TLC Grad Jim Buxton (Sept ’09) using all the techniques of Discovering the Story to know his clients and their stories so well that he could fight successfully for justice against the City of Oklahoma who flooded his clients’ houses with sewage and refused to clean it up. “Judge demurred out his bigger money claims for Nuisance (capped at 175K per person) on a legal technicality at the end of the 3rd day, with all but closing left to do the next morning,” reported Jim. Clients were not happy, to say the least, and apparently neither was the jury. Read on for the rest of Jim’s story: “Two of my clients did not want to come back for closing the next day because all they could get was 25K a person and it was not worth the fight. They did not believe the jury would give them even $25,000 each, when the jury instructions said they were only entitled to the repair costs of their homes after they were flooded with raw sewage, which averaged about 6K per house. I knew the verdict would be reduced after their verdict, but the jury did not get to know that. Two clients were ready to go to court to hear the closing arguments, the other two wanted to settle and get it over with, but the defendant refused to settle so we had no choice: We returned to court with a zero offer, and we had to let the jury decide. The defense counsel told the Jury that they would not be following the law if they gave more than 6K to each household. I remembered everything I learned at TLC and I told them I did not care what the law said, my clients deserved a hell of a lot more than 6K! I told them I didn’t know what the number was, I’d told them my clients’ plights and stories, so I just asked them to go figure it out! I told them (and I meant it!) that they were smarter than me and I was tired of trying to figure it out. I reminded them they were the most powerful people in the courtroom and I asked them to go back and find a way to not screw these people again. I said to my clients, Boys, are you ready for me to give you to this jury? I promise they wont screw you like the City did. When I heard my last client’s yes, I looked at each juror in the eye one last time and said They are yours. I dont know how they were reading those instructions, but somehow they wrote down $200,000.00 on a verdict form for me to frame for my clients to hand in their houses so they could understand that Justice is a symbol of what they are worth, not a dollar amount. It is $400,000 total jury verdict that will probably be reduced by state imposed caps, but still, considering the City had offered them no more than $6,000 per house, my clients feel that not only were they listened to, but they were vindicated! After it was over, I talked to all the jurors and they all told me that they would have given them $1 million if I had asked for it. I now have to fight to hold the verdict, but my clients deserve it. We’ll see. Justice is alive in well in OK. I couldn’t have done with without knowing what I learned from TLC.”
Posted on: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 06:22:43 +0000
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