Vern Ready – Turning “Corporation vs. Customer” into a $2.7M Verdict

What turns an ordinary premises case into a $2.7 million verdict? Strategy.

When a 68-year-old woman tripped over a fallen curbside sign outside Target, Vern Ready didn’t just argue negligence — he built a case around corporate decision-making. Discovery revealed no wind-resistance policy, no inspection protocol, and no meaningful response to employee reports about falling signs. That allowed him to frame the case as “corporation versus customer” — and when employees testified, “corporation versus employee.”

In this episode of Colorado Trial Lawyer Connection with host Keith Fuicelli, Vern breaks down the tactical decisions behind the verdict: saving his cross of the defense doctor for trial, telling the medical story through the client’s lived experience instead of clinical jargon, using a simple ELMO instead of flashy demonstratives, and positioning damages after a $500,000 pre-suit offer.

The jury asked for a calculator — and returned $2.7 million.

A masterclass in framing, restraint, and trusting the jury to connect the dots.

Learn More and Connect with Colorado Trial Lawyers

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Episode Snapshot

1. Vern's client, a 68-year-old woman, tripped over a fallen portable curbside sign outside a Target, finished her shopping trip, and ultimately required two surgeries for ulnar nerve damage in her right hand.
2. Vern framed the case as "corporation versus customer" and “corporation versus employee” when Target's own employees testified that the company provided no guidance about wind resistance, sign maintenance, or safety procedures.
3. Discovery revealed that nobody at Target had checked the manufacturer's wind resistance specifications for the signs, no policy existed for bringing them in during wind, and nobody responded to internal reports about falling signs.
4. Rather than deposing the defense doctor, Vern saved his ammunition for trial, where he caught the doctor mid-testimony reading only half a sentence from a second-opinion record that actually supported his client's future surgical needs.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to the ColoradoTrial Lawyer Connection,
where Colorado trial lawyers shareinsights from their latest cases. Join me,
Keith Fuicelli, as we uncoverthe stories, strategies,
and lessons from recent Colorado trialsto help you and your clients achieve
justice in the courtroom. Thepursuit of justice starts now.

(00:21):
Howdy everyone,
Keith Fuicelli here for another episodeof the Colorado Trial Lawyer Connection
Podcast. And this one is a doozy.
Super excited to have Vern Readyon to talk about a truly amazing
$2.7 million verdict againstTarget on a slip and fall case.
And if that doesn't sort of pique yourinterest and want to know how on earth

(00:44):
did you do that, let me give you alittle more. This is in federal court.
This is a very interestingliability and damages side case and
just an expertly tried caseby Vern. And with that,
welcome to the show, Vern.
Thanks so much and thanks for havingme on. I really appreciate it.
The list of people you've had on is prettyamazing. Just glad to be among them.

(01:07):
Now. I love that.
Thank you for sort of saying that becauseI hope that when young lawyers listen
to this, they think, "I can't waitto get that verdict to come on.
" And then I hope whenthey get that verdict,
they reach out and everybody comeson and talks about what worked,
what didn't work. Andreally what I'm hoping,
and I know that you and I spoke aboutthis a little bit before we went on,

(01:28):
that when people listen to these episodes,it empowers them. And they think,
"You know what? I could do that. I gotmy case. Let's roll." Was that sort of,
I know you had mentioned that you wentback and sort of listened to some of the
episodes before today.
Yeah.
Is that true to you?
Well, it is absolutely true.
I will blame you for figuring outmy voice memo app because as I'm

(01:50):
listening and doing otherthings, I'm just like, "Ah,
I've got to get a note onthat before I forget it.
" And there's just so much value thathas come from listening to other people
and talk about what went well and ofcourse what didn't. So that's great.
It does feel like I've heardthis on other podcasts. I mean,
this is a golden age of information.So for young lawyers that are out there

(02:13):
that want to be trial lawyers,
their world is your oyster as far aslearning what to do and how to do it,
which is that on a previous episode,
I talked about using that Applevoice memo feature because A,
we get these random thoughts in the middleof the night or when we're on a walk
or a jog. It's a greatway to put pen to paper,

(02:34):
but I really like wordsmithing my opening.
Not that I memorize it or readit, but wordsmith my opening,
recorded in voice memos and then forcedmyself to listen to myself and I hear
how annoying I can be at times andreal pronunciation and I think of it.
So I'm glad I.
Helped. Right. Do you rehearse a lotbecause you say you don't memorize,

(02:55):
but I mean, I rehearse a ton before.
That's a great question. I'm going toshare because everybody does it different.
And to me, we're talkingopening statement.
And.
I definitely believe opening statementis the most important piece of the trial
and it's the part you can't prepare themost for. Some people that are amazing,
world renowned trial lawyers wouldnever memorize it and I don't do that,

(03:17):
but this is what I do.
I will spend a lot of time actuallywriting word for word out what
in my mind is a perfect opening. And itis like from the beginning to the end,
and then I will record it. And inevitably,
I will end up going through about 10different versions of that opening,

(03:38):
wordsmithing the crap out of it, right?
Yeah.
And then I sort of have triggers forlike the roadmap of where I want to go
becomes encered in my brain.
Then I can get up andI feel like, frankly,
the opening part of it is memorized, thecatch, what did the defendant do wrong?

(03:59):
There are definitely parts of it thatare memorized, but at least for me,
I have found that I can do the openingthat way and be engaging and authentic
and have great eye contact. Obviously,
I don't have any notes and I willuse a PowerPoint selectively so that
you're not using it as a crutch. Atleast that's how I do it. So tell us,

(04:21):
what's your procedure? Howdo you go about your opening?
Then we'll talk aboutwhat you did in this case.
As far as getting ready, I would say it'spretty similar to what you described.
And then I just go over it like a wholebunch of times, just talking out loud,
walking around my house, makinga sandwich, doing openings.
And.
Doing different parts of thetrials. And I'll do that.
And I think it just makes me personallyfeel more comfortable so that when I am

(04:45):
in front of the jury, it can bemore natural. It's not like, "Oh,
where was I going to go next?And how best to say this?
And did I get everything in? "
I wouldn't call it memorization.
It's more like just practice and practiceand practice and practice so that you
feel super comfy by the time you're upthere doing it and you just feel like you
can be more natural and you can juststand there and talk to people and make,

(05:06):
like you said, good eye contact.
You can respond to people becauseyou feel like I've got this piece,
that opening that you can prepareso carefully in person or in advance
so that when you're in person, it's alittle less halting, a little less like,
"Oh, where was I going with this? " Andit's just talking about that message.
Yeah. I couldn't agree withyou more. I know Sean Claggett,

(05:28):
I've heard him sort oftalk about it as well.
It's like by the time they go to trial,
the person who's doingopening has done it 20 times.
So it just is so automatic at thatpoint, nothing's going to throw you off.
And I get it. There are lotsof lawyers that would never ...
They just have an outline,
they get up there and they communicateand they have that sort of authentic

(05:49):
connection with jurors andthey're amazing trial lawyers.
But I do feel like it's the one partof the trial you can prepare the
most for.
It's the one piece where you sortof know exactly what you want to do.
And I've found that I end up spendingtoo much time preparing the opening.
And to be brutally honestin Nick Riley's words,

(06:10):
I completely dropped the ball on preparingclosings and rebuttal closings. So
I'll be going into closings and it's like,
I haven't even really thoughtabout it. I'm just going to go in.
I don't have PowerPointready. So that's what I.
Need more. Well, let's talk about closingsthough and trying to prepare them.
Okay. So it was probably completely outof order where we're supposed to head.
But let's say we're talking aboutpreparing here and how you can

(06:32):
prepare that opening.And for me, it helps.
Nobody's going to do itexactly the same way,
but for me it helps and I feel like Ican then have that natural connection.
But in closing, forexample, in this trial,
I was still taking testimony from thedefense doctor the morning of close.
Wow.
And so yeah, you've got anidea of where you want to head,

(06:52):
but things are still coming out that arenew. And then you're taking testimony,
taking testimony, typingtestimony, you take a little break,
you're doing your close, right?
And so you have to be open todifferent approaches, I guess,
and remain flexible because in this one,
my wife helps me with trials, Jennifer,
and she's there throughout the trialfrom start to finish and writing down

(07:15):
nuggets about what people are saying andwatching the jury for me and all this
stuff. It's amazing help.And then prepping close,
we're just pacing in a hallway and we'rethrowing in bullet lines and we're just
like, "And this one's at this and thatone's at that. And we need to put, oh,
and this is golden. We'regoing to put this in.
" And it comes together. I don't knowhow you could prep a close the same way

(07:36):
you would prep an opening,
just because it's so changeablethroughout the trial based on what
actually comes in andwhat people have to say.
Yeah. I guess my thought on thatis it seems like all closings,
part of it is massaging thejury instructions, however you want to call that.
You've got the verdict form,
you know there's juryinstructions you need to go over.

(07:56):
So you can plan that in advance andyou can have a PowerPoint with those
instructions ready to go and that'sabout as best as I've been able to do.
I'm anxious to improve on myclosings by utilizing more
visual triggers. So when there's atheme or something that's come up,
and ideally you couldstart this in opening,

(08:17):
if you're able to use visualsin opening that are not
admitted into evidence, whichI know is such a struggle.
It seems like in other parts of thecountry, people have a lot more leeway,
but to the extent you're ableto take a concept and define
that concept with some kind of symboland then use that symbol again in closing

(08:38):
to trigger the juror's memory,
I want to try that. That's whatI'm going to work on in the future.
So with that being said, great. Well,except I'm telling you, it is frustrating,
at least in Colorado,
it feels like all of the judges believeif you have not stipulated to an
exhibit, you can't use it in opening.
So it just seems like you got toget really creative in terms of

(09:04):
visuals you want to useto assign to a concept.
But I think in some respects,
that restriction leads to simplicity,which should work in our favor.
So if there's a concept thatwe're trying to explain,
be it somebody didn't havesymptoms before and then they did,

(09:24):
we can come up with some visual thatis simple and then we'll talk in a
minute about,
and actually I was just in a meeting withour trial team on another case talking
about exchanging PowerPoint visualsbefore pretrial conference and getting
objections and things of that nature.Maybe we can cover that later.
But when they see a visual that is sosimple, I suppose they're going to say,

(09:46):
"Well, that's not evidence. That's goingto be argument." And unfortunately,
I feel like a lot of judges won't letus do that, but it's still worth a try.
Still worth a try. Still worth a try.
Because anytime you can put somethingin your opening and then come back to it
later and say, "I told you I was goingto, and I did, and here it is. ".
Yeah, for sure.
And I think even if you'releft with photographs or other

(10:09):
evidence that the defense can't crediblysay is not going to be stipulated to or
is not going to be admitted,then it's still show don't tell.
So I definitely strongly believeyou want to be using visuals in
your opening to tell the story becausethe defense often gets up with their
legal pad and just rambles.

(10:31):
Sure. Yeah, true.
That was a heck of an intro and
I want to talk about thiscase, but before we do,
just tell us a little bitabout yourself and how it is.
I do like to get to know people a littlebit better in our community of Colorado
trial lawyers. How is it that youcame to be a Colorado trial lawyer?

(10:53):
Well, I guess it depends on how far backwe want to go because I've always liked
helping people.
I feel like everybody needs a little helpsometime and it feels good to be able
to be that help and do thatfor them. I grew up in a family
without any money and my dad was arrestedfor reconnecting the power when they

(11:14):
turn it off multiple times,
that kind of thing and fingernailpolished to change the sticker on the car
plates. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
So we always needed help.
And I always knew going into law schooland through law school that I was
doing this because I wanted torepresent people, individuals.

(11:35):
So ended up doing criminaldefense for a while,
interned at the public defender's office.
We were doing trials all the timethere. You're a prosecutor, right?
So got those core trial skills early.
And then for me,
I moved on and did a bunch of familylaw for a while and then found that I
really love doing personal injury. Butit's always been representing people,

(11:57):
trying to be there tohelp people who need help.
And that feels good and that'sworth coming to work for.
Yeah.
And the one thing I feel like that I wasable to get at the prosecutor's office,
and you probably received when youwere interning at the public defender's
office, is before you ...
I feel like you can befree and express yourself

(12:20):
effectively,
you got to learn the fundamentals andthere's no better place however you
do it to learn those fundamentals.
Is that the advice if someone'sout there listening and they think,
"I want to be a trial lawyer," wouldyou say, "Go to the PD's office,
go to the public defender's office,or do criminal defense, family,

(12:40):
whatever it is to get in frontof people and judges and get
those fundamentals.
Down." Yeah,
I would just say whatever gets you intowhat you truly want to do more often.
I think for some folks, it'sreally good to all, walk, run,
and for some people it fits tojust run, right? And so I think-.

(13:05):
Fly, fly. Yeah.
Yeah. Right. Figure it out. And no,
I think there are definitelylearning experiences all over.
So I guess I would just say probablywhat everyone should be aiming to do is
what they love to do and what makesyou happy and what makes you really
motivated to come to work.
And for a lot of people who dowhat we do and are amazing at it,

(13:26):
they probably wouldn't feel super amazingdoing criminal defense or or what have
you, right? It's just, this is going tofit everyone. But I would say people,
you know when you're doing the rightthing and it feels right and you are
whistling on the wayto the office, do that.
Yeah. I love that.
And the thing that I just caughtmyself thinking as we were having this

(13:47):
conversation aboutfundamentals and whatnot,
is that juries and evenjudges are a lot more
forgiving than we may think.
We come in striving for perfection,
thinking if we stumble over our words orstumble over admitting the document or
something, the jurors are going to punishus, but the opposite is probably true.

(14:09):
They see what's in there fighting,
not being perfect andthey resonate with that.
So I guess what I'm telling any younglisteners out there is just go do it and
you'll learn by doing, andif you fall a couple times,
it is fine because you'regoing to do just fine.
If you're pursuing a just cause andyou've got a good client, then just go.

(14:29):
Yeah, absolutely. And maybethe more often you're going,
which is sometimes still trying to learnmyself, the more often you're going,
the less worried you'll be abouthow are they perceiving me or
judging me or whatever.
And I know that there are some trialgurus out there who have transcended that
concern about like, it's not about meand it's not about how I'm being judged,

(14:50):
but I think we all stillstruggle. For sure.
Yeah. So how is it you have yoursolo practitioner, is that right?
Yeah. Yeah. I'm a solo.
Tell us about your journey of howyou ended up hanging your shingle.
And honestly,
what advice would you give for otherlawyers that are listening that maybe are
thinking about doing that or are aboutto do it? What advice do you have?

(15:13):
Yeah.
I think nobody's a true solobecause there are organizations like
CTLA out there,
the people like you out there and thepeople you've had on who repeatedly say
they're willing to mentorand don't try to just
make it all up as you go. Talk topeople who've done it and been there,
listen to these things,
be a sponge is what I'm still tryingto be as a sponge and just take it all

(15:37):
in,
take in as much as you can anddon't be afraid to do it differently
because, okay,
so you've got all thesedifferent approaches to how you prep for opening or I
prep for close or what we thinkabout jury selection and should it be
exclusionary or should we starteducating immediately and all of these.
You get a million ways to do a trialAnd who knows how many of those will

(16:00):
come out with great outcomes untilyou're out there doing it and finding out
what works and what feels right for you.
And experimentation helpsus figure that out, I think.
And obviously just doing it, being there.
Co-counseling with people is certainlya big deal. Shouldn't be overlooked.
We do a whole lot of goodwith co-counseling and a whole lot of learning through

(16:21):
that. So I just think run toward whatyou want to do and keep doing it,
put yourself in the arena and staythere as much as you can and then you're
going to come out an expert, right?
Yeah. I love that. I lovethat. So all right. Well,
let's dig into the facts of thiscase because it is fascinating.
Tell us a little bit about what happenedand then we can get into the trial

(16:41):
strategy piece of it.
So my amazing, super credible,
awesome client was.
I'm going to pause you right there.
It seems like every greatresult starts with that intro.
Oh, really? Yeah.
It seems like the point isgreat clients make for great

(17:03):
results.
So if you've got a case you're workingthrough litigation and you're like, "Man,
I love this client, that's somethingto know. " Or if you're like,
"This client's driving me crazy,"then maybe that's something you got to
consider too. But I interruptedyou. I'm sorry. Tell us what.
Happened. Don't be sorry at all.
And I think you're right about thatbecause of course the jury wants to reward

(17:24):
people they like. And so, okay. Anyway,
she was a 68 year old Targetcustomer the day that she fell and
she was approaching the storewith her daughter and there
was a sign that had fallen overin the wind and they kind of
walked by the sign toward thefront door and then she remembered,

(17:47):
and this was in 2021,
she remembered that she had forgottenher mask and there's still signage at the
store that reminded people on the way infrom COVID times to please wear a mask.
She turns around, starts to go back toher car, trips over the fallen sign.
And then after she's

(18:09):
down for a bit, gets some firstaid help from Target employees,
she goes in and continues her shoppingtrip with her daughter, so no big deal,
no case, right?
Well,
do me a favor and back up anddescribe this sign because
is it a sign that's in thecement or tell us about this.

(18:30):
Sign.
And that's important because I think alot of the signs in the parking lots that
we're used to seeing are installedand directly into the asphalt.
So you don't really have to worryabout testy things like wind,
but Target chose instead to purchasethese portable signs that have
these plastic fillable bases,
then you're meant to fill them withmaterials that are recommended by the

(18:53):
manufacturer so that they can resistwind and stay upright up to a certain
extent. Of course, there arelimitations on the signs,
but they have wheels on the side so theycan easily be wheeled off next to the
store if it's super windy out andthen brought back out as needed,
or you could just have more ofthem out or fewer of them out.
And these signs were used inthat kind of drive up, pickup,

(19:15):
curbside pickup area that everybodystarted using in COVID times.
So it was meant for people to comeout and fill orders and then go
back into the store and you would parkand call and tell them which spot.
So this would be the sign that's inbetween the parking spaces that has a big
sign on it that says what parkingspace you're in and so on.

(19:37):
And that's the sign. It's like an eightfoot tall sign. This is a large sign,
which was of course part of our trial.
And I think in a lot of trip and fallcases, part of the defense is always,
"Well, why wouldn't you watch whereyou're going? " And so we had,
"Why weren't you watching where you going?
" She was fine because shecontinued her shopping trip after.

(19:57):
Can't have been thatbad. We had all of that.
But it turns out that when shefell, the way that she fell,
she felt like right hand out and extended,
so the palm of her hand struck theground and then kind of rolled.
And the way it extendedand injured her hand,
she ended up with ulnar nervedamage from the elbow area,
we'll say symptomatic ulnar nerve damagefrom the elbow area and in the right

(20:21):
hand that affected how sheuses her hand and caused pain.
So quick question on that.
Is that similar to carpaltunnel type of injury or is this
different?
It's different.
So we had a fight over whether thedefense could call it carpal tunnel during
jury selection.

(20:41):
We submitted questions to the judge inthis case in advance and then the court
pulled from our submitted questionsto ask their own questions or his own
questions. And one of theirs that theysubmitted mentioned carpal tunnel. And
it was one of thosesituations where you think,
should I just let them ask that or letsomeone say that and then show how this

(21:03):
is so much different than that? Becausewhen you think of carpal tunnel,
I'm sure there are very severe cases andI'm sure they can be very debilitating,
but I think a lot ofpeople think of, "Well,
my wrist is a little bit sore becauseI've been typing a lot." And so we thought
they were headed that direction. Theyended up kind of like throwing that out,
but it was so thoroughly discredited thatthat was just not the issue. And that
was kind of the other side that held meback a little bit on wanting to make a

(21:27):
full fight out of that was we're goingto be able to show that this is quite
different than your standard like, "Oh,
my wrist hurts a little bitand it's a little bit sore.".
Was there any issue aboutthe severity of this injury
requiring surgical intervention? I mean,
was it like a pretty big deal thatwas debilitating for the client,

(21:47):
so that wasn't really a fight or werethey trying to claim she didn't really
need surgery on this?
No, they actually did not go thatdirection necessarily that she didn't need
surgery.
I was more concerned aboutdefense argument that maybe the surgery made it worse
because we did have worsening over time.
And so part of what we were doing inour preparation is just like, of course,

(22:09):
with all of these cases,
you have to personally get into theweeds with the medical records and know
them. As part of that,
we were looking for supportfor her explanation of
how this has been, which hasbeen a worsening over time.
And so what we went to trial withwas examples in the medical record

(22:30):
from where there was worseningbefore the first surgery.
There was worseningafter the first surgery.
There was worsening before the secondsurgery, yes, there were multiples,
and then there was worseningafter the second surgery.
So we had a lot of explaining to doon that because I think my concern
going in, of course,
was that jurors would be sitting therethinking the entire time like, "Okay,

(22:51):
well,
why are the surgeries if they didn'tresolve it? " And so we were on that early
and making sure we were telling thatstory with everybody. So let me.
Kind of circle thisback around to opening,
because I'm curious when you'retalking about this ulnar nerve injury
that got worse over time, et cetera,
did you include a teaching sectionin your opening to address and

(23:16):
start to familiarize the jurorswith these medical concepts?
Yeah, because I felt like itwas going to be a hard ...
We didn't want that to just unfold orhave the defense have the first crack at
that, right? So yeah,
and I think opening is so great for thatbecause you can tell a story that is
really educating them about the medicine,
but it sure sounds like you're justtalking about her life and how it impacted

(23:38):
her and what it was like.
So it was told fromthe perspective of what
makes a person agree to havesurgery to try to fix something.
And what were herthoughts when she's told,
just like we're all told around surgerytime that this probably is going to
help, but it might not. Anddo you take that seriously?

(23:58):
And what's the difference betweensurgery we wanted surgery to for her?
So everything,
all the medicine education was kind oflike put forward as a patient would think
about it, not as a doctorwould necessarily explain it.
So let me just see if I'm understandingthis because I'm very intrigued.
Are you saying that in your opening,
you sort of told the story of the medicinefrom the perspective of the patient

(24:22):
about what was- Yes. Oh, that'sbrilliant. I love that. Explain to her?
Right.
And why would she agree to a secondsurgery after the first one didn't work?
Well, because they told her itwas going to be different, right?
They're doing a different thing thistime and we're really confident this is
going to help.
And then what's it like for her whenthe pain comes back after surgery number
two? And so we're givingthem cues along the way that,

(24:46):
because I'm thinking the defense isgoing to get up and just say, "Well,
if it didn't work the firsttime, why'd they do it again?
It's the same thing again,
but it's definitely not the same thingagain." We wanted them to know that right
from the start.
But I thought it'd be more compellingof kind of like allow them to imagine
themselves in that situationwhere they're just like,
"You'll do whatever it takes to getbetter when you're in pain all the time."

(25:08):
Yeah.
I got to tell you a story that I justheard Jordan Logan explain on another
podcast because it reminds meexactly of what you just said,
which is you're worried that the defenseis going to get up and say, "Well,
why did she get this second surgery ifthe first one didn't work?" And so what
Jordan did in a different case isbasically get up in opening and say,
"And the defense is goingto come in and say, well,

(25:29):
why'd she get this surgery a second timeif the first one didn't work?" And then
the defense lawyer got upand was like, "No, no, no,
we're not saying that and said somethingelse." But then they were able to
diffuse that argument altogether becausethe defense lawyer agreed that they
were not going to argue that.
But I love that idea oftelling it from the perspective

(25:51):
of your client.And I also want to give a shout out,
sorry De Lamont,
I've spent some time with her at hertrial lab and have spent some time dealing
with her opening and she callsit like the teaching section.
And so what I'm sort of hearingabout, and yours is like, jurors,
in order to do your job here,

(26:12):
you're going to have to learn aboutthis thing called the ulnar nerve and go
into all this explanation.
How deep did you go in opening or didyou just sort of leave it from the
perspective of what your clientwas being told by the doctors?
The opening was given.
From mostly the perspective of the client.
There was very little technicalmedical in my opening.

(26:34):
It was meant to be a story startto finish about her situation,
what happened to her andwhat her experience through it all was like. However,
I did feel the need to flipsome medicine in, again,
from her perspective though. So itwas like, I just framed it as like,
why would she agree to do it all again?And you're going to hear. Of course,
I did this section about hadto ask ourselves and sorry to Lamont advocates that

(26:59):
too. And there's a section inher opening that is like, okay,
we have to deal with the bad stuff.
And so after telling a story aslike, before we brought you here,
we had to ask ourselves somequestions and pick those, right?
Yeah.
And you kill them. And therewas some medicine in there like,
was it the doctor'sfault? Was it made worse?
Whose fault would that be in the end?
Because of course you could alwaystry to persuade a jury that if a

(27:23):
doctor made a mistake, then it'sstill the tortfeasor's fault.
But I feel like that doesn't always feelgood to be up there in that position
trying to do that. And thatwasn't the case in our case.
So before I go too far down that road,I was worried about it being a defense,
but it was not backed up by theevidence and it simply was not the case.
Now,
how much time did you spend in openingpercentage wise talking about Target and

(27:45):
its conduct versus theperspective of your client?
Because as you're hearing that, thatsounds awesome, but I'm like, okay,
but are you violating the rule of spendingtoo much time in opening and talking
about your clients?How'd you deal with that?
I just started with Target and I'm awareof that suggestion that we not start
with our own client. And I agree andI don't, I think most of the time,

(28:05):
I guess I agree.
David Ball makes a really good pointabout like not bringing your client's name
into it at the beginning.
My framing of this case was reallylike corporation versus customer.
How did you frame it that way?
First off, I never said target.
I said target corporation everytime throughout the entire trial.
And there was a lot of ... Wecalled, I should know four or five,

(28:28):
but I think we called four targetemployees as witnesses ourselves. And what
we wanted to be clear with them as I wasup there kind of like just wrapping and
joking with them a little bitat times, "It's not your fault.
We're not blaming you for this.
Target set you up." It's like thecorporation didn't provide you what you
needed. They didn't tell you what thewind resistance of these signs were.

(28:50):
You didn't have a partin choosing these signs.
You didn't have a part in choosing whatcolors they used for these signs or what
colors they used for the parkingspace. You didn't have a role,
you weren't at the table, right?
Nobody told you how often to check thesethings to make sure that they stayed
full. Nobody told you what theprocedure was for writing them down,
all of this stuff.
And so you just separate these pooremployees who are out there doing their

(29:10):
absolute best and the corporationwho kind of hung them out to dry by
sending these things out with absolutelyno guidance whatsoever about how to use
them. I shouldn't say no guys whatsoeverbecause they did actually send a little
used cat litter, which is notrecommended by the manufacturer.
And there was this whole moment wherethe store manager who was called by the
defense said, "Well,

(29:32):
we know exactly how much cat litter weput in there because it says 50 pounds
right on the bag." And I was like, "Well,these are the buckets that were used.
We got that in on another Target employeeand there were 30 pound buckets." And
she was like, "Well, we'll usethree and that filled them,
but they were 30 pounds versus 50 pounds.
Started stores don't sell a 50 poundbag of cat litter and we knew that.

(29:53):
And so we asked her and she didn't know.
" And so there was aweight difference based on,
it It created a question of how thesethings were filled and whether they were
filled properly.
I want to pause for a second because whatyou were just talking about is frankly
brilliant.
And it is brilliant for you to call

(30:14):
target employees andblame it on the company
set you up to fail. That is,
I don't recall- You successfullygot that done on the 30 cross.
So tell us about that. Tellus how you worked that in.
Number one was this strategyof we're going to have the

(30:35):
Target employees be sympathetic andthe corporation set them up to fail.
Did you have that beforethe 30 depo? And if so,
how did you implement it in the depo?
Okay.
So it was maybe a bit low hangingfruit because it was apparent based
on discovery responses that we weren'tgoing to get a lot of information
because there wasn't information. We.

(30:58):
Weren't going to get a lot ofdocuments because there weren't.
Tell us more about the discoveryresponses that led you to that.
We're talking response to documentsabout policies and procedures and things
like that?
Well, no, just like theacquisition of the signs.
They couldn't produce any documents inconnection with the acquisition of the
signs. They couldn't tellus who made the decisions.
They couldn't tell us who waspresent, who was not present.
They couldn't tell us who made thedecisions about whether to create a policy

(31:20):
about when to bring them in.
They couldn't tell us if anybody evenever considered the wind resistance of
these signs.
Wow. Okay.
They couldn't tell us if anybody checkedthe manufacturer website because the
wind resistance was right there superclear, super easy to find. And nobody,
as far as we know,
based on the testimony that was providedand discovery response and all that,

(31:41):
as far as we know,
nobody at Target ever actually lookedto see what the wind resistance of these
signs were.
And yet they acknowledged sendingthese signs out all over Colorado.
I believe it was obviously national,
but they admitted all over Coloradowindy areas, not windy areas and so on.
And nobody's watching the Weather Channel.
Nobody's doing anything to kind ofknow should these be brought in?

(32:04):
There's no policy for doing that.
There's no procedure otherthan somebody thinks, "Oh,
they're a bit wobbly." And they cameout during the trial that they knew that
the signs were falling becausethey hit some cars. Oh, wow.
And The defense duringthe trial just made it one
sign had fallen, thatit happened one time.

(32:25):
I'm not sure exactly what they basedthat on because we had multiple witnesses
throughout the trial say, "Well, yeah,
I'm aware of it happening and it happensmaybe once a month." Or another one was
like, it happens regularly.
Another one admitted that they had sentreports up about these signs falling and
we got a regional manager on the standwho agreed that she knew and it had been

(32:45):
discussed and that shehad sent reports up.
And then part of the argument enclosedand then it kind of became like a
miniature theme was that reports weregoing up and nothing was coming down.
Again, corporation versus employees.
Right? It's just so masterful.
You have regional managers andpotentially the corporate 30 getting

(33:06):
concessions.
And then are you saying that thestore manager was readily admitted,
"I've never been given anyguidance, nobody ever told me.
" So is that the juxtaposition thatyou set up as sort of like regional and
corporate knows this,store manager knows that?
Yeah.
And we did point out that corporatedidn't send any of the documents

(33:27):
down with these signs.
They just sent their own instructionsand an email that they had made up and
then nobody was ever even ableto produce that email. Wow.
And then they had a procedurefor things like this.
When they do things like this,they're done this way. Well,
that's not doing the thing.And then

(33:48):
there was also the corporateexpectations versus the actual
boots on the ground and whatwas happening was so different.
And we were able to pointthat out in a bunch of ways.
One of them was we found the targetethics code on their website and it
includes some statements aboutsafety being their top priority.
And then every single Target witness,including the ones they called,

(34:09):
embraced that immediately and we wereable to walk them through the ethics code
and they embrace, embrace,embrace, embrace. And then we were able to ask them,
what was the valid safety reason forchoosing signs that can fall over in the
wind instead of signs that goright down into the ground?
What was the valid safety reason forchoosing colors that matched the colors on
the ground instead of OSHA yellow,

(34:31):
which was a standard optionfor these sign bases,
OSHA yellow.And what was the safety reason for
not having a policy about,
not checking how much wind these thingscan withstand and then not having a
policy and all of this.
And a lot of the answersto that were not present
in our written discovery responses.

(34:51):
And so I was not surprised in the 30deposition that the witness admitted to
absolutely no prep because you followup and when they can't answer something,
you just point out that,"Hey, you saw this list,
you knew what we were going to ask you.
What did Target Corporation do toprepare you to answer this question?".
Okay.
And the answer was, "I don't know.

(35:16):
" Or,
"I called some guy and he didn't knoweither was the answer." And so what
kind of surprised me a bit is that somuch time passed between the 30 depo and
the trial and the same witnesswas the 30 witness at trial.
And then in front of the jury,
instead of what did Target do toprepare you to answer that question,

(35:37):
when I got the I don't know,
it was Target Corporation didn't reallyprepare you to answer that question,
did they? They sent you here toanswer that question for them.
They're not here. They sentyou to answer this question,
but they didn't prepare you to answerit. And she was like, "No, they didn't.".
Wow. At trial. Yeah. Wow. I love that.

(35:58):
So kind of changing subject, I'mjust curious, in a case like this,
did you have any kind ofexpert on commercial signage or store safety or did you
need any kind of industrystandard expert in this case?
No.
I love it.
I common sense did. And by theway, I was worried about that.
I was considering that. And it was oneof those things that I was thinking is,

(36:19):
should we have a retail safety expert?
But I felt like they were so off thechart with their own lack of knowledge,
their own ability to articulatea standard of any sort. I mean,
they could not tell us a standardand it's their sign, right?
It's their property and they admittedlandowner standards right at the beginning
of the case. So we hadto fight over that, but

(36:41):
they couldn't tell us what the standardis. And so it was a reasonable standard.
And I think everybody in theroom at the end agreed that their
lack of information, lack of effort,
lack of follow up and followthrough were not reasonable.
Got it.
So let's talk a little bit aboutsort of the defenses in this case.

(37:03):
What were you facing withrespect to the defense doctor?
What was the conclusionof the defense doctor?
Like this is just degenerative change,
you were going to get thisproblem anyway type thing.
What he did is he focused on the urgentcare record. So she went to the ...
Like I said,
she finished her shopping trip and theywere turned out they're actually really
good personal reasons for that.

(37:24):
So her daughter has theseneeds and expectations and
if things don't go asplanned, it doesn't go well.
And this was a rare day out for them.
And so the explanation of why she stayedand continued to shop was actually
pretty compelling.
And it really showed offher being a caring mother,

(37:44):
but they made a big deal out of the factthat she didn't go straight to the ER
and they made a big deal out of the factthat she continued to shop and it can't
have been that bad.
But what the defense doctor reallyfocused on was at urgent care.
And as part of breaking theserecords down and preparing for trial,
we really needed to takeevery symptom she has and

(38:06):
find its origin.And there was progression over time.
So we're finding like for paresthesias,
we're finding like earlyreports of tingling, right?
And they had overlooked arecord where there was tingling.
So they believed that the first mentionof paraesthesias or numbness was like
three months after or whatever.They were just wrong about that.

(38:26):
The urgent care record was mainlylike, it said hand and wrist.
So they were like, "Well,
there wasn't an elbow issue." Andthere wasn't a hand issue because
the defense doctor decided tojust go full on it was wrist.
And the reason that the defense doctordecided to try to thread that needle is

(38:47):
because her wrist wasn't reallysymptomatic after ... I mean,
her wrist hurt because she fell,
but it wasn't part of her ulnar nervedamage and it wasn't persistent and it
wasn't really a huge part of the case.
And so his hope was that he was goingto stroll in and just say, "Well,
the only thing wrong with her was herright wrist. It says that right here in
the urgent care record, it does not." That was their focus at urgent care.

(39:10):
So that's the only thing thatwas wrong. That got better.
Everything else that she's experiencedis probably due to typing too much or
something like that.And so that was the approach. In fact,
he said at urgent care, I didn't evencare enough to put her in a splint.
And by the way, he was wrongabout that. And this is where.
Just knowing the record paysoff, right? Just knowing.

(39:32):
Let me jump in and ask you,
because I'm hearing you say thatyou knew that this defense doctor
had multiple errors in his report.And so I guess the question is,
depose that doctor or not.
Yeah.
So knowing that you had these punchesthat would land, what did you do?
Depose or save it for trial? Saved.
It for trial.

(39:52):
Did not depose them.And how'd that work? It.
Worked out amazing. And it was alittle squirrely as it is to do that.
The big benefit to deposing is youknow what they're going to say.
You've got it locked in and so on.And there was progression over time,
but we could see that progression in thereports because there wasn't just one
report and she was continuing to treatwhile we were litigating this case.

(40:13):
So her final surgery was likea month before deposition.
So we were still figured out as wewent too. But his initial report,
he hadn't even examined her at thatpoint. It was a records review.
And then he supplementedand then he amended,
I think if you call it somethingdifferent each time, then it's justified.
But it was like all thesedifferent reports and you could kind of see where he's

(40:36):
headed over time becauseat first he was really like
deferential to the surgeon. He's acolleague of the surgeon at the same
practice, by the way. Yeah.
And I read that. And I mean,that's sort of crazy. Yeah.
Tell the listeners a little bit about,expand on that a little bit more.
And I'm curious about if you elicitedconcessions from the defense doctor,

(40:57):
and we can name them, it doesn't matter.
If you elicited concessions from thedefense doctor that they respect the
treating doctor,
and did you differentiate theethical obligation a treating doctor
has versus an IME doc? That'sprobably a dumb rhetorical question,
but tell the listeners moreabout that. But yes, I.
Did do those things. And we hadalso sent her, because I was, again,

(41:19):
a little bit worried that the jury mightconclude that the surgeon was at fault
for some of this. So we hadsent her for another opinion,
an additional opinion with another handsurgeon who's unaffiliated with that
practice.
And we had that record in throughour surgeon and through our physical
rehab doc. And so itwas pretty well covered.

(41:41):
And one of the things that I did beforethe defense doctor testified is because
we could tell from hisreports what direction he was headed, He wanted to blame
a condition that was actuallydiagnosed in her left hand,
but some of the medical records hadgotten it wrong and said, right. So again,
we've got our issues justlike every other case, right?

(42:03):
You always do focus on those issues we'reworried about a lot as we're prepping
trial.
And so this guy was going that directionand with our own doctors, I'd say,
"Okay,
so you concluded it was not Debutrinsor Debutrins." I still don't know how to
say it correctly. And this other doctor,you aware of what his opinion was.
And then the second opinion doctor,you aware what his opinion was,

(42:24):
which doctor thinks is Deputrins? "Oh,
the defense doctor and which doctor waspaid by Target to testify?" Oh, okay.
And so before the jury ever heardhim speak, we're setting that up.
And then when he's there,
I guess we weren't entirely sure.So the answer to the question about
whether we knew there were errors in hisreport, I would say from his reports,

(42:48):
there were maybe some thingsthat were wrong here and there,
but what we could see from the reportswas that he was becoming more adversarial
and more specific that he was goingfor it. Whereas at the very beginning,
we kind of thought, "Oh,
this guy's not going to be that bad."He's actually very deferential to his
colleague, which we reallywanted and appreciated,

(43:08):
and maybe he's not going to comeout all knives out at trial,
and he sure did. He sure did.
I was curious because Isaw your post about it.
Talk to us a little bit about hisdemeanor and this issue about having to
finish a question, a rhetoricalquestion with the word correct.

(43:31):
Yes. Okay. So as youknow, leading questions,
we're allowed to ask leading questions,
and unless you're trying to getpoints in a mock trial in law school,
you're probably not going tosay correct after everyone.
And I actually coachclients. I'm like, "Listen,
don't be that person who sitson the witness stand and says,
Was that a question? Don't be that person.

(43:54):
We want people to likeyou. So just roll with it.
The questions sound different on crossand they sound on direct and that's part
of how I prepare my people.
No one told him that because whenI was crossing him, honestly,
he just seemed like he wantedto stab me. He was like, really,
I thought he was pretty hostile.
And so when I would ask a question thatdidn't end with correct or something,

(44:17):
he'd just stare at me. And thatmoment of silence we just had,
longer than that, longer than that.He would just stare at me.
And so then I would say,
"Correct." And then hewould answer the question.
So it was interesting. I've hadsomeone be that consistent about that.
I got to tell you a funny war storybecause this is a great war story.

(44:41):
So I'm in Boulder trying a case. Iforget who the defense doctor was,
and I ask him a question and Idon't say correct. And he said,
"Was that a question?" And I said,"Well, I think it was a question.
Yes." And he's like,"Okay." Then he answered it.
And then the next question I asked,I asked the question and I said,
"Correct?" Like that atthe end. Yeah, exactly.

(45:02):
It was so funny and the jurors hated him.The jurors hated him just like yours.
I mean, obviously it was a question,
but I get how witnesses sometimes feellike that's a win for them to try to
point that out, but I don't think itgoes over the way they think it does.
And so there was that. Therewas also just like anger in him.
You could tell because hewas being corrected about getting things in the record

(45:26):
wrong. There was asplint. I showed him that.
I showed him where they issued a splintand he thanked me for that correction.
And then I had him.
Finish a sentence- Hang on.
I want you to set that up a littlebit more because I'm just curious.
So you know in the record he says itcouldn't have been that bad because they
didn't issue a splint. So how didyou set that line of questioning up,

(45:47):
if you don't mind going into the weedsa little bit on that issue? Sure.
So I just reminded.
Him of what he had said on direct andthat he said that she was not issued a
splint at urgent care. And to him,
that was an indication that herinjuries weren't that serious.
And that was one of the bases for hisopinions that he shared and so on and so

(46:08):
on. And as you do, you do that setup,right? And then I just asked him,
and by the way, at thispoint in the trial,
we're pretty late in the trial at thispoint, and I think I mentioned before,
but my wife helps me with these trialsand she's sitting there watching the
jury, right?
And we bring this big king flipchart and we intend to use it for

(46:28):
opening and closing and so onbecause I think it was maybe Tim
Galusi on one of your episodes mentionedthat when the teacher writes something
down, so do you.
And I think that works really well withthese flip charts and opening and close.
And I'm sure people use them when they're
working with witnesses and whatnot.But these jurors in particular,

(46:51):
they had this little monitor in front ofthem in the jury box in federal court.
That's one thing that's super cool aboutfederal court is one HDMI plug gets you
just screens everywhere. And thejurors love that and you could see,
and Jennifer caught this,
that sometimes we would be talking aboutsomething or referencing something in
the record and they would glance downat their screen to see if it was there,

(47:12):
right? So they wanted more. So westart putting everything on screens.
We start putting everything on screensand ended up using the ELMO for
things that we were goingto use flip charts for,
but this was an excellent examplebecause crossing this doctor,
before he even answers the question,
we've got a call out using trialpad and we've got a call out

(47:35):
from the record showing that a splintis in the supplies and then we've got a
call out showing that a splintwas given to her and used.
And then he kind of thanksme for the correction,
but there was another major correctionthat was made and that was in his direct
examination,
he read half of a sentence in a record.And he's actually reading the record as

(48:00):
he's answering the question and what he'sreading is something from that second
opinion doctor we gotwho says, "At this time,
I don't recommend future surgery,
but as time goes on, ifher symptoms continue,
then it's going to be very likely thatshe's going to need this and this and
this and this. " And that was the yearbefore trial and she's still in symptoms.

(48:23):
And so what he reads is,"I'm not recommending future surgery." And he stops.
And I was like, "Uh-uh, that's notthe whole..." So I get up there,
and this was the theatrical momentwhere I'm like, "Now, doctor,
on direct, when you were testifying,
and Target corporation attorneys wereasking you about this and this and this,

(48:45):
you testified about this second opinion,
you respect Dr. Sashar, it wasthe second opinion. You know him,
you're affiliated in the past no longerand so on and just really talked this
guy up. And then you actually read fromthe record. So this wasn't from memory.
You were reading this infront of the jury on direct.

(49:05):
You only read half of a sentence andI'd like you to finish that sentence for
us." So I call it out, it's on theirscreens, they're reading along with him,
he finishes the entire sentenceand the whole time he's doing that,
I'm kind of like givinga look to the jury.
And I felt like that was one of thosetimes in the trial that's maybe a little
bit rare where you feel full license toget a little dramatic and kind of just
call out with your eyes that somethingamazing is happening right now.

(49:28):
And then in the close,
I was able to circle back to that andthis is one of those hallway closed
editions, right? Because again,
this happens like an hour or two beforeI'm closing. And I'm telling the jury,
if we had not pointed that out,
you would not know because theydidn't want to give you that piece.
Why would that be? And knowing therecord, right? You got to know.

(49:51):
You got to know the quote.
To say that that is an epic moment isthe understatement of the year. I mean,
I've never had that great fortune tohave a witness walk into that punch.
Holy cow. And as you'retelling that story,
it's almost like in my mind I'm roleplaying all the different ways I would
mess up landing that punch or takingthat low hanging fruit by being

(50:16):
too aggressive, too in the doctor's face,
asking is there a particular reasonyou chose to not read the ... I mean,
I don't even know. Oh yeah.
Yeah. It's just.
Such an amazing thing. Holy cow, man.
But go back to what you said aboutknowing the record. So let me ask you,
when that doctor stopped, did youinstantly know like, wait a minute,

(50:38):
he didn't finish the restof the sentence? I knew.
It in the moment.
Wow.I.
Knew it in the moment. I was like, no,that's not the whole quote. I mean,
it's important, right?
And that's not like some super remotepiece of the record that you're like, "Oh,
this happened three years before she felland I don't remember exactly what was
said." No, this is important stuff. Thisis stuff that we sent her out to get.

(50:59):
So of course we know what's in it,
but I think it's a good lesson forknowing the record in its entirety because
little things like that,right? If you don't know,
they can definitely get away with thatlive in trial if you have not deposed
them, which I still feel like,
imagine all of that happeningin deposition and how much better he would've come
off live in front of the jury, I think.

(51:21):
Yeah. We would've issued a supplementalreport, correcting- Actually,
it doesn't change my opinion atall. I actually knew all of that.
Right, right, right. Exactly. Itwould've been like addendum number six,
but I felt like even though there's alot of comfort to be had in deposing in
this case, it would'vehelped him more than.
Us. I mean, I got to be honest,
I personally have kind of come to theworld where I don't really like deposing

(51:45):
defense doctors that often,
unless it's just going to be to confirmbias stuff because it costs money,
then they kind of knowwhere you're coming from.
And I much prefer to just sort of havethem not know what to expect out of me
because I feel like maybe they're alittle bit nervous and I don't know,
it's just obviously it's a case bycase situation and in your case,

(52:06):
obviously it worked out brilliantly.So final result in this case,
$2.7 million for your client.Talk to us a little bit.
I know we talked beforehand and we'recoming up at the end of our time here.
What you took away about theimportance of either using flip
charts or using ...
You mentioned that the jurors in federalcourt have little monitors and that if

(52:30):
I'm hearing you correctly,
they almost expected throughout thetrial to see things on that monitor,
backing up what's being said. So howdid your experience in this trial impact
how you will try cases in the future?
We didn't pivot, and Iwas proud of us for that.
We pivoted to using thosescreens for everything,

(52:52):
and I felt like it was reallyeffective closing argument.
Instead of flip charts,
we used an ELMO when I was justwriting just like overhead projector,
your teacher kind of thing.And I felt like it landed super well and
it really worked well. So Iwas glad we made that decision,
but we also went over the verdict formand there was testimony throughout our

(53:13):
case to try to kind of set up anddistinguish physical impairment from pain
and suffering. And obviously that'simportant in part because CAPS.
So there was testimony that was verydetailed about the impairment maybe even
being the worst of it for her,despite pain all the time.
And all that impairment affected her.

(53:34):
And then that was all rehashed duringthe close and we went through the verdict
form on the ELMO and I showed themthe lines and it's important that this
go here and this go there. And
it says on the verdict form, don't putphysical impairment damages on this line,
they go below.
And then we got a jury question whilethey were deliberating. The first jury

(53:56):
question we got, you'll love this,was, "Can we have a calculator?".
Oh my.
God.
Never happened.
To me. Oh yes, here's the calculator. And
then the second jury question was alittle more sad. It was, what do we do?
Where do impairment damages go?
But it didn't say likeimpairment of quality of life.
It didn't say physical impairment.

(54:18):
So we're in federal court and thejudge that we're in front of was
kind of like already prepared an answerin advance and then we're just arguing
with him about why he should notuse it. And his answer was- And.
Always works out well in federal court.
I know, right? And hisanswer was, of course, well,
his answer was just like that physicalimpairment line is for anything you

(54:41):
didn't include on non-economicdamages, which absolutely.
I disagree wholeheartedlywith that's not the law.
And I feel like that really hurt usbecause then the entire non-economic
damages award or the entire ...
We got economic damages and we got painand suffering and zero for physical
impairment because they believed theyhad included it in the non-economic.

(55:03):
And we know that because they followedbasically what we asked for on the per
diem arguments.
So.
For sure that they agreed thatthere were physical impairment.
Damages, but they putthem all on one line.
And I have also been the recipient ofzero and impairment and like one and a
half million in non-economics. So I feelyour pain and it doesn't help. I mean,
the non-economics include impairmentin the quality of life. They do,

(55:27):
which we never.
Said. And maybe that was amistake, maybe it wasn't,
but we never said impairment of thequality of life because we didn't want to
confuse them on that subject.So I never used that phrase.
I used pain and sufferingfor non-economic, and I used physical impairment,
and I tried to distinguish impairmentfrom non-economic at every opportunity.
But if had it to do over, right?What I would do, of course, knowing,

(55:50):
because you never know exactly whata jury's going to get hung up on,
but it does make you wish you had a timemachine. So you could go back and say,
"Well, it's really important. Hearme on this. " Physical impairment,
physical impairment, because wecouldn't get a definition in, right?
But physical impairment,
this is the testimony youheard of physical impairment that goes on this line.
I think we can get away with that.

(56:11):
Yeah. I've just come to endorsethe Cheney Galuzi that impairment
is the physiologic change of the humanbody because then that's like the
cause and the effect is theimpairment of the quality of life,
but what they're ... And it's stillso difficult to do, but it seems like,
at least right now,that's where I'm landing.
So two more quick things since we'reout of time that I wanted to cover.

(56:33):
The first is, because I know the answerto this question and it's amazing,
tell us about the pre-suit offerthat you turned down to go to trial.
We turned down 500,000. I mean, listeners,
they turned down $500,000 on a slip andfall case and went to trial in federal
court. Just absolutely amazing.
And the last little point that Iwanted our listeners to consider,

(56:55):
because you've talked about theimportance of using visuals throughout the
trial.And I would just encourage people,
if they have a CVN subscriptionor to go on YouTube,
Mark Lanier is the freakingmaster at using Elmo in cross.
So he goes through and just does theselittle diagrams and it's just like you
said, it's just like a teacher,

(57:16):
but I feel like jurors are so usedto seeing the teacher do that during
cross.
It was really effective and it justmakes me think that flip charts are
underutilized throughout trial.
And that's a big sorryDe Lamont thing too.
Anybody that's done anythingunder her, she's huge about that.
So I'm going to endeavor to use moreflip charts throughout trial. Well,

(57:39):
I think the.
Question about whether you're using abig fancy flip chart or an Elmo with
screens is just the location ofscreens. Yeah. It's just like,
what's more visible?
The flip chart's huge and the flip chart'sreally nice and the flip chart I feel
like maybe feels a bit more authentic orsomething when you're using it as like
teachery. It's like, yeah,

(58:01):
it maybe reminds peopleof education in a way,
but then also just havingscreens everywhere.
And if you do have screens everywhere.
Then maybe that's the option totake. Yeah, the magic's thought.
I like flip charts because ittakes a while to write on them,
so that gives jurors the time toprocess what you're doing. Yes. Well,
Vern, thank you so much.I mean, this has flown by.

(58:24):
We could go for hours, obviously.We could talk- Absolutely.
I know I could.
You don't have any trouble gettingpeople on here talking about their trial
wins, I'm sure, right?
Well, no, this one inparticular, it's just,
I love talking trial strategybecause it's just so fascinating,
especially when it works out.I mean, this was a home run,
this was an amazing result and I'msure you're just itching to get back.

(58:48):
Yes, absolutely. And thank you so muchfor having me on here to talk about it.
It's awesome to do this,
especially given how much I have leanedon others doing work like this to
prepare myself. It's been a huge help.
Well, thank you for coming on.
And until next time when we haveanother person eager to come on,
and I'm just going to throw it outthere, we've been following the listserv.

(59:09):
There have been amazing verdictsafter amazing verdicts because the
tide has changed. We don't reallyface these tort rooms. I mean,
it's still out there, but it'snot this pervasive problem before.
And it's a lot better to be a plaintiff'slawyer now than to be a defense lawyer
10 times out of 10, but it's a goodtime to be a plaintiff's lawyer.
And every one of thoseverdicts, well earned and just.

(59:32):
And that's what's great about this work.That's what's great about this work.
It's awesome to see that coming through.
You get warm feelings in your heartbecause you know that there's some justice
being done and that's amazing.
Yeah, it's great.
Just take a moment of gratitude for theamazing fortune we have to be able to do
this kind of work. I mean, I lovemy job. I can tell you love yours.

(59:53):
I love what we do and thanks forthat. Thanks, Vern, for coming on.
Really appreciate it.And I Until next time,
we'll be back with another episode ofthe Colorado Trial Lawyer Connection
Podcast. Thank you for joining us.
We hope you've gained valuable insightsand inspiration from today's courtroom
warriors, and thank youfor being in the arena.
Make sure to subscribe and join us nexttime as we continue to dissect real

(01:00:17):
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