Top Plaintiff's Verdict by Dollar: Casillas v. Landstar Ranger Inc. et al., $34.555 Million

Personal injury, negligence

Los Angeles County Superior Court

Hon. Elizabeth Allen White

Plaintiff's attorneys: Panish Shea & Boyle LLP, Brian J. Panish, Thomas A. Schultz, Erika Contreras, Deborah Chang; Banafsheh, Danesh & Javid PC, H. Sean Banafsheh, Kevin Danesh, Raphael D. Javid

Defense attorneys: Yukevich Cavanaugh, James J. Yukevich, Patrick J. Cimmarusti; Klinedinst PC, Kevin J. Gramling, Erik E. Woodbury

A 19-year-old who was knocked from his bicycle by a tractor-trailer in downtown Los Angeles and forced to have part of his left knee amputated faces many obstacles. In court, one was proving that he deserved a substantial sum of money.

Brian J. Panish, a partner at Panish Shea & Boyle LLP who represented plaintiff Alan Casillas, dealt with those hurdles in the lawsuit against Landstar Ranger Inc., which a jury decided should pay a lot more than the seven-figure award the company said he deserved.

"These cases settle for a lot less, and defendants were fighting the damages very substantially, saying he made a good recovery and that he wasn't as injured as we claimed," Panish said. "People don't realize how traumatic a below-the-knee amputation can be."

Weaving together family narrative with facts from the accident, Panish and his team told the story of a Mexican immigrant family whose search for a better life was devastated by the crippling of their promising son.

A manual laborer without a high school diploma, the young Casillas could no longer hold a job, and went from running, biking and swimming regularly to having relatives haul him up and down the stairs of the two-story family home.

Showering alone was no longer an option, and nerve endings damaged during amputation caused unbearable pain when wearing a prosthetic.

Landstar Ranger sought to hold Casillas partially responsible for being an inattentive cyclist. Panish focused his opening statement on the design of the roadway in question, showing his client was stopped on the sidewalk at the time of the truck's clipped turn.

Landstar soon admitted negligence and suggested Casillas deserved about $5 million.