A hypothetical case study by the Law Offices of Steven R. Young
After more than four decades in the courtroom and nearly 200 civil trials, I have seen one pattern repeat itself with striking regularity: insurance companies and corporate defendants bet that injured people will accept a lowball offer rather than face the uncertainty of a jury. Most of the time, they are right. But when a client has a legitimate case, the facts, and the right legal team, a jury changes everything.
This illustrates what I mean.
The Case: A Fall, a Denial, and a Decision to Fight
“Marco” was a 47-year-old commercial construction worker who suffered a catastrophic knee injury when a scaffold at a job site in Anaheim collapsed beneath him. The property management company that controlled the site had received multiple safety complaints about the scaffolding in the weeks before the accident. In response, they did nothing.
Marco needed two surgeries, which left him unable to perform physical labor. His medical bills exceeded $320,000. The property management company’s insurer offered $85,000 to settle. Their theory: Marco was partially at fault because he had seen the scaffolding before he climbed it.
Marco came to my office, I counsel him to say “no” to the insurance company’s offer.
What Can Happen at Trial
1. Were the safety complaints admissible?
Yes. Internal maintenance logs and emails showed that site supervisors had flagged the scaffolding as potentially unsafe 19 days before the accident. The defense argued those documents were irrelevant. The court disagreed. Those documents become the spine of Marco’s case.
2. Could comparative fault sink the claim?
Not when the evidence shows the defendant’s negligence was the dominant cause. California’s pure comparative fault system reduces a plaintiff’s recovery proportional to their own fault, but it does not bar recovery. We presented expert testimony establishing that the scaffold’s failure point was a structural defect invisible to the naked eye. The jury assigned 12% fault to Marco and 88% to the property management company.
3. Will a jury actually award pain and suffering damages to a construction worker?
This is always the hardest to predict. What we know is that juries respond to dignity and honesty. Marco’s family testified about how the fall changed his life, and what it meant to him to no longer be able to support his family. We did not ask for sympathy. We asked the jury to apply the law. They awarded $1.4 million in non-economic damages on top of all past and future medical costs, for a total verdict of $1.82 million.
The Takeaway
Cases like Marco’s are won or lost long before the jury is seated. They depend on how thoroughly the record is built, whether the right expert witnesses are retained early, and whether the lawyer at the table has gone to trial many times rather than always hoping for settlement.
If you or someone you know has been seriously injured due to another party’s negligence, do not let an insurance offer be the end of the conversation. Learning what your case is worth requires an experienced trial attorney, not a case settling attorney.
Call the Law Offices of Steven R. Young at (714) 673-6500 or visit juryattorney.com/contact-us/ to schedule a consultation.
