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for their clients. Alex has practiced since 2020 and has taken on challenging cases ranging from civil rights violations to catastrophic injuries and deaths. His landmark cases include a $72,000,000 verdict against Monsanto and a $28,500,000 settlement in a bad-faith insurance case against the Olympia Early Learning Center. He has been named in Washington Super Lawyers — Rising Stars since 2022. He serves on the Board for the Legal Foundation of Washington's Campaign for Equal Justice, which funds critical legal services for indigent Washingtonians.
