Bill Smith · Joe Horras
Turning The $72,000 Pre-Suit Offer Into A $554,000 Verdict and $760,000 Judgment in Conservative Rural Idaho
May 22, 2025 5:30 PM||
On August 3, 2020 Ann and her adult daughters Megan and Lillian, decided to take the three grandkids for a drive and then a picnic. Megan and Lillian were babysitting their niece and nephews and Lillian needed to have some blood drawn in Gooding. The family piled in their 1999 Chevy Suburban and took the I-84 from their home in Jerome, Idaho to the Wendell Idaho exit. There were six family members in the car. The three adults were in the front seat, and three kids were in the back seat. The family left the interstate taking the Wendell exit headed west and was stopped waiting to turn right at a stop sign two or three cars back.
Meanwhile the Defendant, who happened to live about a mile from the Peters family, was also taking a trip to Gooding on I-84. Defendant navigated the same exit behind the Peters family. Defendant failed to stop or even slow and plowed into the Peters family and their Suburban at 67 mph. There were no skid marks.
We think Defendant dozed off. Defendant had four different “doping drugs” in her system to at least therapeutic levels.
Everyone in the Suburban was hurt to some degree or another. All of the injuries were soft tissue.
This webinar will teach you:
1.How to deal with an absentee defendant.
2.What the focus groups taught us about our case.
3.How to deal with the “no objective findings” defense.
4.How to get a six-figure award of attorney fees on a non 12-120(4) third-party case in Idaho.
5.How to leverage your third-party case to pay out your first-party case, and only try one case.
6.How to put your trial team in a position for success long before you show up on the courthouse steps.
7.How to keep the focus on non-economic damages.
8.How we got fees from State Farm on the third-party case and the first-party case.
The case dealt with these issues:
1.Lillian was on her way to have blood drawn for a preexisting head injury when the crash happened.
2.All the injuries were soft tissue injuries non conducive to imaging.
3.Defense was able to exclude the testimony of our forensic toxicologist.
4.The Defendant moved to another state mid lawsuit and we were notified in the days leading up to the trial of her intention not to attend.
5.The defense contested every single possible issue in front of the jury.
6.The hired doctor’s “all better in 8 to 10 weeks defense”.
7.What to do with their forensic neuro psychologist.
If you can't attend Live, Watch On Demand