Jurors return $1.6 million personal injury verdict against State Farm after bicyclists collide
To recoup damages, the plaintiff's counsel honed in on the defendant’s homeowners, rather than auto, insurance policy.
Fulton County State Court jurors awarded $1.6 million in damages to a bicyclist injured by another bicyclist during a collision within an Atlanta, Georgia bike lane.
Prevailing plaintiffs counsel with Tobin Injury Law credited the seven-figure outcome to their decision to focus on their client’s pain, rather than medical expenses while engaging jurors with memorable visuals.
“We did not introduce the medical bills even though they were over $160,000,” said Darren Tobin. “We took a big risk with this, but it paid off.”
‘Fly off his bicycle’
Tobin teamed with firm colleague Campbell Walker to represent plaintiff Sean McGaha after he endured injuries to his hands and wrists during the March 2021 biking collision with defendant Robert Peek.
According to the plaintiff’s complaint, McGaha had been riding “in the bicycle lane on 10th Street in Midtown Atlanta” as Peek traveled in the opposite direction in a motorized vehicle lane.
“Peek wrongfully merged into the bicycle lane that Plaintiff was travelling in … [and] collided with Plaintiff,” the complaint alleged. “The collision caused serious personal injuries to Plaintiff.”
Read the Complaint
Plaintiffs counsel briefed that the head-on collision caused their client “to fly off his bicycle” before enduring “severe injuries to his hands and wrists that required multiple surgeries.”
Pretrial settlement offers
In order to recoup damages on their client’s behalf, plaintiffs counsel honed in on the defendant’s homeowners, rather than automotive, insurance policy.
“How we found out that homeowners insurance applied in this particular case was we asked for the policies and read them cover to cover early on, looking for any coverage that may apply,” Tobin said.
However, plaintiffs counsel said efforts to resolve the dispute with State Farm on its insured’s behalf stalled after the parties could not agree on a damages value. Tobin said they offered to settle the personal injury complaint for $1.2 million, but that the defendant “filed an offer of settlement for $430,000.”
“The highest offer came on the eve of trial when it was suggested that State Farm may be inclined to pay little over $500,000,” Tobin said. “[Our client] did not accept.”
When reached for comment, defense counsel Karl Broder of Beck, Owen & Murray in Griffin politely declined. According to Broder, firm policy prevented him from being able to comment on pending matters.
However, a consolidated pretrial order shed light on the parties’ inability to reach a resolution.
While the defendant didn’t dispute “that his negligence proximately caused injuries to Plaintiff’s hand and wrist” and admitted responsibility “for causing the bicycle accident in which Plaintiff was injured,” he disputed “the amount of any award for pain [and] suffering.”
Read: Consolidated Pretrial Order
Unable to resolve the dispute, the matter proceeded to trial before Fulton County State Court Senior Judge Jerry Baxter on Jan. 23.
“Hold up a ‘road map’”
Throughout the three-day trial, Tobin said plaintiffs counsel centered their strategy on capturing and maintaining the jury’s attention — and favor. In support of the strategy, the plaintiffs duo made the decision to focus damages on their client’s lingering pain rather than his $160,000 in medical expenses.
“That was a big number that could have hurt us since we didn’t claim it,” Tobin said. “We did not want the jury to feel tied to that number when determining what the pain and suffering was worth. Instead, we had our client on cross-examination say that he was there in court because his hands were still in pain almost three years later.”
To convey the value of their client’s pain to the jury, plaintiffs counsel deployed a variety of visual aids. From a monitor and television to flip charts and display boards, Tobin and Walker helped jurors visualize their trial theme that ”broken rules caused broken bones.”
“Mr. McGaha, who was an extremely athletic and active man, an avid cyclist and water polo player, and was super handy around his house, had his passions broken from him,” Tobin said. “We kept repeating that no one chooses to give up the activities they love and that Mr. McGaha had good days and bad days but that his pain was still present.”
In addition to repetition, Tobin said plaintiffs counsel succeeded at achieving a captive jury by using a “road map” to alert jurors about the testimony and evidence they’d encounter next. Tobin said the handheld visual that “looked like a simple road with exit signs” conveyed for both witnesses and jurors “where [plaintiffs counsel] … were headed.”
As jurors heard live testimony from the plaintiff’s family and friends on the stand and watched McGaha’s surgeon’s video deposition, Tobin said plaintiffs counsel used a document camera “to handwrite key words as each witness spoke so that the jury would hear and see the words being spoken.”
But the pair’s incorporation of visual aids didn’t stop there.
In addition to using a magnetized board with bicycle magnets to reiterate elements of the collision, Tobin said he rolled the plaintiff’s bicycle into the courtroom for jurors to inspect its handle bars that’d been damaged alongside his client’s hands and wrists.
“When Darren wheeled the bicycle in to the courtroom he simply said, ‘Mangled handlebars and mangled hands,’” Walker said. “He held the bicycle and wheeled it out. That simple sentence and the visual that came with it resonated with some of the jurors.”
$1.6 million verdict
The visually themed storytelling paid off.
After three days of trial, jurors returned a $1.6 million verdict in favor of the plaintiff.
“Almost every juror took notes during the trial,” Walker said. “Most of them wrote down the numbers Darren asked for during the closing argument.”
Read: Verdict & Judgment
However, it’s not clear how much the prevailing plaintiff will net. According to Tobin, the parties entered into a high-low agreement.
“The verdict was within the upper range of that high-low,” Tobin said. “Plaintiff agreed to a high-low before the trial because he felt he could not mentally go through a second trial or an appeal and he wanted closure. The verdict brought him tremendous closure as well as tears of gratitude.”
Plaintiffs counsel commended opposing counsel Broder for both his closing arguments and handling of the dispute. Tobin noted that while awaiting the jury verdict, his client expressed that Broder “had behaved with respect toward him and his parents on the stand.”
“The fact that my own client recognized the respect Karl displayed to him and his family members speaks volumes about how gentlemanlike Karl behaved during the trial and the years of litigation,” Tobin said.
Legal takeaways
After speaking with jurors after the trial, plaintiffs counsel deemed the verdict validation of their contention that “visuals matter” and “simple messages are powerful.”
“Jurors want to see and hear the evidence. Gone are the days of a lawyer just walking up to the podium with a notebook,” Tobin said. “We never once stood behind the podium. We stayed right by the jury as best we could and had the witnesses look at the jury when they answered questions.”
For plaintiffs counsel, the outcome also validated that they’d made a wise decision to focus on their client’s pain rather than medical expenses.
Tobin pointed out that during voir dire a prospective juror questioned “who pays for any compensation that’s awarded?”
“Someone said the defendant would be the one paying but because we could not explain it was homeowners insurance that would in fact pay the verdict, we felt concerned how that would adversely influence the jurors in to not wanting to award a substantial verdict,” Tobin said. “Jurors intuitively think that auto insurance protects defendants in motor vehicle accidents, but here we had a bicycle on bicycle. None of the jurors had the faintest idea that homeowners insurance was in play.”
In interviews after the trial, Tobin said plaintiffs counsel learned jurors had held “serious concern about who would pay the verdict.”
“None of them considered that insurance may pay which really was telling and made us feel particularly proud of how well we must have presented our case given that the jurors thought the defendant himself would have to pay the verdict,” Tobin said.