Top Defense Results: Sohn v. Easton-Bell Sports Inc.

James J. Yukevich, a partner at Yukevich Cavanaugh who won a defense victory for a bicycle helmet manufacturer in a product liability trial, credited sophisticated technological tools for helping his firm prevail at trial.

The plaintiff in the case was a cyclist who suffered severe brain damage while wearing defendant Easton-Bell Sports Inc.'s helmet. His attorneys argued it was improperly designed.

Among the disputes that arose between opposing counsel was the location of skull fractures. So the Los Angeles-based Yukevich had an expert create a three-dimensional model of the plaintiff's skull using a 3-D printer.

"The plaintiffs wanted to say it was in one place because it was good for them," he said. But the model allowed jurors to "see the fracture location very clearly, and it was exactly where our experts believed it was."

That evidence, he said, helped persuade jurors last August that his client was not at fault. Sohn v. Easton-Bell Sports Inc., LC095289 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Oct. 27, 2011).

The plaintiffs' attorneys, he said, contended that the design of the Giro Pneumo bicycle helmet left 60-year-old Jeffrey Sohn's head exposed when he fell at the end of an 85-mile ride near Sunol in 2009.

But Yukevich's arguments in a Van Nuys courtroom, paired with the skull model, demonstrated that an alternative design proposed by a plaintiff's expert witness "didn't have coverage in the area the skull fracture occurred," he said.

At a time when makers of helmets for football, cycling and other sports are increasingly under scrutiny, Yukevich said, this verdict could have broad implications.

"The message that goes with this is that just because someone has an injury while wearing any kind of helmet does not mean there was something defective with the helmet," he said.

- Chase Scheinbaum

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