Bakersfield Brain Damage – Jury Convinced Plaintiff Unhurt and Not Credible
September 2017, In the first of two, back-to-back, Bakersfield trials, Scott Macdonald with the trial support assistance of Laura Reichenbach, were successful in obtaining a defense verdict in a case involving allegations of a traumatic brain injury and orthopedic injuries.
Defendant was a young man that entered an intersection on a red light after he spilled a milkshake in his vehicle. The plaintiff’s vehicle was struck and caught on fire at the scene. We admitted liability for the collision.
Plaintiff claimed that his life was forever altered by the collision. He claimed that he could not work, drive and do many of the activities of daily living. To counter these claims, we brought in his supervisor from his job to inform the jury about how plaintiff was working and how the employer would accommodate plaintiff if he had any truly debilitating issues. We brought in investigators who had done “sub rosa” who showed video to the jury demonstrating that plaintiff was capable of performing many of the day to day activities that plaintiff had told to the jury, under oath, that he was incapable of doing. Specifically, plaintiff’s treating orthopedic surgeon, who is prominent in the Santa Barbara, central coast and central valley areas, had testified that plaintiff could not work due to the fact that he could not turn his head to see approaching danger. We had sub rosa video where plaintiff casually turned his head in a Costco parking lot to make sure that no traffic was approaching as he wielded his cart toward the retailer. We introduced evidence during the testimony of plaintiff’s spouse that her husband, who could not drive, was in fact driving when both were involved in a subsequent loss.
The jury returned a defense verdict on causation after a short deliberation.