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    Steven R. Young’s “Closing Argument”

    Click here to listen to the full episode.
     
    All of the verdicts that I have obtained, one that was particularly satisfying for me was on behalf of a guy with an economics degree from UCLA who had developed a real estate business in Colorado, lived in California, had several homes here, and he had lost it all. He was involved in an automobile accident. He was hit. He developed something called thoracic outlet syndrome. And it is incredibly painful and debilitating. And the insurance company wouldn’t pay, his own insurance company.
     
    The attorney who was handling the case came to me and said, can you try this for us? I met with the client because that’s the most important thing, I have to know whether I can connect with the client. I have to know whether I believe the client, I have to know whether I like the client. Because if I’m going to trial, I have to actually love the client. Because if I don’t, the case is flat. There’s nothing to reach out and touch the jurors with. And the way you do that is with your love for your client.
     
    So he’s sitting in my conference room, kind of slouched, chin on his chest, a hand holding up his face, and he periodically would look over his fingers, as I was talking. So we had our meeting with the attorney who told us all about the case, and the client complained about what had happened. And I said to the attorney and the client, there’s a significant challenge in this case, and I don’t know if I can overcome that. He says, What’s the challenge?
     
    So the challenge is sitting across the table from me. Your client projects an arrogant, disinterested, uncaring attitude. I think if he’s willing to work on it, that we can shape him. If he goes into trial like this, the jury’s going to reject him. Just like he’s rejecting everybody across the table from him. I said, are you willing to work on this? And he said, after thinking, yeah, I’ll work on it. Didn’t seem too convincing. So I said, okay, if you’re willing to work, I’m willing to take the case.
     
    But we needed to figure out how to quantify damages. To me, that was the biggest challenge in the case. I found someone who had been a real estate developer in Colorado, and I found an appraiser who did appraisals for the county tax assessor, and I got the doctors I needed. And one of the attorneys that worked for me found a bad faith expert. So we went to trial and the trial was dirty. For some reason, the insurance company just pulled out every dirty trick in the book. And the trial was a war. I didn’t understand it because it shouldn’t feel that way to me, but they were making it a war. We get to the end of the case and I give a closing argument and it was a good one. The jury gave me $10 million.
     
    We then shifted into the punitive phase because the trial was bifurcated. So the second phase was on the insurance company’s net worth. What should we hit them with the punitive damages? The firm, which is a huge defense firm, brought in their California manager to try the second phase of the trial. And he was smooth and he was slick. And we made our arguments. And I gave my closing argument and I asked for $60 million in punitives. And they came back with an award of $13 million in punitives. And I ended up with a total verdict of $23 million. Now, the reason that I would take this to tell you is not because it’s an eight figure verdict, but because of what happened after the first phase verdict.
     

    When the jury read its verdict and gave me, to the penny, everything that I asked for, there was a scream in the courtroom. It came from behind me. I turned around to see what it was. It was my client. He had collapsed into tears, crying openly like a baby in front of the jury, in front of the judge, in front of me. He did not care that anyone saw him, because he saw that his destroyed life had been returned. He had a way to go back into business, to get houses back, to rebuild from what this company stole from him. That is the joy and glory of being a trial attorney.

    Click here to view Steven’s Profile.

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