A long-haul driver for a national trucking company was barreling down a bustling highway. His eighteen-wheeler at full throttle, he wasn't paying attention to the road in front of him. He flew by each sign prohibiting semi-trucks in the far-left lane. Just a few hundred feet ahead, five vehicles had pulled over after a minor collision. Their hazard lights flashed in the night as six people stood between the cars, checking on one another and exchanging information. The trucker drifted out of his lane and blasted through the entire scene like a bowling ball, destroying all the vehicles in its path and killing four.
Just two of the six victims managed against all odds to survive this sudden catastrophe. One of them was a middle-aged man who was thrown by the impact over the highway's center divider. He crumpled against the pavement on the other side, breaking several bones and caving in part of his skull. First responders rushed him to intensive care for multiple horrific injuries. The most dangerous of these was a traumatic brain injury that — even after considerable medical intervention — would never completely heal.
The mourning family of one of the victims contacted Stephens Law, a firm in Fort Worth that focuses exclusively on catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death cases. The firm's founder and owner, Jason Stephens, ultimately represented three of the victims, including one of the brain-injured Plaintiffs. Alongside trial attorney Rieker Carsey, Jason immersed himself fully in the Plaintiff's case and learned everything he could about his story. Jason believed that no amount of money could ever undo the Plaintiff's suffering, but he dedicated himself to turning the man's life around. He knew he had to move quickly but thoroughly to collect evidence from a collision that had long since been cleaned up.
The attorneys battled speculation by law enforcement as to how the crash had transpired. Dash cameras could have answered many questions, but the Defendant trucking company had removed video recording devices from its fleet. However, Jason and Rieker recovered pertinent crash data from all six vehicles' black boxes. Then, an even more valuable breakthrough came when they discovered that surveillance cameras at a nearby school captured the collision in real-time.
Given Jason and Rieker’s evidence, the Defense could not overtly blame the Plaintiffs or other victims for the crash. Instead, they claimed that the pre-existing collision had not been obvious to the truck driver. They questioned whether the victims had fully pulled over onto the shoulder. The Defense insinuated the five other vehicles' emergency lights had not been flashing. They aimed to introduce doubt and confusion and attempted to portray this crash as a sudden unavoidable tragedy. Jason and Rieker were concerned that a jury might perceive the collision as a terrible mistake for which the Defendant had no liability.
Jason and Rieker assembled a formidable team of experts to prove why and how the collision had occurred. A sleep expert and cell phone expert found that the trucker's sleep patterns had been unsafe for a nighttime driver. A human factors expert explained that the driver having three electronic devices in his cabin was a recipe for disaster. A trucking expert detailed how the driver had erred and the Defendant's safety policies were lax. A forensic pathologist, neurologist, and life care expert clarified the severity of the Plaintiff's injuries and his ongoing medical needs. Finally, with the data and video available, an accident reconstructionist pieced together a complete and accurate timeline. Finally, bringing the reconstructionist’s sequence of events to life led Jason and Rieker to reach out to DK Global for an animated reconstruction. The reconstructionist testified that their presentation exceeded being a simple animation and was an actual recreation of the crash.
The presentation began with photographs depicting the area surrounding the crash site, along with an overhead view of the highway and the nearby school. Surveillance footage of the incident from the school played. Next, the accident reconstruction detailed the locations of the victims and their vehicles on the roadway. A real-time animation showed the collision from the truck’s front perspective. A second replay, shown from a bird’s-eye view behind the truck, included an on-screen speedometer to illustrate the truck's velocity. Another simulation replicated the collision from a dash cam perspective, highlighting the stopped vehicles ahead in the distance. Subsequent replays zeroed in on three specific victims, showing how the crash impacted each of them. One of these segments included limited actual video footage of a victim. The presentation then showed the aftermath, revealing how the wreckage spread to the length of a football field. To conclude, the presentation listed the traffic laws that the truck driver violated and outlined three alternate scenarios in which the crash could have been avoided.
DK Global also produced a damages animation of the surviving Plaintiff’s medical condition. It began with replays of relevant clips from the accident reconstruction. It then showed a flythrough of his considerable injuries. The Plaintiff’s orthopedic and cutaneous injuries were presented alongside radiologic and photographic documentation. Long-term complications and operative interventions were shown. Next, the video showed the Plaintiff’s cranioplasty surgery, depicting each step described in the operative report. Afterward, the presentation detailed the victim's follow-up findings with comparisons to normal values. The presentation concluded with an expert's differential diagnosis and post-injury photographs.
Jason and Rieker submitted a one-hundred-page demand package with DK Global's damages animation. The case was mediated twice. Each time, the duo brought trial boards emblazoned with screenshots of DK Global's presentations. Among their many challenges, Jason and Rieker needed to negotiate settlements for all three of the victims they represented — the Plaintiff with the catastrophic TBI as well as the two decedents’ families. Among the clients represented by Stephens Law Firm were the parents of two young adults, neither of whom were married or had children. Stephens Law successfully overcame the typical insurance valuation that such claims — brought by surviving parents of adult children — are often assigned low value, and achieved an extraordinary record-setting result for these grieving families. Finally, the Friday before the trial was scheduled to begin, Jason and Rieker managed to resolve the case. Between all three of their clients, they secured $57,500,000.
Jason Stephens is the founder and owner of Stephens Law of Fort Worth, Texas. He has focused exclusively on catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death cases for 28 years, recovering over $250,000,000 for his clients. In 2022, he obtained a $15,680,000 wrongful death verdict — the largest such verdict in the history of Grayson County. And, in 2004, at just 32 years old, he secured the 5th largest verdict in Texas and the 47th largest in the United States. His legal achievements and record setting verdicts and settlements have inspired safety policies that protect children and families throughout North America. Jason has been recognized as one of the Top 100 lawyers in Texas by Thomas Reuters. He has been named one of the Best Lawyers in America since 2016, he is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates and he is a Fellow in the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers.
Rieker Carsey is a trial attorney at Stephens Law who has over 10 years of experience litigating personal injury cases. He has tried cases throughout Texas in both State and Federal courts. Rieker has been recognized as one of the top injury attorneys in Texas, having been rated a Top Attorney in personal injury by Fort Worth Magazine for 10 straight years. Rieker sits on the Board of Directors for the Tarrant County Trial Lawyers Association, having served as President in 2020. Thompson Reuters rated him as a Rising Star — Super Lawyer in 2020 and 2021, and as a Super Lawyer from 2022-2025.
