Christopher B. Dolan

SAN FRANCISCO - A past president of Consumer Attorneys of California, Christopher B. Dolan has been winning million-dollar jury verdicts in difficult trials for more than a quarter century. But last fall, after a year and a half of pandemic court closures, he was bored and frustrated. "What is the purpose of being a trial lawyer if you can't go to trial?" he wondered.

So when he was asked to take over a police shooting case in federal court in Washington state about to go to trial, he jumped at the chance. "That was on a Thursday, and on Monday we were in trial."

He discovered that the case file was thin, missing even transcripts of the plaintiffs' own depositions. Much of what he knew about the case came from reading his local co-counsel's opposition to the summary judgment motion.

When the defense sent him the slides they would use in their opening, he replied that those were the same slides he'd use. "We took control of the narrative in terms of having the slides tell our story," he said.

The jury itself also presented challenges. One refused to raise his hand to be sworn in because, as he'd told the court earlier, he couldn't be fair. Another was made sick by photos of bloody bullet holes. A third asked to quit during deliberations and when told he could be fined or jailed, asked how much and for how long.

Dolan's clients were two construction workers who raced around tiny Roy, Washington, one snowy night in a UTV without bothering to stop at signals. The town's one police officer made chase, unsuccessfully, in part because "they were arguably shitfaced," Dolan said.

When they next raced down some train tracks, the officer got ahead of them and hid behind a tree. As they approached, he moved close, shined a spotlight down the tracks and shot, seriously injuring both men.

At trial, the officer said he fired because the UTV swerved and hit his leg. But Dolan found photos showing his footprints through the snow from his car to the middle of the tracks. One defense photo showed him crouched in a shooting position when the UTV was 25 feet away.

Dolan argued the officer shot them because he felt disrespected. "The police officer pulled his gun. His ego pulled the trigger," he told the jury.

The jury returned a verdict of about $3.3 million for the two men, and Dolan's team also collected nearly $800,000 in fees, making it one of the largest verdicts in Washington state history for a nonfatal police shooting. Rice v. City of Roy, 3:20-cv-05223 (W.D. Wash., filed March 11, 2020).

Dolan said the case fits his approach. The more challenging a matter is, the harder he works at it, he said. "I tell people I'm all in."