The single biggest driver of a trucking verdict isn't always the injury — it's the "piss-off factor." Clancy Boylan, managing partner of Morgan & Morgan's New Jersey and Philadelphia offices, explains how a defense that refused to accept responsibility fueled a $26 million verdict in a case with only non-operative spine injuries and a mild TBI. Host Brendan Lupetin digs into the 2019 Route 30 crash in Lancaster, the snowy-conditions speeding violations under FMCSR 392.14, the deposition PowerPoint that trapped the driver and safety officer, and the bifurcated trial that produced a $25 million punitive award against the company. Clancy shares how jury anger and an unanswered "I'm sorry" shaped an unforgettable win.

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• Clancy Boylan built Morgan & Morgan's New Jersey and Philadelphia region from a one-man operation into roughly 30 attorneys and 130–140 total staff in about five and a half years.
• In the 2019 Clemens crash, an old-school driver who was fully off Route 30 with his four-ways on was rear-ended just after midnight by an Ecore tractor trailer.
• The client's injuries were modest—neck and back herniations and post-concussive symptoms, with no surgery—which makes the size of the verdict all the more striking.
• Snowy, icy conditions triggered FMCSR 392.14's "extreme caution" duty; the driver was going about 63 in a 55 zone when he should have been closer to 32–33.
• Rather than admit fault in a clear rear-end case, the defense blamed the parked client for a shoulder-parking violation—supercharging the "piss-off factor.”
• A bifurcated verdict delivered $1.2 million in compensatory damages—less than the pre-trial offer the client turned down—plus $25 million in punitive damages against the company.
• Clancy says the verdict rewired his strategy: on well-funded trucking defendants, his settlement demands now run sky-high to reflect uninsurable punitive exposure.

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Welcome to Just Verdicts with your host, Brendan Lupetin, a podcast dedicated to the pursuit of just verdicts for just cases. Join us for in-depth interviews and discussions of cutting edge trial strategies that will give you the keys to conquering the courtroom, produced and powered by LawPods.

In today's episode, I talk with attorney Clancy Boylan, who is not only an amazing trial lawyer, we're going to talk about an awesome trucking verdict with massive punitive damages he got just a couple months ago. He's also the managing partner of the New Jersey and Philadelphia offices of Morgan & Morgan, the largest personal injury firm in the country. Clancy talks about his background, what got him into trial work, and the approach he uses to working up his cases, specifically trucking cases. And the secrets to success that helped him and his partner obtain a $26 million verdict in a trucking case that happened before the pandemic was tried after the pandemic. A lot of great stories, a lot of great ideas and concepts that anybody can use and apply to their cases, not just trucking cases. And also a lot of great discussion on how to approach and work up damages and arguments for punitive damages.

You'll get a lot out of this episode. Here's Clancy Boylan. Clancy Boylan, thanks so much for being here, dude. I know you just got literally shaken up on a flight down to Florida, and I appreciate you overcoming that air terror to be here to talk about some awesome results that you've gotten lately. So thanks so much for joining me on the podcast, dude.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, this is great. I'm super pumped. Got a ton of questions for you. The reason I wanted to get you on is to talk about this Clemens case where you got this Monster Trucking punitive verdict. And the way I heard about it was I'm on a med mal, PA Med Malist serving. I think it was Marion Munley was like off-topic monster verdict. What the hell is this? And reading about it and it just sounded awesome. And so super excited to hear about that and definitely have some major questions about how you used some of the medical evidence in that case to get the verdict and whether you did. But before we get there, I have some other questions for you. So first off, I'm reading about you. You seem like a pretty freaking young dude and you are managing partner Morgan in Philly and Jersey.

And I mean, at least what I read, you were managing like 30 people or something like that.

I think we're close to 30 attorneys now, maybe just over that. And total staff, probably about 130, 140.

This is in your region, which you're overseeing.

Yeah, my region. I started about five and a half years ago. It was just me.

Right. That's a very quick growth curve. And then you're trying cases on top of it and you've got a family. My first question is, what is your secret to productivity or time efficiency? What is it? How do you do it? Or is there none? You just work 24 hours a day.

No, I don't work 24 hours a day, but I do work a lot. Thankfully, my family understands. I think the key for me is I can go in on a Saturday or Sunday and bang out like four hours and that's more productive for me than the entire week because nobody's bothering me, nobody's calling me, and I can kind of get ahead.

Yeah. That resonates a lot with me when I was a little bit younger and I was really trying to kind of establish myself and everything. I switched to this current firm that eventually I was able to take over, much smaller operation than what you're overseeing. But yeah, it was like Sunday. Sundays was the key. I had understanding wife and she was okay with me going in and just basically working all day Sunday because that was for whatever reason. Yeah, you weren't bothered and you could just crush out stuff and then they kind of put you in a good head space for the rest of the week. I can see that. I still don't know. I feel like you must have some kind of other secret deal with some kind of. And I don't know what, but I don't know how you're pulling this all off because some spectacular verdicts on top of running that section of a massive firm.

So tell us a little bit about how did you get here? You're from the Northeast originally, right?

Yeah. I was born and raised in Kingston, just across the river from Wilkes-Barre.

And then Duquesne Law.

Duquesne Law. Yeah. I went to St. Joe's University in Philadelphia. When I graduated from there, I had no idea what I wanted to do. And I got into banking for about three years and realized I absolutely hated it. They micromanaged it. There was no creativity. And I kind of always wanted to be a trial lawyer. And so I went to my boss and he wanted me to move up. And I said, "I want to leave." I said, "I want to take the LSAT and go to law school." And luckily he kept it under the table. I did that, went to Duquesne. When I visited there, everybody told me law school was going to be this cutthroat. Everybody's out to get each other. And I showed up to Duquesne and I walked in the front door of Hanley Hall and it was like a second or third year person looked at me and was like, "You look like your loss." I said, "Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out if I want to go here." And they took me through a quick five-minute tour.

And I kind of knew right then that this was probably going to be the place for me. Plus Pittsburgh was a great city.

Yeah. No, that's awesome. My associate, Maggie, that works with me, who's a phenom, just amazing person, she went there and just. I'm a pit guy, but she raved about her experience at the Duquesne. That was before Tom Klein renamed it after himself, right?

Yeah. I sent Tom an email when he did that. I said, "Thank you in the bottom of my bank account for

All that

Money."

Yeah, no kidding, man. If you look back, you said even though you went into banking, you always wanted to be a trial lawyer. Do you have a sense of where that came from or was there something that motivated you?

Just something that is one of those things where you're growing up and the performance aspect of it, helping people. For whatever reason it was, it just always resonated with me. I just wasn't ready when I got out of college. And so I'm glad I had those four years off. Gave me a better perspective when I was at Duquesne. I got involved in the trial ad program. We won the national championship, got to go to LA, Las Vegas, Waco, Texas for the Top Gun. And so I left there and I went to work for a PI firm in Kingston with Ed Sierramboli, Greg Fellerman. I was there. I know him

Well.

Yeah, it's a great guy. So I learned a lot of trucking from Eddie. The business aspect, I learned from Greg that both were mentors of mine. After two years of being in Kingston, my wife absolutely hated it. Getting her to come from Pittsburgh to Kingston was the greatest sell job of my life. Oh,

So she's from Pittsburgh?

Yeah, she was a

South Hills girl. Okay. Gotcha. Very cool.

And I didn't want to be home. I didn't want to be a big fish in a small pond. And I convinced Eddie and Greg to send me to Philadelphia to open up a satellite office. And for whatever reason, they agreed to do it and showed up there and just we called it gorilla warfare. Just pound the pavement, talk to as many people as possible. I was going into every home in North Philly, West Philly, South Philly, just trying to drum up business.

When you were in law school and you're going the trial ad path and obviously very good at it, did you think you wanted to go into contingency fee plaintiff personal injury or were you thinking criminal defense or any other type of trial work?

Crimside never really resonated with me. And I knew I didn't want to defend corporations or businesses. I wanted to represent somebody whose life was altered, their family life, everything like that. I wanted to represent that person and fight for them. So I kind of knew right off the bat. Plaintiff's law was what I wanted to do. And luckily I got the opportunity with Eddie and Greg because not a lot of people are fortunate enough to be able to get into plaintiff's law right off the bat because it's a smaller community.

When were you able to basically first leading trying cases?

I got barred October 2012. I graduated June 2012. I was barred October 2012. And within three months, Eddie came in my office said, "Do you want to try a case?" I said, "Sure." I think it was like a Wednesday. Handed me the file. It said, "You're picking a jury on Monday." I got right into it. And I got to tell you, trial ad prepared us openings, closings, cross, directs, all that stuff. I wasn't nervous at all. And I realized I had to pick a jury and I had no clue how to do it. No idea what I was doing. There was no law school class about it. So I was just crapping my pants thinking about it. And in Luzerne County, you play the people off of each other. And once you do it, once the fear goes away. But that was the scariest thing.

But I tried that. I tried probably two more, what Greg would call suicide missions in the first year of my being a lawyer. And then we got to Philly. We tried one in Philly and then I came to Morgan and then have been able to try a bunch recently as our cases have matured.

Yeah. So was there a gap in that period of time when you're getting started, you're getting that office off the ground, you're the sole guy. I can't imagine you're flying into trial right off the bat, right?

Yeah. It took a little bit for the cases to develop. Also, COVID hit and that was that. And also Philly's a great venue to try a case, but it's also a tough venue if you want to try cases because a lot of times they're giving you the money and the clients, there's no way they're going to say, "Hey, let's turn this down and go try the case." But recently with the trucking cases where we've got a lot of coverage, usually great injuries, it's easier to convince our clients that they should roll the dice.

And obviously Clemens is a trucking case. Before we get into it, you're in the Morgan & Morgan fold now. And so obviously you have access to a bunch of amazing resources like Mitnick and I'm sure a bunch of other kick-ass trial lawyers within the organization. But separate and apart from what you gained internally, what would you say are the biggest influences as far as how you try cases, how you do your opening, how you approach order of proof or your strategy or so forth?

So it came from one from Eddie and Greg and then from Morgan & Morgan as well. Eddie and Greg, the biggest thing they always said is just be the most credible person in the courtroom. That helped strategize, "Hey, is there a weak part of our case that we can just forget about it? Is the back? Oh, he's got 30 years of priors. Do we need to get into that? Let's just focus on the neck." So I got a lot of that from them. And then Mark Nation at Morgan, he was a big proponent of just come out swinging. And especially in my depositions, especially in tractor trailer case, my first question, I don't even read them instructions. I just, "Are you ready to go?" They say, yes. And I said, "All right, why'd you run into the back of my client?" And then from there, it's just pile on them.

And then within 20 to 30 minutes, you could usually break them and then they give you everything. So when it comes to trucking, same thing. It's like we're putting on either the corporate rep or the driver first, and we're just getting started. We beat them up and then put on our liability expert, and then we roll into the damages.

That's the formula you've been finding is success for you lately?

Yeah, especially in trucking, what's going to drive a verdict? Obviously, injuries are a driver. But for me, I think the single biggest driver is the PO factor, the piss off factor. And if you can get that jury angry right from the bat, if your medical's not the greatest, they can overlook that because they're mad. And that'll get reflected at compensatory and it'll drive the numbers up.

Yeah. I don't know how much big data stuff you guys have done. I'm sure within Morgan, you guys are doing. I don't know how much you've done. And I'd be interested to hear, but John Campbell was formerly empirical jury, now it's Campbell & Campbell Law Group, were talking on another podcast recently that that's really what they find. I mean, and we've heard that for a while,

That

The get anger probably and piss off factor is probably the biggest factor that is driving verdicts in most cases. And trying to find that way that you can create that I think in some cases are better set up for that. I, for some reason, chose the crazy course of doing mostly medical malpractice. And so it sometimes is a lot more difficult to find a way to get the jury pissed off. But it does happen. But I imagine it can happen in the right cases a lot in trucking companies, a trucking case and you got the big corporate entity and everybody's afraid of the tractor trailers and so forth. Do you have a particular structure you follow in your opening statements or is it kind of case dependent?

Yeah. You know what? I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that the resources at Morgan between Keith Mitnick, Brian McClain, Rick Block, and we've got some tremendous female attorneys. We got Kelly Lester, Jen Rozinski, a whole bunch of people that in my case last week, I couldn't structure my closing. I had so many thoughts in my head. I texted Keith and within 30 seconds he's calling my cell phone, talk to me at 10 o'clock at night for 30 minutes. So I mean, that's just incredible that we have that. But for opening of the structuring it, I like to get my theme right off the bat. Trucking cases, a lot of times they're not following the rules. A lot of times we know in my depositions, I find out they don't even know the rules. So to follow the rules, you got to know the rules.

Speeding's always a big one. Speed kills. And lastly, it's taking responsibility. A lot of times, and we'll talk about this in the Clemens case in my last trial, despite smashing into the back of my clients from behind, they're still challenging liability and they're not accepting responsibility. And that is one of the single biggest drivers of the piss off factors. When you got a company coming in and a jury's like, "Why aren't you saying I'm sorry?" And here they are trying to tell you that it's not their fault for blaming my client who's just sitting there in the vehicles. I like to hit and then I go in order. Liability first. We're going to prove to you liability. Walk them through basic. I like to keep the opening as short as I can. And then we're going to prove to you damages, economic, non-economic, and then outpiece and sit down and let the other side get up there and talk for 45 minutes.

Got it. So let's talk about Clemens. Trucking crash back in 2019. I'm guessing Patrick Clemens was your client, the driver of another tractor trailer, right?

Yep. Yeah. He had pulled over on Route 30 in Lancaster. Mr. Clemens was an old school driver, didn't use GPS. He was kind of making a new route. It's a little after midnight. And so he pulls over, puts on his four-ways, fully off the road, and he's checking his maps. And then a minute later, boom, from behind, he gets hit by an Ecore tractor trailer.

And I have a lot of questions about this, but what are his. I mean, the pictures are pretty compelling, get smashed in the back, lot of major visible property damage, so no issues there. But what are the injuries? I'm seeing spine and brain.

Yeah, two things. The pictures were great. I mean, it shows a lot of damage. Problem is being in an 80,000 pound tractor trailer himself lessened the impact to him upfront. Neck and back had a herniation in the neck, had a herniation in the back. He had headaches and some fogginess, but he didn't really treat for that until about eight months post-crash where he finally sees a neurologist and they diagnose him with post-concussive. And he does some vestibular therapy, cognitive therapy. He got an RFA in his back, low back. And then the treating surgeon recommended surgery for his neck and back, but during COVID he didn't want to run the risk. And then also he had ticker issues and he needed to get clearance. And the risk outweighed the benefits for surgery. He could still play golf. So he held off on that. So we didn't have any surgeries.

Okay. So non-operative spine case with mild TBI basically, right?

Correct.

Okay. I mean, that's an amazing background to set up this verdict that you got, but I'm putting the cart before the horse a little bit. Walk me through how you developed, what were the key points of liability? And were there a number of them and you pared it down to just a couple key ones? Or what did you think was the driver as far as your liability case?

Yeah. So -

Did they admit liability first off?

Okay. So one of the things I get the police report, I see that the police officer lists that the conditions were slippery, snow, wet, ice was snowing at the time. So that brings in 392.14 of the FMCSRs. And those are some of my favorite cases because what I've found is that the drivers, they don't know the rules. The companies aren't enforcing it. They're not teaching them about it. So in rain, you got to cut your speed by a third. In snow, you cut it by half. And on ice, you should only be crawling. And what we see is the tractor trailers are going the speed limit, despite heavy rain, despite snow. And that causes issues as you can imagine. You got an 80,000 pound tractor trailer and in those conditions going 60, 70 miles an hour, bad things are going to happen. They can't control it.

They can't steer it. They can't stop it in time.

So that reg is one of your favorites. And I'm guessing you centered your whole case around that, the clear violations of it.

Correct. So we get into it, and then I found through some GPS data that the guy in the 30 days leading up to it is going what I though was five to 10 miles an hour over the speed limit. And I ended up at trial making it up to 15 miles an hour. And I guess we'll get to that a little later. That was a little one of those trial techniques that you used that you shouldn't be using.

Well, no. I mean, come on. You can set it up and then I'll probably forget about it. So yeah, what happened?

So Ecor is basically like a flooring company. They had two plants, one in Lancaster, one in York. And so the guy, he goes across 30 and down 70, and he just keeps doing that back and forth. And I was fairly confident that the speed limit on 70 was 65. But my partner who I tried the case with Hannah Torres, I was like, "Let me go for this." And she's always, "Don't do it, don't do it." So I get up there and I was like, "We have your GPS speeds, you're going this amount." And I said, "So going across 70, we know that's 55. And then going down 70, that's 55 as well, right?" And he goes, "No, no, I think it's 65." And I go, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, but below George Street, it's 65. And I have no idea if George Street is even a thing." I go, "And George

Street's

Below your plant, right?" And they're on the stand and they have no idea what to do. He's like, "You're right." And so the speed's there, that triggered it, got it all the way up to 15 miles an hour over the speed

Limit. Oh, because now he's saying, yeah, it's probably 55 and you know what he was going. Gotcha.

Yeah. But that's what I learned in discovery is that this guy's flying all over the road. And then we get into depositions, he admits it. And then I had a PowerPoint that I created where I was just, every time they answered, I filled it in. And 392.14 says you got to use extreme caution. So I said to him, "What's your definition of extreme caution?" And he goes, "Be a little safer." So I typed that in. I go, "My definition of extreme caution is caution to the highest degree. Yours is a little bit safer." He's like, "Yeah, that's what I would say." And I ask him, "All right, what do you think you need to do on wet roads?" He said, "You can just drive the speed limit." "All right, what do you need to do in snow? "And so the guy should have been going speed limit 55.

So he should have been going 32, 33 miles an hour. He was actually going 63. We knew that about 30 seconds before impact, eight miles over the speed limit, and about 28 miles an hour more than he should have been going. And there was no skid marks, no nothing. So the jury just assumed that, all right, when he hit my guy, it was about 63. And then I asked him, what did your company, did they know you were going five to 10 miles an hour consistently over the speed limit?" And he goes, "Yeah." I go, "What did they say?" He goes, "Just be careful." I go, "Would you take that to me?" And he goes, "That it was fine." Oh, nice. And then I get the safety guy in there, and here's a guy that's responsible for knowing FMCSRs, the CDL manual. He didn't have a CDL license.

He never read the CDL manual. He had no idea what 392.14 was about. And then it's just having fun from there with that. So I've got it all teed up on liability.

Wait, let me jump in there for a second because you mentioned something that I thought was interesting. So were you using, during these depositions, a PowerPoint to fill out information that they're providing you at the time? Yep. Describe for us what it is and how you use

It. My associate calls me a boomer when it comes to technology. That is just a very basic PowerPoint. But on the left-hand side, it would say the speed you were going, 63, speed limit, 55. What speed should you have been going in rain? And he'd say, "Speed limit, 55." And then on the right side, it was like what the answers should have been. And then I got the safety guy in there too, and I matched up his answers. And again, he was basically the same thing as the driver. He agreed. He goes, "Yeah, extreme cautions. I'd agree with just a little safer." So I didn't end up using those at trial, but right there, and again, with both these guys, just starting right from the start, the amount of money that we ended up getting offered that we turned down was probably way more than anybody though that case was going to be offered.

Because of the injuries. Minimal injuries, right? Yeah. Why didn't they. I mean, you paint a picture of a pretty damning and clear liability on their part, and certainly the punitive verdict speaks to that. What was going on why they didn't admit fault here?

I can't concretely answer that question, but I said to Hannah, we're a couple days away from China. I said, "We got one shot at a big verdict here and they can't accept the responsibility." And she's like, "No way. They got to accept the response. They rear-ended our guy." And what they tried to do was we had no idea why this guy left the road. Did he know why? No. So we didn't have direct evidence why he left the road because he took the worst of it. He had a massive concussion. He had a fracture of his cervical spine.

Was he amnesic to the final moments of what happened? Okay.

What he remembered was leaving the. It happened about five minutes from his plant. And the last thing he remembers is kind of heavy as snow, and then he blanks out. What they argued was, "We have no idea why this guy left the road. Just because you leave the road doesn't mean you were negligent." They also argued that my guy was in violation of PACSA33. It's either 3363 or 3353, that you weren't allowed to park on a limited access highway on the shoulder. So that increased the piss off factor when they turned around. And not only did they not accept fault, but my guy who's just sitting in a tractor trailer with the four-ways on completely off the road.

Was your guy cited or anything like that by the police?

No, not at all. Okay.

Was the other driver?

Yeah, he was cited for driving too fast for the conditions.

But I'm guessing that's one of those, that's probably evidentiary, couldn't get the report in necessarily, and that's why they're like, "Oh, he was in violation of this."

Yeah. But what I was able to get in was they admitted that through their expert. I was like, "My guy, despite being parked on the side, he was never cited by the cops." Yeah. So that kind of put that to bed.

But that's basically the biggest gift is, so your co-counsel. And I'm sorry, what's her name again?

Hannah Molatoris.

Okay. So Hannah's skeptical thinking they're going to admit liability in this case, right? And you're probably thinking that, but hoping that they don't, and here they wind up not, which is going to be the best thing that could possibly happen to you probably, right?

Oh, yeah. I got up in opening. Well, back to even jury selection, one of the questions we asked is, "Look, do you believe that truck drivers should be subject to more rules than regular drivers?" And every single person, absolutely. And then we got a ton of people that are scared of tractor trailers and everything like that. So we loved the jury that we got. Our opening, our theme was to know the rules or to follow the rules, we got to know the rules. And then obviously speeding in a tractor trailer is dangerous because an 80,000 pound tractor trailer, speed kills. And then they get up and again, they say, "This wasn't our fault. We have no idea. Nobody's going to tell you why." One of the big things was our accident recon. So our guy's pulled off on the shoulder. The tractor trailer veers off the road and then realizes it and comes back in.

It's an offset rear end collision. So our accident recon says that speed doesn't play a factor in his analysis because our guy wasn't like he was stopped on the road and they just slammed in the back of him. But the recon was just, he went right and he was going back. No matter what speed he was going, that's how the accident happened. So that was their big thing. They were like, "Nobody's telling you that speed's a fact and nobody's telling you this." And they didn't accept fault. And then that led right into, we called the driver first and we crossed him, finished for the day, ordered the transcript. They come on, direct him in the morning, and I'm using the transcript. I just pummeled him with his answers. And then corporate does knee gets up. Same thing. He just didn't stand a chance.

I could see the driver who got significantly injured himself versus safety supervisor or corporate rep different, but I could see in a sense the driver could almost be a little sympathetic potentially. I mean, I don't know what he was like to deal with. Maybe he just was like a jerk. But I mean, was there any concern or did you softer cross him? It was just more a matter of fact? Or did you take a more terse tone because of the fact they weren't taking responsibility?

Yeah. With not taking responsibility, I was very direct and let my lack of patience with their answers kind of come through. And the fact that one of the things they were saying was like, "We can drive up to 10 miles an hour the speed limit because cops don't pull us over." And I was like, "Oh, do you have a document?" And then the corporate designee repeated that answer. I was like, "Do you have a document that you could show to this jury that cops don't pull your 80,000 pound tractor trailers over if they're going 10 miles an hour the speed limit? No. It's an unwritten rule."

Oh, wow. So I tell my associates sometimes, looking back on my good verdicts, that there's a lot of luck involved in the sense that, I mean, obviously you worked up a great case, you tried a great case, but it's a gift that you're given that they're going to take this tact. They literally have no leg to stand on, but they're still going to say, "We're not at fault. We're going to blame your guy." I mean, you kind of can't ask for a better recipe for a potentially great verdict.

100%. I mean, I got a bunch of calls from defense trucking guys. They're like, "How'd this happen?" Very honest with them. They came in here and said, "Look, this is our fault. We need your help to assess what the actual damages are. We probably don't even make it to punies." And the compensatory would've been lower than what it was. But that's not the tactic they took. And again, they just fed and the jury was just not believing, especially when their experts got on the stand. Actually, the second week of trial, so we closed the first week. The second week, they brought every expert in live. So Hannah and I just tag teamed. They had three doctors from Penn. They had Dr. LaRue and they had their action recon and their industry guy all came in live. And so it was a long week for Hannah and I, but they just kept building into that theme that they weren't accepting responsibility, which led to how we got into closings, how we structured it.

Yeah. So I really, again, I keep saying I want to ask you these questions about damages, but now that you bring up the punitive component, was this a case where you rolled right into punitives in this case, right? So did you get any financial net worth discovery at any point in time?

It's funny you ask that. No. They did show us a document that their company's total net worth was $25 million. And I just made the strategic choice not to introduce that. And the defendants never introduced it. And I just wanted this jury to use their imagination.

Right. It's a billion dollar trucking company or something.

Yeah. And one of the themes we played, and also in the compensatory and the closing, it's look, our guy's in a tractor trailer. This company is lucky that our guy was in the 80,000 pound tractor trailer. If him and his wife and their four kids were in a sedan, pulled off on the side of the road, they would've been obliterated. Yeah, they

Wouldn't even

Be. Right. And that resonated with them too.

Because I think people are always curious about, because I literally was just talking with an attorney more in the middle state, Jamie Anzalone. Knamie very

Well.

Yeah. So Jamie got that nursing home verdict and he got with the punitives in that case, but his was a totally different scenario than yours. They had to bifurcate it. They had to try a separate case on punitives. They had to do all this discovery on financials and so forth. And so it's always fascinating how not uniform the application is of how a punitives phase of a case is carried out. Going into the trial, I assume you had to move to the court to give you the instruction for punitives. Do they find recklessness in the first place, right?

Yeah. So we bifurcated it, which I loved because it set up the jury slip very well. Obviously we had recklessness against the driver via vicarious liability, and then we had recklessness against ECORE for their hiring retention supervision. Ended up pulling that from the Verdict slip because the verdict slip kind of got a little messy. And so I just had, did you find the defendants negligent? Then it was, did you find their conduct to be reckless, both the driver and then the company because they were assessing fault against my guy. But if they found recklessness, it didn't matter if they found 50% of my guy because you can't compare recklessness to negligence. So I had those check marks and then it just kind of rolled into damages from there. And obviously we got both checks.

So when you say bifurcated, did you do a separate additional close for punitives or was it all wrapped into one?

So we did a separate. So we get the verdict on a Friday. It was like the 15th. And then defense counsel makes this argument that now we got to find that they're outrageous. And I was like, Your Honor, they found that they were reckless. And then in the definition of outrageous, it says you could be reckless indifference applies to that. And she's like, I'm going to hold it over. So we had to come back that Monday. So now jury's been there for two weeks now. And defense counsel, I mean, his directs were super long. His crosses were super long. They were done. But they come back on Monday and it worked out great because two jurors couldn't come back on Monday. So I got two alternates who I really liked. And one of them, it ended up switching. The foreman from the compensatory was one of the people that were gone.

So I got a new foreman. When he read the verdict, it was kind of funny. Then they had a check mark for outrageousness, but we did - You did

Have to do that. They had to go and then make a decision on outrageousness too.

Yeah. And that for me, I handled it easily. I was like, look, you're going to hear the jury instruction from the judge. And in the definition of outrageousness, it says reckless indifference. And you've already found that. So this is an easy one for you. It's just about a number and the punitive five minute kind of talk about how this is a once in a lifetime thing for them, that they actually get to effectuate change on our highways throughout the entire state and the importance of punitive damages. And defense counsel let me argue this. I was waiting for an objection, but I talked about how when GM's cars were blowing up, what made them safe were punitive damages. When Johnson's producing terrible medical whatever, it was like what made them safer? Punitive damages. I gave two or more things and I just rolled in. I'm like, this is a company that this tells not only ECOR, but Schneider, Conway, all these companies that in our highways, you don't speed.

Because if you speed, you're going to take someone's life. And so when the new foreman read it, they only gave 2,500 against the driver. And I'm sitting there and all of a sudden they said, "What do you give against the company?" And he goes, "25." And I'm thinking, "Shit,

$25,000. God damn it." And then he gets, so he pauses and he goes, "Million." And I was like, "Yes." But I had to do whatever I could to keep my cool, pretended like that is exactly what I thought you were going to do. And meanwhile, I was ready to jump up and

Down. That is freaking amazing. I'm sure you'll never forget that.

No. Yeah.

Made you sweat a little bit though. All right. So I know I'm going backwards a little bit now, but really curious. I got two quick questions before forget it. So remember, what was the compensatory amount?

So we ended up getting 1.2, which is client walked away from 1.485. So we went to mediation. That's the number that the mediator put on his proposal. Other side was prepared to pay it. And our guy looked at me, he goes, no. And now our guy stopped driving a tractor trailer. Our wage claim was iffy at best. There were some issues with taxes not being paid. His social security came in, what he got paid on social security. And they ultimately, the economics, and we had the futures, they gave him like 200 grand for economics. They gave him 300 grand for pain and suffering. And then they gave $700,000 for loss of consortium to the wife. Oh wow. She was a wonderful person. Both people talked about how she had to step up while he wasn't working and they had four kids and talked about how difficult it was because his mood changed.

He was getting angry more often. The fact that he couldn't go out on the road and he was just sitting at home. But he also talked about how he adapted and he was helping his kids with school and things like that. But we ended up getting a bigger loss of consortium than we did economic and non-economic for the client. So that got us to 1.2, which was less than what we were offered. But the client, I was expecting him to be kind of upset. And to his credit, he wanted to hear 12 people -

Say it.

Say it. And they certainly did. And even when they were trying to offer money, knowing that punitives were a reality over the weekend and they had put even bigger chunk of change on the table. And he's, "No sirs," he kept saying to me.

Yeah. So that's what I was. Because I had read the one four numbers somewhere, maybe it was on social media or something about the offer before trial. So that literally was before trial. Then you get into trial before the punitives decision, was there any increased offers at that point?

Yeah. They signaled that they probably would've paid like two. And we had offered him maybe I pitched a high low to them and they didn't want to do it. And I'll be honest with you, I thought the 1475 for this case, I thought he should have taken it. As I talked to my boss and our CLO at the time, I was like, "I was wrong and I'll be the first one to admit it." And it really did show me the power of what punitive damages can do in a trucking case. And it really altered my strategy, especially on the bigger companies that I know they got trucks and know they got money. And I don't care if those punitives are direct against them and they're not recoverable from insurance. We will take your trucks. We'll take your

Assets.

So my demand goes sky high now to account for that.

Yeah. I mean, especially now you've seen what happened in this case.

Yeah.

So the one question I was really curious about is, so I saw that you guys had him evaluated through the TBI imaging and you did, was it the diffusion tensor imaging stuff to try to see if there's axonal shearing damage and so forth. Did you get into that at trial?

We did. The downside was the guy that was the expert, Dr. Gonzalez, he left the company or he may have died. I forget which one it was. So we brought it in through the treating neurologist, but it didn't really get too much into it. We talked about it. They brought in Dr. Kohler, who's a neuropsychiatrist from UPenn who talked about it. Dr. LaRue talked about it. And the other thing I forgot to tell you is one of their big defenses in this case was that my guy, the reason for his cognitive issues was the fact that he was abusing alcohol and smoking marijuana every day.

So they were trying to put that on him for that.

Which led to one of my favorite comments ever. So they kept calling it cannabis. And the other side of the defense attorney was older than Hannah and I, Hannah's even younger than me. And she looked at me and she's like, "When you're talking about it, just say smoke a joint." And so when I was doing a cross, I said smoke a joint. Yo could see that the younger people on the jury would just start laughing. Even the older people started laughing. But then they kept calling it cannabis, cannabis. So I sit in my clothing, I was like, "All you kept hearing about was cannabis. It's like scary alcohol." And I go, "You heard alcohol and cannabis so much in this trial that if you just closed your eyes and never looked at my client, you would've swore he was the love child of a 21-year-old frat boy and Snoop Dogg." And that got a good chuckle from the jury.

That's a great line, man. So not to beat a dead horse, I'm just always curious about it. In hindsight, do you feel the DTI stuff is effective or is it more trouble than it's worth? Because I've had it done, I've looked at it, and just sometimes I'm very unimpressed with the imaging I've gotten and so forth. What do you think?

I think in the right cases, had my guy actually treated for the head injury right off the bat, it probably could have been more effective. But the fact that eight months had gone by and he hadn't seen really, and there was maybe one record saying. He didn't go to the hospital until four days later. He slept overnight at a hotel, then got into this trailer, was totally destroyed, but he got into his cab and drove it from Lancaster all the way down to Florida with no issues. And he doesn't really go to the hospital for about eight days post-crash, but there was really no mention of any type of. And even when he's going to the ortho, he's checking off no cognitive issues, no headaches. So was it effective in this case? The jury didn't really buy, I think. They bought it a little bit, but it wasn't very effective in this case.

Going back to your point, you talked about earlier, Eddie talked about it, and certainly Keith has written tons about it in Don't Eat the Bruises and Deeper Cuts about the credibility component from the perspective or leaving out stuff that you might just normally feel like, "Oh, I got to put it in there because I have it," whether it's a type of damages or so forth. Any big decisions that you and your co-counsel made as far as approaching this trial, things you left out? Or in hindsight, things. I mean, obviously you can't argue with the $26 million verdict, but anything you would've done differently in that regard? Or what strategies did you use in that regard?

Our client wanted it all in. So there wasn't even an opportunity to say, "Hey, we think this is a weak part of your claim. We should drop it." He wanted it all in, so we just had to stand up there and talk like we believed in it. And we knew there was a chance that they weren't going to buy the whole thing. Especially, I mean, the wage claim was tough. The lack

Of

Taxes. And even the taxes that he filed didn't show that he was making a ton of money compared to what our. We tried to say is like, "Look, a truck driver can get 80 to $100,000 a year right now in Orlando, Florida." And we went through the job postings with the Voc. We went through them with their economist and they had to admit to it. But the Voc Romy Tota, who I actually use a lot, I thought gave a great piece of testimony. She said, "Yeah, that is for an over-the-road truck driver. Mr. Clemens chose to be an owner-operator so he could be close to his family and get the benefits of that. So yeah, an over-the-road guy can make eight to $100,000, but your client wasn't that." I was like, "Really, that's why I hire you."

Kind of final points on this case, you certainly referenced a ton of those magic moments. I mean, you just kill them with their first two own witnesses to start the case off. Then it sounds like you get into kind of a whole quagmire of medicine in the case. Any other of those kind of big turning point moments or great cross moments, anything that comes to mind?

Yeah, two, actually three points. I already talked, the wife did just a fabulous job. And they brought their youngest son who was like 11 years old, and he sat through a couple days of trial, but when she's on the stand, he was there and he was just playing his game and he was a real cute kid. She pointed him out and he looked up and the jury looked down and he waved. And that was a great moment. But our client, we had an issue. We were about to play one of the medical videos and something happened and the judge was like, "Move on." I was like, "This was the last moment we're going to play. Move on." So the client who was going to go the next day, I looked at him, I said, "You're up." And it worked out perfect because I wasn't sure how he was going to do up there.

And he just did a wonderful job. We had a great connection, especially talking about he was a truck driver for 30 years and said, "How'd you get home? How'd you make it home safely?" 30 years on the road. And he was prior to that, over the road truck driver. He said, "Sir, I followed the rules. You follow the rules? You make it home every night." And I was like, "Ah, that was a good line." But another good one was the accident recon for them.

He was talking and talking. He wouldn't answer a question. Wouldn't answer a question. And after 20 minutes, I'm starting to get frustrated. And the jury was too. And finally, I looked at him, I said, "Look, we obviously are not agreeing on anything, but you would agree with me, sir, that someone's blind can't drive a tractor trailer." And he goes, "No, I don't agree with that." The jury and they're looking at me and they started like, "What is this guy talking about?" He keeps some talking in the answer. I don't even remember what it was, but after that, it was done. The guy has no

More credibility. Just made a point that. Yeah, that's awesome.

Really closing out to say this real quick is just that the crash had happened almost four years ago. COVID had prolonged the case. And so I opened up, I said, "Look, for four and a half years or four years, this company, you heard a ton of words, you're here for two weeks, you heard a ton of words from me, from opposing counsel, from all the witnesses. The two words you didn't hear were, I'm sorry." Oh, he didn't hear this was my fault. They had four years to do it. And then they had two weeks here. And even if they didn't believe it, just for the optics, just come in here and say, "I'm sorry." And they couldn't even do that because they just refused to accept responsibility and it just rolled right from there. And talking to the jury, that resonated with.

So you had an opportunity to talk to them afterwards?

Yeah, we did. We did.

I assume for that size verdict, it's unanimous. There weren't anyone else.

Yeah, there were no holdouts on that one.

What were some of the other takeaways that they had to say about. I mean, anything that struck you unusual or interesting? I used to always talk with them and I never talk to them anymore because it always just makes me crazy. But tell me what you heard. Anything interesting?

One thing I thought, there was actually two things in talking to them. Our treating neurologist, Dr. Maria Hubbard, it was kind of tough to understand her on the video. And one of the things they said, "You should have closed caps

On it." On titles.

It's like, "Perfect. Next time, we're definitely doing that in the other one." So the insurance company had an adjuster there every single day. And one of the jurors said every time they would try and make a point, she would turn and stare at us to see. And she's jotting down notes. And they're like, "It kind of distracted us from what the point they were making. And I freaked us out a little bit." And I was like, "That's also good to know." So they're like, "When we go into the next trial, we like to have three attorneys there and some people sitting there, don't stare at the jury. Don't do it. Don't make

Them uncomfortable."

So my little anecdotal point here about why feedback from jurors after trials I've just given up on listening to. My partner and I had tried a TBI auto case and got a decent verdict last December. And I stupidly talked to one of the jurors afterwards despite swearing off such behavior. And he's telling you all the good stuff he did because he won. He's one thing I though that the defense lawyer did really was like whenever you guys had one of your experts on video or something and he was cross-examining, when he was making a good point, he'd look back at us. And I thought that was really good because that signaled that was something important that he wanted us to do. And then I'm listening to Mark Mandel on this podcast the other day, and he's telling an anecdote. It's the complete opposite where a juror told him, "We're off put if you look at us and don't look at us." So this is Mark Mandel.

Guy wrote case framing and everything. And I just keep my head down when the jury walks in. Now here, you tell this story, they didn't like the. So stuff like that just makes my head explode. But it's still, I always want to hear it anyway though. Oh yeah.

The one thing that always stuck with me, Professor Stribe in Duquesne said is just be yourself. And for me, I can kind of be a little bit of a smart ass in trial, but I use the whole courtroom. I can't stand behind a lecture. I can't stand still. I like to go up, down, like inflection, all that stuff. And that's just who I am. But that may not be who somebody else is. But as long as you're yourself, you're right. Somebody could do it, somebody doesn't do it. Doesn't mean it can't work for somebody? No. If you sell it and then you're believable, jury will like it.

Yeah. Not to go down a whole mental craziness wormhole. Then you get into that, oh, just be yourself. And then you lose a trial and you're like, "Maybe I shouldn't be myself." But that probably had more to do with the facts and so forth of those cases. But anyway, Clancy, this is awesome. I thought, because I know you're on a freaking roll right now, you just hit this, what was it, 2-3 or 2-7 verdict recently?

Yeah, just under 2-7. It was 2.58 in Luzerne County.

On a rotator cuff case?

Yep.

Trucking case?

Trucking case.

All right. Here's what I would ask if you had considered doing this at some point. So we're at that coming up on the hour mark, and I would want to give that case if you'd be willing to talk about it some actual time to dig into the details because I'd love to know how it all unfolds and so forth.

Absolutely.

You just landed with your family and everything in Florida, so I just feel like now's not the time to get into it, even though I'd love to. But hopefully in a month or two, I've got a trial coming up, things settled down, maybe we could do this again and you could tell me about that case because I'd love to hear about it.

Yeah, that'd be absolutely do that for

You. Awesome. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you sitting down. I remember, like I said, seeing that email, this wicked verdict coming through and I'm just like, man, I got to hear the story behind that. Appreciate you doing this. If people want to reach out to you, they got a big trucking case that happens out probably any part of the state in Philly or your parts. How can people get ahold of you, Clancy?

Hey, give me a buzz on my cell, 570-262-0809, or they could email me at [email protected].

Awesome. Clancy, I'm sure people reaching out, you're kicking butt and love to hear it. And I appreciate you sharing your story with me. It's an awesome case. Okay?

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