Congratulations to Kyle R. Wright of the Ohio law firm Kademenos, Wisehart, Hines, Dolyk & Wright Co. LPA for securing a $500,000 verdict on behalf of a client with a nonsurgical disc bulge. Kyle used lessons from Jesse Wilson’s Witness Preparation, Trial by Human, Don’t Eat the Bruises, Deeper Cuts, The Domino Theory, and Polarizing the Case to achieve a verdict that exceeded the highest settlement offer—ten times over.
Verdict Highlights
The Story
The case involved a rear-end auto crash that left the client with a disc bulge in her neck. Lead attorney Kyle Wright used storytelling techniques from Jesse Wilson’s Witness Preparation to showcase his client's strength and resilience. The trial was held in a small rural town where plaintiff's personal injury verdicts are rare. Nonetheless, the judge and jury were receptive to the case and ultimately awarded a favorable verdict.
“I used Jesse’s techniques to talk about my client, Jane,* before and after the crash,” Kyle explains. “Essentially, we helped the jury reframe her story from one of a victim to that of a victor. The stories told through our lay witnesses were especially powerful. They weren’t talking about the client as a victim. Instead, the focus was on the client as a fighter and a hard worker – that despite her injuries and her pain, she still kept going.”
The case’s theme, built around the teachings in Witness Preparation, was that Jane was a fighter and that she was still doing the best she could.
*Name has been changed.
The Case
The case was not without its challenges; at the time of trial, the plaintiff side had some big obstacles to overcome. “Jane hadn’t had any recent medical treatment, and was working part-time,” explains Kyle. “She had been disabled from necrotizing pancreatitis before the crash, and she had not been treated by a doctor for pain for 34 months by the time of trial. Even after the crash, she found a part-time job serving lunches to children where she could work a few hours a day.”
The Trial and Verdict
The case was tried in Sandusky County: a small, predominantly conservative county in Ohio. “It's kind of a county where they don't have plaintiff's personal injury verdicts,” explains Kyle. “We've asked the court and the judge and some of the clerks, ‘When was the last time you had a plaintiff's personal injury verdict in this county?’, and they didn't know. Some folks couldn't even remember the last time or the plaintiff's personal injury verdict.” Kyle heard from the court that they were surprised that he would try a nonsurgical case with only 14 months of medical treatment.
Kyle received a $50,000 offer at mediation, about 60 days before trial. “We would have settled for $75,000,” he says. Instead the jury verdict rendered a half a million dollar verdict in favor of the plaintiff. The jury—a mixed group of young and old, men and women—also awarded future damages for future medical care, citing a permanent injury as the reason.
Trial Guides Titles in Action
Kyle is a devoted Trial Guides reader; not only has he read nearly every book in our catalog, but he credits several titles with this outstanding outcome. “Every single thing we did—from opening statement to calling lay witnesses to closing argument—everything was intentional. Our strategy was pulled from a variety of resources, but mostly from the different books from Trial Guides.”
In particular, Kyle credits the following titles with reaching this outstanding outcome:
Jesse Wilson’s Witness Preparation is available in paperback, ebook and audiobook read by the author.
“We were able to tell Jane’s story—who she was born after the crash—through Jesse's themes and teachings in his book,” says Kyle. “Essentially, we showed how Jane went from victim to a victor. We told stories through our lay witnesses that were powerful, with a focus on Jane as a hard worker, despite her injuries, limitations, and pain. Jane didn't complain, but just kept her head down and kept going about her business. And I think that really resonated with our jury.”
Next, Kyle used a variety of teachings from Nick Rowley’s Trial by Human and Edward P. Capozzi’s The Domino Theory, Second Edition. “I used some of Trial by Human for my opening,” he explains. “This helped sort of set the scene about who my client was.” He also drew inspiration from The Domino Theory, using tools from this book to establish proximate cause.
Edward P. Capozzi’s The Domino Theory, Second Edition is available in paperback and ebook.
Next, Kyle used strategies from Keith Mitnik’s books, Deeper Cuts and Don’t Eat the Bruises. These helped him strengthen his case by focusing the jury’s attention on only the facts that mattered—and prevented the defense from creating distractions from the issues at hand.
Keith Mitnik's Don't Eat The Bruises is available in paperback, ebook and audiobook. Deeper Cuts is also available in paperback, ebook and audiobook.
Finally, Kyle clinched his case in closing by drawing from Rick Friedman’s Polarizing the Case. As with so many successful closings, Kyle employed Friedman’s timeless teachings to give the jury a simple framework from which to draw their conclusions. By polarizing the case, Kyle drove home the damages in question.
Rick Friedman’s Polarizing The Case is available in paperback and ebook.