Congratulations to our dedicated litigation team in Las Vegas! This most recent WSHB victory involved a plaintiff motorcyclist who sued our client, a well respected national security company, and its security officer (who was driving a company vehicle on a patrol route). The motorcyclist claimed the security officer drove the patrol vehicle from the northbound lane of travel into the middle storage lane, followed by a sudden right-hand turn across the motorcyclist’s lane of travel, thus cutting him off and causing the collision. The motorcyclist was transported by ambulance to the Emergency Room and received medical treatment and physical therapy for months. He was placed on leave without pay for two months from his job as a mental health nurse because he was unable to restrain erratic patients while wearing a cast. The case was additionally challenging because the Police Department cited our security officer for making an unsafe right hand turn, to which our driver later pleaded no contest.
Before trial, our attorneys' successfully defeated plaintiff’s motion for spoliation of evidence and request for an adverse inference jury instruction due to our client’s immediate repair of the patrol vehicle. Also, through pre-trial motion practice, we successfully obtained Court rulings to exclude the accident report, traffic citation, and any liability or causation opinions of the police officer at trial. Nonetheless, and over numerous objections, plaintiff elicited adverse testimony from the police officer that “based on the evidence at the scene, the security officer made a right hand turn from the center storage lane.” On cross-examination, the police officer conceded that he did not independently recall this accident, and he would have to defer to his deposition testimony in which he conceded the vehicles were moved prior to his arrival. Thus, his trial testimony of observing the plaintiff lying on the ground in pain next to his overturned motorcycle must have been in error. The impeachment was strategically tactful, considering multiple jurors were related to law enforcement.
After only one hour, the jury returned a defense verdict.