Wood Smith Henning & Berman partners Summit Dhillon and David Benton secured an outstanding result in a four-week jury trial in Fresno, where the jury rejected the plaintiff’s request for more than $9 million and returned a verdict of just $586,536 in an admitted-liability motor vehicle case.
With liability conceded at the outset of trial, the case went to the jury on damages alone, presenting the defense with the challenge of containing substantial exposure in a case featuring spinal surgery, significant medical specials, a seven-figure future-care claim, and a deeply sympathetic personal narrative. The result speaks to how effectively the WSHB team met that challenge.
The plaintiff, a 31-year-old contractor, claimed the accident caused permanent spinal injuries requiring extensive treatment, including injections and lumbar surgery, and contended he would need significant future care, including disc arthroplasty and the potential placement of a spinal cord stimulator. He presented approximately $390,000 in past medical expenses and claimed between $1.4 million and $1.9 million in future medical costs, and he sought substantial non-economic damages built around the impact of his alleged injuries on his ability to care for his quadriplegic father.
The demand escalated as trial progressed. The plaintiff’s last pretrial demand was $3.5 million; it climbed to $6.25 million before deliberations; and in closing, plaintiff’s counsel asked the jury for more than $9 million. The jury returned $586,536, more than $8.4 million below the closing demand.
Most tellingly, the jury awarded only $30,000 in past non-economic damages and $30,000 in future non-economic damages. That $60,000 total pain-and-suffering award was a small fraction of the millions the plaintiff sought and reflected the jury’s skepticism about the claimed severity of his impairment, his future condition, and the causal link between the accident and his alleged injuries.
Throughout trial, the defense pressed the evidentiary weaknesses in the plaintiff’s damages case. The team highlighted the absence of acute findings on imaging, challenged whether the collision caused the claimed lumbar pathology, and closely scrutinized the attorney-directed, lien-based medical treatment and the reasonableness of the billing presented to the jury.
“This case illustrates why damages must be tested just as rigorously as liability,” said Dhillon, who led the WSHB trial team. “The plaintiff had undergone spinal surgery and presented a sympathetic story, but that did not make every claimed injury, future procedure, and dollar of damages attributable to this accident. Our job was to give the jury a clear, evidence-based framework for separating what the accident actually caused from what it did not, and the verdict shows the jury did exactly that.”
Benton was instrumental in the team’s preparation and trial presentation.
“An admitted-liability case demands tremendous discipline, because the jury’s attention is trained entirely on the plaintiff and his damages,” said Benton. “We knew the plaintiff would present a powerful narrative, so our preparation centered on separating that narrative from the medical and causation evidence. Summit did an exceptional job drawing that distinction for the jury, and the minimal non-economic award shows the jury critically evaluated the claims rather than simply accepting the plaintiff’s valuation.”
Through disciplined trial strategy, persuasive expert presentation, and exhaustive preparation, the WSHB team delivered a verdict squarely within its valuation of the case while avoiding the extraordinary exposure the plaintiff sought.
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