Jun 29, 2016
The Kern High School District agreed Wednesday to pay $10.5 million to a former student injured in a violent dog pile that broke out during a 2010 Bakersfield High School pep rally, cutting short an ongoing civil trial that threatened to cost the district’s insurance company even more money.
The student, Mitch Carter, will use that money for healthcare-related costs, his trial attorney Nicholas Rowley said during a press conference outside Kern County Superior Court.
A jury had already found the district liable for Carter’s injuries, which his lawyers said included brain damage. It was in the process of determining monetary damages and was expected to award more than $45 million, Rowley said based on interviews his side conducted with jurors in court Wednesday.
“They would have given him more, but the school district would have appealed,” Rowley said, adding the appeals process could have lasted years. Carter needs that money now, he said.
Continue reading the full story on Bakersfield.com
Mar 14, 2016
Los Angeles – A California state court jury has slammed the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority with an $8.35 million verdict in a lawsuit filed by the family of a Vietnamese immigrant who died after being rear-ended by an MTA vehicle.
The jury voted 9-3 on March 8 following a three-day trial to award $8.28 million in non-economic damages and $75,451 for medical costs and funeral expenses to Xian Lin’s widow Ma Mei Liao and his adult children, Yaer Lin and Lian Lin, according to an attorney representing the family. The MTA had already stipulated to being responsible for the accident, so the trial was limited to determining non-economic damages.
The award is substantially less than the $80 to $140 million attorney Nicholas C. Rowley of Carpenter Zuckerman & Rowley LLP had asked the jury to award during his closing argument, but it also beat the MTA’s highest pretrial settlement offer of $5 million, Rowley told Courtroom View Network. He claimed the MTA increased their settlement offer to $7 million after the selection of a jury.
Continue reading the full story on CVN.com
Jun 19, 2015
A Riverside couple has won a $40 million award – one of Riverside County’s biggest civil verdicts ever – in a suit over their son’s 2009 stabbing at a TGI Fridays.
Orlando Jordan, a 33-year-old Riverside resident, was stabbed to death at the TGI Fridays at the Galleria at Tyler in January 2009 after a fight with two other men.
Rey and Carmen Jordan sued TGI Fridays and the Riverside restaurant’s operator, New Jersey-based Briad Group, arguing that employees knowingly served alcohol to intoxicated minors, including one of their son’s attackers, said attorney Nicholas Rowley, who represented Carmen Jordan in the trial.
Court records confirmed that a Riverside County Superior Court jury decided in favor of the Jordans on Thursday, June 18, though court documents with more details were unavailable Friday. A court verdict form provided by Rowley showed the jury awarded the Jordans $40 million for the loss of their son’s “love, companionship, comfort, care” and other qualities.
Continue reading the full story on PE.com
