Trial War Stories - Parachuting into Texas with John Camillus

In this episode of Trial War Stories, host Andy Goldwasser sits down with acclaimed Columbus trial lawyer John Camillus to unpack one of the most remarkable cases of his career — a traumatic brain injury trial against Swift Transportation in El Paso, Texas.

John was brought into the case just three days before trial, parachuting in as lead counsel in a high-stakes negligence claim involving a 304-pound trailer door and a trucking company. The episode dives deep into the whirlwind preparation, strategic collaboration with co-counsel, navigating a new judge, and the psychology of connecting with jurors in a border community.

Through candid storytelling and practical insights, Andy and John explore not only the pressure and chaos of trial practice but also the humanity, authenticity, and quick thinking that define great courtroom advocacy.
Whether you’re a practicing attorney, a law student, or just a fan of real-world courtroom drama, this episode offers a masterclass in resilience, authenticity, and the art of trial strategy.
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Podcast Chapters
0:00 – Introduction: Swift Justice & Trial War Stories
Andy introduces the Trial War Stories podcast and his guest, Columbus trial lawyer John Camillus, setting the stage for a deep dive into a remarkable trucking-injury case in Texas.
2:00 – The Case & Background: Swift Transportation and a 304-Pound Door
John explains the facts behind the case — a young truck driver for Swift injured when a trailer door struck her head, resulting in a traumatic brain injury.
6:00 – From Ohio to El Paso: How John Got the Call
John recounts how he was brought into the case by El Paso lawyer Maxie Cher just weeks before trial — and the surprising reason he was asked to step in at the last minute.
10:00 – Three Days’ Notice: Prepping for Trial Under Fire
Andy and John discuss the challenges of joining a complex TBI case with 36 depositions already taken, balancing limited prep time with the duty to the client.
16:00 – Voir Dire in El Paso: Authenticity Over Accent
John reflects on connecting with an 80% Hispanic jury pool as an Ohio lawyer, emphasizing that authenticity, warmth, and humanity transcend geography.
20:00 – The Law & the Strategy: Texas’ Non-Subscriber Rule
John and Andy unpack how Texas law — which denies comparative fault defenses to employers who opt out of workers’ comp — completely reshaped their trial strategy and closing argument.
26:00 – Lessons in Swift Justice: The Takeaways
They conclude with reflections on teamwork, preparation, and grace under pressure — the traits that define effective trial advocacy and turn chaos into courtroom victory.

Transcript

0:00

Swift justice with a great trial lawyer from Columbus, Ohio, who parachutes in three days before trial to El Paso, Texas. Every trial lawyer has that one case, the one that pushed them to the edge, changed how they practice or kept them up at night. This is trial war stories. And I'm your host, Andy Goldwasser. I sit down with great trial lawyers to unpack unforgettable cases the strategy, the chaos, the pressure, and the moments that turn the tide. Beyond the transcripts and verdicts. And now to the show. Well. Good afternoon. I am so glad to be here. I think there's only one person in Ohio who likes to talk about trial more than me. And that's my guest today, John Camillus. He's a fantastic guy, a fantastic lawyer. Just a little bit of background. I met John just this past year as I was preparing, actually, for a traumatic brain injury trial. I had never met John before. My co-counsel suggested we bring John in to do a focus group for us. And one of the things that John does is trial consulting. And I was so impressed with you, John, I must tell you, not only personally, but professionally, the way you handle the focus group. I will never try a case, a significant case, without you. That is for sure, because you are really, really good at what you do. And you're also an incredible trial lawyer in your own right. So thanks for doing this today. Well, it's really kind of you saying to you, I'm happy to be here, happy to talk trials with you anytime. I know you are. And we yeah, we we had a little pre screen call before this interview today and we got so off track because we were just having so much fun talking trial. Talking about six different cases or something. Right. Exactly. But today I want to talk about one case. And I asked you to sort of go back through your, your bank, actually. Let me let me back up. We're going to do two episodes with you, John. The first episode we're going to do, we are going to stick to our formula, and we're going to talk about one trial, and we're going to talk about it all the way through, and we're just going to have some fun talking about the trial war stories during one particular case. The second thing I want to do with you is I actually want to have you on again for a separate episode, and I want to talk about your mind of the jury. I want to talk to you about your separate practice, where you do focus groups and all sorts of trial consulting, and you do it better than anyone else. Would that be okay with you? I'd love to do it. I'll come back. I'll come ten more times if you want me to. I love it. I love it. So let's talk about this. This trial that you had in all places. Texas. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the case? So here's the background of the facts. Our client was a young woman, a 27 year old woman at the time who was a truck driver for Swift Transportation. And she was injured when one of the doors she she was driving, what they call a reefer truck, a refrigerated truck. Okay. And the refrigerated trucks have these, like, garage door style doors on the back. And she was dropping off a load. It was. The kind that open up and close up and then. Open up and down. Yeah. When you open it. So it's literally lifting overhead, right. And rolling onto a tray. And she was dropping off a load at Walmart. And as she was, I can't remember, she was walking on or walking off, of the truck. The, door rolled down and hit her in the head. Oh. So that was the incident. And, we allege in the case that she suffered a traumatic brain injury from the door. Hitting her on the head is a 304 pound door. And, so that's sort of the basics of the incident. Hey, John, was that a product liability case? What was the legal theory that you brought for that claim? Yeah. So it was a pure negligence case. Okay. It was against Swift Transportation, her employer. Texas has a unique worker, and I think it's unique. It's not unique. Is unusual for a worker's comp system that allows employers to opt out. So Swift Transportation in Texas has opted out of worker's comp, which means an employee injured on the job is able to sue for damages in court. All right. Thanks for that explanation. And just for for our listeners who may not know, you typically cannot sue your employer because you're entitled to worker's compensation and therefore you have what's called worker's compensation immunity. There's only certain circumstances in which you can sue an employer for an injury above and beyond the worker's compensation system. And it sounds like there's an exception or a carve out in Texas where you were. That's exactly right. So it was basically just a straight negligence claim. And the idea was it's not through worker's comp because Swift had elected, to opt out of worker's comp. And so they just had negligently maintained that trailer. We also allege that they negligently, they failed to properly train our client on how to use the trailer. Okay. So here you are, your your offices just outside Columbus, right? Yes. Okay. Columbus, Ohio. The case is where? El Paso, Texas. How the heck did you end up in El Paso, Texas? Yeah. Great question. So, I've been very fortunate. My, as you mentioned, Andy, I have, I wear two hats. I am a jury consultant, and I'm also a trial lawyer. And through both of those jobs, my work, takes me all over the country. I get calls to get involved in cases not just in Ohio, but all over. So this one, came to me through, my fantastic co-counsel on this case, which is a lawyer named Maxie Cher, who's based in El Paso. Maxie had recently started her own firm. She had 15 or 20 years of practice under her belt, at a sizable personal injury firm in El Paso, but she had recently hung her own shingle. Matthew does a lot of trucking cases. And she is good friends with, a fellow Ohio trial lawyer who you may know, Andy, Michael is a. Great lawyer who just got an incredible verdict. By the. Way. Just got an incredible verdict in Jefferson County a couple weeks ago. I was fortunate enough to have worked with him on that case. I didn't try it with him, but I was his trial counsel on that case. We focus group to a bunch. Gratulations to you. I don't mean to digress, but I think it was the largest trucking verdict in Ohio history and you are no small part of it, even though you didn't try it. So congratulations. Thank you. I think it was the largest trucking virgin in history of Ohio, and it was, well deserved for that client who was horribly injured. And Michael and John Bond try to. Fantastic. So it was I was happy to have been a small part of it sounds that way. Well, through Liesman so leisure meant to trucking lawyer. As you know, Maxie does trucking cases and she and Michael know each other well. And she was tying Michael about this case. And Michael said, you ought to call John Camillus or use him as my jury case on these terrific, blah, blah, blah. You give me a call. So Maxie calls me up. I don't know her. But she says, hey, I've got this case, and I think it's a good case and brought it with me from my old firm. And, I really want to get a good verdict on it. And she says to me, you know, El Paso juries are plaintiff friendly on liability. We can get verdicts here. But I think it's been a quarter century since we've had an eight figure verdict. And I really want to get a big number in this case. Can you help me? Can you come down to focus group and work with me on it? And I said, any friend of Michael Lehrman is a friend of mine. Let's do it. Right. So this is probably around the holidays, like late December of 22. And her trial was scheduled for late February. So I said, I'll come down next month and we'll run some focus groups. And she says, great. So, that's how it started. My initial involvement in the case was not as a trial lawyer, but as a trial. And so, I flew down to El Paso and I think we did it like on a Friday and Saturday we did back to back days, a focus group on the case. Max and I did okay. How I got involved. Was it your traditional focus group or was it some different type of model that you used in that case? Well, it was my traditional focus group. It was not, traditional. And I met and it was a bad question on my part. I understand that, I probably should have been more clear. It was your typical the way in which you typically do focus and. Switch away that. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, no, I interrupt you. Which is which is different and unique. Which is why I want to have a separate episode with you, because it's so cool the way you do it. We'll cover that in episode two then. But yeah, the short answer to your question is when you're doing these focus groups the way that I typically do them, which I think is, is not the way most dairy consultants typically do. But it's generally the way that I favor, with one caveat, which was that one of the things that we wanted to decide and one of the things that we felt was an important trial strategy decision was whether or not to have our client testify, a trial at all, or even a ten trial at all. So part of what we did in our focus group work was we had the client attend on one day, but not the other. And that helped us facilitate making the decision about whether or not to have the client there at trial. So that was the asterisk around whether these were typical focus groups was we're not always we don't always have that strategy decision to make. But we did hear so that's why it was a little bit different. We ran back to back days is the first time I'd met Maxine person. She's fantastic. We are now dear friends, and we're trying cases together all over the country. Of course you go through something. Any trial with someone, your next thing you know, it's your best friend. And. That's right. So it's like you're in the bunker. You've been in the bunker to get 100%. You 100%. Yeah, absolutely. So that's how I got involved. Initially it was through Maxine to her to me, through Michael. Okay. So initially involved from, just a consulting basis. Then how do you get involved? This trial counsel. So, we do the focus group and then, so Max had a co-counsel on the case, another fantastic lawyer and someone who's become a dear friend named Robert Collins, who's also down in Texas. He's outside of Houston. So this is their case. Although Robert was tied up and he wasn't able to be at the focus groups. So I'm having some calls with Maxine, Robert after the focus group or debriefing or strategizing together, that sort of thing. And then, you know, I can't believe this, Andy, but it's a true story. It's, Tuesday before trial. Trial starts on Friday. Oh, and Maxie calls me up and she says, hey, John, any way you want to come down and try this with us? And I said, maxi, trial starts in three days. And she said, I know, but you're not going to believe what happened. So what happened? She said, well, our judge can no longer preside over a trial. And the judge, we had this fantastic, I welcome her, she's great. She can't preside. We got assigned a new judge. We're keeping our trial date. But the new judge might be an issue. Robert and I, Robert Collins and Maxi tried cases together all the time. They're not. They're not. They don't formally have a firm together, but they're always bringing each other. And his co-counsel, they had tried a case in front of this judge, and it was very antagonistic. The judge declared a mistrial. Mistrial? And, they were concerned about getting a fair shake in front of this judge. And they said, so we need somebody else to come in and be the face in the case, somebody who the judge doesn't necessarily have a preconceived notion about. Somebody from Ohio. Nonetheless. So, I mean, that's really an interesting strategy, because that could have turned the judge off to the side of town lawyer coming in. I think that's a fair concern. I think that from Maxine Roberts perspective, we had gotten to know each other and like each other, and I had gotten at least somewhat up to speed in the case from the from the prep work, I was dealing with them. Sure. And so they're thinking, hey, we start a trial in three days. Nobody's going to be able to get up to speed, except maybe John, because he's already at least, you know, a third of the way up to speed. Right? The work we've been doing together. So, so, you know, I said, I remember I was in the car and I said, I would love to try this with you. Starting trial in three days. I don't know if I can make it work logistically. I've got to see if I can clear my calendar, and I've got to think about whether I'm biting off more than I can chew here in terms of trying to prep in such a short period of time. But I got back to my desk. I had a few focus groups, a few depots over the next couple of week, but nothing that couldn't get moved. And so I got back on a zoom with them that afternoon and I said, let's do it. It's, it's amazing. I don't know if that would be like ultra pressure or was it almost like less stress and less pressure because you didn't live the case for 2 or 3 years or however long it was in the workshop? Yeah, it was both. You know, like I'm always somebody. I know you're this way too. And, you know, most of the great trial lawyers I know are this way. I pride myself on being the most prepared lawyer in the courtroom. Right? Right. I'm more prepared. I know the record better. I've thought through strategy questions better. And I, I've always felt like my preparation has been one of the critical elements of my success. So it was daunting to say the least, to be in a position where it was going to be impossible to be the most prepared lawyer in the courtroom. I did not have time. Right, actually had taken 36 depositions. Oh my gosh. Yeah. There was just no way that I could possibly get up to speed in the way that I typically would be if I'm trying to case. No, no way. And this isn't an easy case. I mean, I assume liability was it in dispute. But also you have whenever you have a brain injury that is a tough medical issue to explain to a jury and how, because it's not something that most people can see. And to talk about how the neuroscience works is a struggle. That's a challenge. Yeah. It did have both those challenges. It was a it was a fight on liability. And it was TBI case, which is tough. Amazing. So you parachute in three days before trial till El Paso, Texas. To El Paso, Texas. I mean, I get there on, you know, late afternoon Thursday and we're picking a jury Friday, I meet Robert in person for the first time late afternoon Thursday. And we're picking a jury on Friday. That is incredible. Yeah. And so how do you divide up the case? So it's interesting there was I was ready to take on as much as I possibly could. But I didn't want to do anything to the detriment of the client where there were, you know, if there were experts that I couldn't get fully up to speed on, I didn't want to do it. Maxine. Robert felt like it was important for me to be the face of the case, in part because of the recent history they had with a judge. It's tough. So we did jury selection on Friday, and I did the jury selection, and then I opened on Monday and we split up the witnesses where I had the bulk of the witnesses. But Maxine, Robert had the harder work on the witnesses. And what I mean by that is I did our client's treating neurosurgeon, which was important in a TBI case, for sure. And then I did our life care planner and our economists who, you know, put the net present value on the life care plan. But all the other experts, Maxine, Robert took. Okay. And I took all the family and friends and before and after witnesses on the damages. So you were doing a lot of the damage work up. But in addition to voir dire, jury selection and opening. That's right, that's right. And then I closed and actually did the rebuttal closing. So was the idea to really introduce you to the jury first, so that you became the face of the case so that the judge, his or her focus would really be on you as the plaintiff lawyer or lead plaintiff lawyer as opposed to your your trial partner? Yeah, that's right. I mean, the goal was that, if the judge was going to hold anything against Maxine Robert from their prior experience, it would be tough to do that if the jury and the judge only heard from me for the first 3 or 4 days of trial, there's going to be sort of a rhythm. And it's set to the trial and a precedent set, for lack of a better term, in the way the judge is treating the lawyers. Right. And so if I can be in there and I can be all sweet and sugary, and I can be warm with the judge and get off on the right foot, and she's treating me respectfully and she's treating defense counsel respectfully when Maxine Robert then stand up and we're into the rhythm of the trial because I couldn't take on everything, then it's hard. It's going to be hard for the judge to treat them differently. And if they do, it'll be noticeable to everybody in the courtroom in a way that's not going to hurt us. It might actually help us. Did that strategy ultimately work for you? So I think the answer's yes. And it was not the case that the judge mistreated Maxine Robert in any way. It would she was very respectful to everyone. And who am I to say whether that would have been the case or would not have been the case had it not been right? Of course. But the judge treated everyone with great respect, including Maxine, Robert, and things went the way that we hoped they would go. That's great. I have to ask you. There's a lot I want to ask you. But I want to I want to ask you about jury selection, because I know that you did the jury selection process. Yes. Had you ever been to El Paso before? Before this case? Never stepped foot in El Paso, Texas before this case. And I don't know a lot about El Paso. I've never been there. But that's a city, as far as I know, that has some pretty deep cultural and familial roots to Mexico and the population. I think is 80 over 80% Hispanic. If yes, there was. I mean, El Paso is five minutes from New Mexico, five minutes from Mexico. There is a city in Mexico City that Juarez that is right there. And people walk back and forth over a bridge. You know, you can be in El Paso and go have dinner in Mexico. Just walk across a virgin, have dinner and come back. It's almost one community. So. So how is it that you from Ohio are able to go to a place with such a large Hispanic population on the border of Mexico, in Texas, and actually connect with potential jurors and then decide what type of juror you want a seat for the actual trial? Yeah. I guess what I would say about that, Andy, is that people are people everywhere you go, right? People respond. I mean, not that there aren't cultural cultural differences. Of course there are. And there are cultural differences that can impact how you connect with people, or what arguments might resonate or how evidence might be perceived in one venue versus another venue. But at the end of the day, human beings are human beings who tend to respond to kindness, warmth, authenticity the same way. Right. Whether you are a Mexican immigrant in El Paso or, you know, Eastern European immigrant in New York, or, you know, sixth generation midwesterner in Madison, Wisconsin, you know, people respond to honesty, genuineness, warmth, authenticity the same way. I think there's a lot of truth to that. And I think lawyers sometimes overthink that when we when we talk about local council or we bring in local counsel, the first thought is always, let's have whoever's local to the jury selection because they know the area, they know the demographics, they know the little boroughs here and there. And sometimes I think we overthink that because to your very good point, people are people. And if you're authentic and you're an authentic person, what it is, is that how you approached the jury selection process? I'm just going to be myself, Tom, who I am. I'm going to be authentic and we're going to work through this process together. 100%. There was nothing about that jury selection that I did differently because it was in El Paso. Right. And there was much there was much that we did differently because of the particular case and the issues in the case and what we anticipate the defense arguments to be and those sorts of things. But there was nothing I did there that I wouldn't do in Columbus, Ohio or Los Angeles, California or Miami, Florida. And there's nothing that I didn't do there that I would have done in those other places. Was there any settlement offers going into the case?$300,000 was their top offer prior to trial. And and what was their primary defense at trial? So the liability defense was that this was simply not their fault. It was our client's fault. And that is because the door had given her problems already that day. All right. She was doing deliveries exclusively to Walmart. She had picked up her load that morning. She got into the first Walmart and she couldn't get the door open. And she had to get some some people who work at the dock at Walmart to help her two guys, and they kind of forced the door up. And then they got out that load from that store, and they forced the door back down. And then she drove to the second Walmart to drop off the rest of her load, and she had to kind of force the door up. And so essentially what Swift said was she was the only one who was on notice of this door being a problem, but she knew it. But she didn't tell us about it. And she undertook the risk then of getting on and off with this obviously faulty door. Pretty good defense, right? I mean, Swift is saying, how can we roll doors break, especially doors that are going up and down all the time on trucks that are moving and bouncing. If this door is broken and she knows it's broken, what are we supposed to do if she doesn't bring this to our attention and give us an opportunity to fix it? How is this our fault? Was that. Yeah, pretty much what they were saying. That was entirely what they were saying. That's right. Now, our counter to that or a couple things. One is that, Lily, our client had experienced these problems, this problem with these doors in the past, and she had called on occasion in the past, not every time it happened, but frequently. And when she called, she would be told figure it out. Find a way to get it up, put your back into it if you need to get it up. We got to. We've got to make our delivery right. So she knew what she would be told if she called. What's the point of calling and hearing that again? Got it. So there had been some prior interactions about issues with these doors. And I assume that was a large part of your your work up and your focus groups on how to address that defense and talk about the rebuttal to that particular defense. It completely was. And I'll tell you another interesting thing that came out in the focus groups. And it's specific to Texas law in these cases. So, I told you earlier that Texas law allows companies to opt out of the workers comp system, which is true. But, this is what in Texas is called a non subscriber case because you're not a subscriber to the worker's comp system. Right. And what Texas law says is if you opt out, you're allowed to. But to encourage employers to be part of workers comp system, the law says if you opt out, then you get no comparative or contributory negligence if you're sued. In other words, if you are even 1% at fault, you eat the whole verdict. Wow. All right. So what are so we knew we only needed 1% liability on Swift. Boy does that change an approach to the case. It absolutely does. It absolutely does. And then what our focus group work told us was this. So the argument Swift was going to make, we knew was that because Lillia on that day was the one who knew and she didn't call it in, and she's the one who forced it up that Swift could not have possibly done anything about it. And Lillia was the sole proximate cause. Right. So they weren't really arguing about sort of standard care issues as much as causation issues. And so there was going to be a jury interrogatory. Was lily other sole proximate cause. And there were focus group jurors who were willing to say that she was the sole proximate cause, but there were no focus group jurors who were willing to say that it was 100% her fault. Now, you and I know that that means the same thing, but laypeople don't. So one of the things we knew from our focus group work that was going to be a Portland trial was to translate for the jury that when the defense says sole proximate cause, when the interrogatory says so, proximate cause, what that means is this is 100% Lilith's fault. If you say yes, Lillia was the sole proximate cause. You are saying this is 100% their fault? Her fault? Excuse me. And we knew they were not willing to say that this was 100% her fault from our focus group work. Yeah. So. So when you are trying this case, knowing that you don't you only really need to get 1% of fault against the trucking company. Do you do you admit your client maybe should have done some things differently because you're not worried about any comparative negligence on your client's part? You just don't want her to be 100% responsible. Yes, that's exactly right. And there's a risk, you know, in a normal comparative or contributory location, in a normal type of case, it has typical comparative or contributory. You have to really worry about that. Right? Do I take on some of the responsibility do I not? That's a complicated question in most cases. But here we didn't have to worry about that, which gave us a major advantage because one of the things that happens when you admit to fall, when you take on a fault, is you gain credibility with that. And you, especially one on the other side, is saying we have none, which they had to say here, because if they say we were even 1% of fault, they're stipulating to full liability. We knew they weren't going to do that. So we got to be the we got to be the authentic people and the ones who were stepping up and and being willing to acknowledge a mistake and saying they're not willing to acknowledge anything. It's such a great way to try a case, even on cases where a verdict can be reduced for comparative fault like we have here in Ohio. I mean, we've talked about this on other podcasts to me, John, credibility may be the most important thing in any trial. If you lose credibility, I don't care what your arguments are. I don't care what the law is. You're not going to win that case. Do you feel the same way that that is by far, if not the most important factor? Certainly one of the top and most important factors. I have to think long and hard before I agreed that it's far and away the most important, but you have no difficulty getting immediate agree. That is absolutely huge. That's a lawyer's answer. If I've ever. Yeah, it's hugely important. I get it's hugely important and go ahead. You know so so here you are. You do the jury were you happy with the jury that you impaneled. Super happy. With them. Okay. You move on to opening. Tell us about the opening statement. What did you do? So opening a couple things. One is I like to use wordplay, right. I think a lot of lawyers shy away from this stuff because it's it's a little bit of risky and it's a little bit corny or cheesy. Right. And when I say word play, what I mean is, if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit, right? That sort of thing. Right. And I think lawyers are scared of stuff like that. Right. And I always say, look, if, if in the trial of the century, one of the finest lawyers of his generation, Johnnie Cochran, is willing to say, if a glove doesn't fit, you must have quit, right? You know, with the TV cameras rolling in half the eyes in the country on him, if you're not willing to be able to take a risk like that, what are we doing here? And there's all kinds of ways, as you and I have talked about before, Andy, because of my, you know, jury consulting background, my wife was my partner in the jury consulting business, the psychologist. I love human judgment and decision making. Science. And there's a reason that wordplay and stuff like that works. I'm not going to spend 5 or 10 minutes of your podcast explaining this, the studies on it, but it works for a reason. You taught me that in in the case that we had. And if you remember, I can't even remember what the what the word play we used was, but it was very similar to, to what you just described. And we came up with that and crafted it for my case, which really we ended up not having to try it, but had we try, it was going to be a huge part of our opening because I agree with you and you taught me that. And it's really a great, valuable lesson. So so please go ahead. I'm sorry. I'll tell you about here's a 32nd version of the science. I won't go into any real detail, but 32nd version of science is if you have wordplay is even more easily remembered for one thing, which seems obvious to most people. But not only are the tunnel even more easily remembered, it's more readily believed rhyme. There's a cognitive bias in our brains that which we can recall more easily. We tend to believe, right? So it not only is something that is going to make what you're saying memorable to the jury, it's going to be more likely to make it valid to the jury. So, I use wordplay like that a couple times in this case, in opening, I said something like, you know, the defendant in this case has a company called Swift Transportation and Swift is, catchy and memorable name for a transportation company. Right. They want to send a message that we will get your products there on time, right? We were swift. But here, Swift takes on a different meaning. Why? Because they were two Swift. To put this trailer back on the road. I didn't tell you about this yet, Andy. There was a, repair record for this truck that a roller had been built. Right? And so the door wasn't going up and down smoothly. And what they did was they repaired the roller. They replaced the roller. They took out the bent roller, and they put another one. Well, we had an expert trial and says if the rollers bent, there's another problem. Rollers don't bend on their own. If they're bent, there's some other problem that caused it to bend that needed to be fixed. And they did. All they did was replace the roller. Okay, great. Great fact for notice to put on the on Swift okay. So that's provided they negligently maintain this trailer that was in their control. Right. Understood. So I said in an opening they were too swift to put this trailer back on the road. They were too swift to put Lillia behind the wheel of this trailer. She started off driving regular loads for them. Not what they call reefer loads, the refrigerator loads or the ones that have these roll up doors. She never got trained in any way on how to use these roll up doors. So that was there was a negligent training aspect of it. So there are two cork to put this trailer on the road. They were two two swift to put this trailer on the road. There are two Swift to put Lillia behind the wheel. In this truck. And number three, they want you to believe that Lilly is recovery was very swift because we talked about their defense on liability. But their defense on damages was she wasn't hurt that bad. She got hit in the head. She had a headache. She went to the hospital. No brain injury. She goes home. She's fine within two weeks. And so the I used to I also believe in trilogies. And so that was my trilogy using the Swift word, the two Swift to put this trailer on the road to Swift between to put Lilly behind the wheel. And then they want you to believe that her recovery was very swift. That's fantastic. And did you play that theme out all the way through the trial? We did. We did. Yeah. Now we use it with various witnesses. And I think it resonated with them. Now, do you do use a lot of demonstratives or presentation evidence in an opening statement in a case like this? It depends on the case. In this one I didn't, but if I'm being honest, Andy, I was not that I didn't because of a strategic reason. It was I didn't have time to think of anything and put it together. I'm not saying that I would have, because oftentimes I open with no PowerPoint, no demonstratives at all. Oftentimes I open with PowerPoint or multiple demonstratives. It just depends on the case and what I think the key is in that opening. Or yeah, I have to go back to this, John. This whole concept of parachuting in. So for you getting up there, you get to your jury selection, getting the feet wet in this part, you know, every courtrooms different in how you move around a courtroom is different in how a judge allows you to move around. A courtroom is different. And it takes takes a little bit of time to get a feel for the room itself and for the jury and the judge and the staff and everything that's going on. Did you find when you started this process like it was almost easier for you because you weren't overwhelmed with facts you didn't know, like such level of detail, that you weren't going to get sucked into the nitty gritty? Or was it more challenging because you didn't have that background and information at your fingertips? Yeah, some of both. Some of both. It was scary to me because I didn't know the record the way I wanted to, because I hadn't necessarily thought through trial strategy in the same way that I would have if I'd known I'd been trying the case for weeks or months or years. It was it was intimidating, but it was also freeing. It was freeing in the sense that I knew that I couldn't. So I didn't even have to make an effort to do it. It was freeing because Maxi and Robert were fantastic lawyers who I had full faith and confidence in. And you know, Andy, you talk about me parachuting in and, you know, it is true that I became with the trial lawyers in this case just before trial, but I do not want to understate how critical Maxi and Robert were at trial to, this is not something that I get all the credit for by any means. But there was definitely a, there's something that I've started calling The Curse of Knowledge. I didn't come up with the phrase right, but I think about it in terms of these cases. We spent so long with our cases, right? Years of investigation and discovery and depos and learning the record and going through the exhibits and rereading the Depo transcripts. And we know all these facts in this case, in these cases, and the juries don't know the case at all. And it is so easy to forget their perspective because are there are facts in the case, often facts in the case that are not in dispute. Right. The parties know that she'd been on the job for six months and that this was the training that she had went through, that they have these policies, all these things that nobody's fighting about. And in your mind, you take it as a given, but the jury doesn't know it. Yes. And oftentimes when the jury gets the information, they don't even understand that it's a given. They might think it's something that the parties are fighting about when they first hear it. Right. And so this case was an opportunity for me, I think, to see the case through closer to the eyes of a juror, the less through the eyes of one of the litigators. There were things that people were talking about. The lawyers in the case on my side and the other side, we're talking about which witnesses I didn't understand. I didn't know what they were talking about, why they were talking about it, how it influenced the how it related to the context of the case. And if I was confused about it, I was very confident. The jury was confused about it. I don't know if I would have seen that had I been one of the lawyers litigating this case for the past three years. Yeah, that's probably true. And it probably helps, actually, with some of your focus groups. I mean, one of the there's so many reasons why you're great at what you do, but for for me, when we decided to focus the case with you, our case, it was so refreshing to get a different side of the story and to really go back to some basics that, frankly, we just like to your point, we just glossed over because we know it so well. And, I guess my fear though, John and the you know, here you are. The opening statement is such a pivotal part of any trial. And if you say something that you can't later prove, that could come back to bite you later in the case, right? You made certain promises or you made certain representations to the jury, and now all of a sudden you don't have evidence to support those representations. Were you afraid of that because you didn't know all the detail? So yes, I was, but I, I, I address that in two ways. One is by making my opening more 30,000ft, so to speak, than I often might. But the other was by heavily relying on Robert Maxey. Right. So I would be going them with questions or I'd write some portion of the opening. I'd say, is this true? Or are we going to have the evidence to back this up? And if they told me, yes, I believed them and they never let me down. But you have to have that. There's no way to try a case like this and at least do it well when your whole team is fresh in the case, right? Yeah. You have to have a team that knows the record. Even if you. Don't. Was it difficult for you to put together your opening on such short in such a short timeframe? I mean, for me, I spend usually when I get after my first deposition, I don't believe it or not, start preparing my opening statement. Sure. And that's just how my mind sort of works. And putting together my case and I'll spend weeks and weeks preparing an opening statement, writing out every word and changing things 100 times. You didn't have the luxury of that time. Was that a problem for you, or did it actually make it somewhat more comfortable? You just sat down, your mind opened up, and you wrote out your statement, and then performed it. Yeah. You know, I mean, I'm getting more and more gray hairs, right? When you've been doing this a long time, you have, you know, you have certain approaches, right? So, I'm not somebody, you know, who is, beholden to the David Ball opening structure or what have you. But I have certain things that I always like to do an opening or at least all almost always like to do or certain things that in this type of case, I'm always going to do certain things in that type of case a moment. And so I already had sort of, framework in mind that just kind of consistent with the type of case that this was. And then it was a matter of filling that it we are finding the right word play with, you know, Swift or what have you, or making sure that, you know, I like to tell a story and opening a certain way and then stop in a way that will allow the jury to draw the conclusion for themselves. Right. But you have to set that up a certain way. You have to make sure you have the facts. Right. So I, you know, so I'm working through what that think that story is. And I have to go to Robert Maxon and say, you know, are we going to be able to support this? Does this make sense? Does it work? And they said, yeah, we've got it. We're going to get that from this document and get that from that witness. We've got it. So it ends up being not as daunting as this piece as you might think. It's so awesome, John. I mean, I could talk to you. I've been talking to you about this for a long period of time, and I could go on and on and on. But so are you happy with the way the evidence went in? I'm super happy with the way the evidence went in. I'll tell you my favorite thing that I had a. Really. Let me tell you, Kate, I'll tell you two stories about love Year. Just the first one was one of my witnesses. So as I told you, I was doing all the like before and afterwards. It's. And one of the before and after witnesses was really his cousin. And really his cousin was, actually, I'm sorry, it was her nephew was her nephew, but she was like, they were like siblings. They were only three years apart in age, and they grew up in the same home. All right. So they're functionally siblings, even though Lilly is technically his aunt. And this is, mountain of a man, six foot four, 400 pounds. Okay. And what I learned from Maxey as she's telling about the case is that, you know, they're like, she calls him her brother. Even though technically he's her nephew. They're super close, or they were super close. They haven't been very close since the actually, they don't see each other that much. They're not around each other that much. And that even though, the nephew was younger, Lillia kind of had the little sister role, and he kind of had the big brother role in their relationship. She followed his footsteps. He started working on cars. She started working on cars. He joined a car club. She joined a car club. He joined a semi-pro football team. She became the manager for the semi-pro Flavin, and he got a job as a truck driver at Swift before she did. Okay, okay, so it's Sunday before opening, right? I've picked a jury on Friday, openings on Monday. I'm meeting of her nephew, and we have this exchange where I'm saying to him, I'm told that you and Lillia aren't that close anymore. He says, yeah, that's true. You don't see her that much since she was injured. I really don't see her that much. I said, why do you think that is? He says, you know, we always had this real like, like we always like, wrestle, like tackle each other, wrestled to the ground. That's with. And that was our way of interacting. And because of her head injury, I can't, like, wrestle around with her anymore. And I think that's probably why I just met this guy. Right. And he could pick me up and put me in his pocket. Right? Right. He's just totally intimidating. Huge guy. And I looked at him and I said, that is bullshit. And he said, what do you mean? And I said, I don't believe you for a second. And he says, well, I'm telling you the truth. I said, I think it's because you feel guilty. He says, what do you mean? I said, look, I believe, like you telling me, that even as 20 year olds, you and Lillia would wrestle as grown ups. He says, yeah, we would. I say, okay, I guess I believe you. You're telling me that you can't see her and figure out how to interact with her without wrestling? I don't believe that for a second. And he says, we're going, what do you think? I said, I think that Lillia, since the day you were born, has been one of the most important people in your life, and you love her more than you can express, and it is painful for you to see her in the physical condition she's in now. Good for you, good for you. And I said, and I think you don't have the courage to admit that or to go see her. Wow, she needs you. She needs you, man. Right. And he kind of tears up. And I said, I also think. And I got gentle with him. I say, I also think you kind of think this is your fault. And he said, what do you mean? I said, well, you know, you start to get in. The car is really starting to get into cars. You joined the football team, Lilly became the manager of the football team. You went and got a job as Swift. Lilly, what do you mean by a job of Swift? And then this happened to her and I think you kind of blame yourself. And so I think it's hard for you to go see her, see her like this. And think that she wouldn't be like this because if it wasn't for me that he's just starts bawling. I don't even know if he he knew I was right. I'm not even sure he ever realize it in his own mind. Don't tell me what he said at trial. But I got to tell you, I'd be upset right there and then because I'd be like, why don't we save this for trial? This was a motion for trial. Go ahead. But but we just replayed it at trial, and it worked. I didn't I let it go, like he started bawling and I ended it and I was like, you're ready. You're going to do fine. That's it. And then he took the stand on Wednesday or whatever it was. And I went through that with him, and I kind of had to see him, you know, a little bit of questions that were arguably leading, you know me, do you, do you feel any guilt? I do, I and a huge says, you know, she's all my thoughts of these crazy huge guys bawling on the stand and it was so genuine and so touching. That's awesome. It was great. That's awesome. That's awesome. Tell me the second story. That's the second piece of evidence is about Maxi Share. My co-counsel because she is just magical in a courtroom. And I never seen anything like this before. So, maxi, between college and law school, maxi studied neuroscience at Harvard. All right. Oh, so the expert witnesses, you know, she can go toe to toe with them on the science. And they had, you know, expert neurology has a bunch of different expert docs and stuff. And, Max, who did the cross for all of them right now, there's this Friday 67 trial before the trial even heard maxi talk. But she just starts shredding these expert witnesses and the, you know, every to she get them to contradict their depo testimony or contradict their own records or whatever else. So she knew everything down cold, and she has a certain rhythm to the way she would do this cross. And she, you know, she talked a lot about this, and he'd say something and she'd say, oh, really? Let's turn to page 72 of your medical research. From this day, I. Love that, I. Love that, and what I was amazing about it was what I saw that the way the jury responded to her, because in my experience, jurors are stone faced almost all the time. It's like they they believe in their heads that they need to not show any emotion. Have you ever, Andy, have you ever watched like you've been watching you watching an NBA basketball game and somebody on the team, like, hits five threes in a row or has an unbelievable dunk. And like the teammates on the bench are like laughing and rolling over on each other like this. That's what the jurors were doing. Oh my gosh I'm not kidding. So she would say like by the time they figured out how good she was and she was watching it, it was like her second or third witness she was cross-examining and she'd say something. The doctor and the doctor said something that was nonsense. And Maxie was about to slice him open for, and she was sort of step away from the podium and say, oh, really? And the jurors start at each other and sitting up on the edge of their seat like, let's see what she's going to do to him. And then she would ask the question, if they feel like this, like rolling into each other because they couldn't wait to see what Maxie was going to do next. It was awesome. That's that's awesome. And it's so fun to be able to tech of all people, experts, right? Professional witnesses. That's who the jury wants to hear. They want to hear those cross-examinations. That's a credible job. That's right. So so tell me about this whole the jury gets the case, they go out. Do they come back with any questions, any issues during the jury deliberation. So I thought this was interesting. They came back with a question. I've never had this experience before. But it was it was it was great. So, I asked for, I don't remember 18 million or something like that. Did you do the final argument? I did the final argument. Yeah. Okay. Maps did the rebuttal closing, but I did the primary closing. So in the close, I asked for, I think like $18 million and, there were a bunch of lines on the verdict form. Right past pain and suffering, future fake pain, suffering past mental anguish, future marital anguish, past medical bills, future medical bills, whatever. And I put them up on the Elmo, and I'm writing down numbers on each line, what I'm suggesting to the jury to award and defending each one. I'm explaining it. I total it up. It is $18 million. Whatever it is. And, defense counsel in their closing did the same thing. Okay. So the defense lawyer stood up and put the verdict form on the album and said, what? They said, you I mean, they said, look, we should they had a different lawyer do the liability closing and the damages closing right to the lawyer does liability closing. He says we're not liable. We should win. She's the sole proximate cause, whatever. And the other lawyer stands up and says, but if you think we're responsible, here's what we think. On damages. And they put numbers down and it added up to 600 grand. That's really interesting that they were allowed to split. Yeah. They're closing argument. Yeah. The judge had no problem with it. They just said, Your Honor, I'd like to I'm going to do the liability portion. She's going to do the damages portion. And the judge says, you got now, or you can use it however you want. Okay. So, all right. So so she suggests again, I'm making this number up, which is probably roughly accurate, 600,000 or something for the jurors, you know, totaling up the different lines. Jury goes back and they deliberate. And after a while they come back with a question. I think it was just all the same day deliberation. But their question is can we see the sheets of paper where the lawyers wrote down what they suggested for the damages numbers? Oh, interesting. Okay, so first. Of all, this is a great question for us because if we lost the case on liability, they're not worried about the damages. Right. So that's a great sign for us on liability. Right. But the the the judge's immediate reaction is well I just need to tell them no. Right. That's part of you guys closing argument. That's not evidence. They don't get it right. And the defense stands up and says yes your honor. We agree that's not a matter for a second. I said, Your Honor, I think that's legally the correct ruling. I don't think they have a right to that. And if the defense insists, then I think that's the correct legal ruling. However, I don't think there's anything stopping us from voluntarily sending it back. And we agree. I mean, it's my numbers and their numbers. There's a numbers for both sides, right? We agree to send both sheets of paper back. If they do. There you go. Give the defense lawyers credit because I think the trial lawyers generally and frankly, defense lawyers in particular, tend to be to playbook. They don't think outside the box. Right. Frequently agreed. And this was an outside the box thing. And I kind of what expected them to say. Now they're not getting that stuff. Now they took like half an hour to go talk about it. They had in-house counsel and they had the adjuster, and they had the trial lawyers. Whenever they go back to a conference room and we're sitting around with the judge in the courtroom for like half an hour waiting, and they come back and they say, okay, we agree. That it's a good way to mitigate any verdict. Might be, yeah, I mean, that might be what they thought. So we actually ended up by agreement, sending back both of our verdict forms with our proposed damages numbers written in. Wow. That's that's wild. So you have this around$300,000 offer going in. You try this, you parachute in, you try this amazing case. It's it's pretty wild during the course of it. What was the ultimate outcome? Plans. Verdict 10.65 million. Credible. Yeah. Incredible John congratulations on that. How long was the jury out? My recollection is, they came back same day, late in the day, like maybe we closed by lunch and we had a verdict in 7 p.m.. Something like that. Pretty quick. Yeah. Do you, do you stay in the courthouse when they're deliberating or. Yes. Almost always. Yeah. I was there the whole time. Please tell me you stayed a couple extra days to enjoy the win the victory and actually have some fun. Please tell me that I. I did not, I have four kids, at the time, the oldest of which was about 11. Fantastic wife who was holding down the fort back here in Columbus already for the two weeks that I was out there. So we celebrated that night. I caught it. I don't tell my wife this, but my flight back to Columbus was not the first one out. So we, you know, we went. I went to brunch in the morning, too, and stuff. Good for you. And then I headed back, though, because I was I was missing my wife and kids, and they put up with a lot without me. While I'm gone, I travel more than I should already, so I felt the need to get home to them. But yeah, we we celebrated a little bit. That's good because we never seem to enjoy the winds. We just we just go on to the next one. So yeah congratulations on that I it's so much John. It's so much fun talking to you. I cannot wait till we go to episode two of your little series where we could talk, when we could really dive deep into some trial strategies. I can't wait. Yeah. Thank you. And, lady, that'll be fun. Andy, thank you again for doing this. And we'll see you soon. Thank you for doing. It's a great service to the bar. Thanks for having thank you.