Federal Judiciary

Marshall Jury Finds for Plaintiff in Trucking Case

By Michael C. Smith

For the second time in as many months I am pleased to be able to congratulate my cocounsel on a favorable result in a trial in federal court here in Marshall.  Following our firm's assistance in a defense win last month (a JMOL at the conclusion of the plaintiff's case in a patent infringement case) we have a plaintiff's win to report this month.

Today my cocounsel Maria Wormington of the Wormington Law Group and Lin McCraw of McCraw & Gantt, both from McKinney, received a verdict in favor of our client Adriana Castillo Sanchez and her son Raul Argote in Sanchez v. Commercial Transportation, Inc., et al, 2:09cv47 from a Marshall jury in Judge T. John Ward's court.  The case arose out of the death of Ms. Sanchez' husband  and Raul Jr.'s, dad Raul Argote Robles in a collision with a truck operated by defendant CTI just south of Marshall on US-59 on January 5, 2009..

The jury found the decedent five percent at fault and the defendant trucking company, driver and sibling company (which performed maintenance on the truck) 95% at fault and assessed damages of $2,105,000 between Adriana, her son, and Raul's parents.  $1.475 of the damages were were economic losses - the remaining $630,000 was for noneconomic losses.

The case began trial before the Marshall jury on Wednesday, February 17, and continued through Monday February 22.  Lin and Maria put on an expert economist, accident reconstructionist, biomechanic, and expert on trucking safety - as well as calling the defendant's trucking safety expert as an adverse witness.  The defense did not offer any expert testimony of their own.  Of interest, the defendant's case in chief was presented Monday afternoon after the plaintiff rested, and consisted of two witnesses (a bus driver live and a fact witness by reading of deposition) whose combined testimony, including cross, was eight minutes. 

This was a particularly enjoyable trial for me because I got to work with Lin again for the first time since he and I were Practice Court partners at Baylor Law School nineteen years ago, culminating in the infamous "full discovery" trial in the summer of 1991 (anyone remember the case of the headless boater?).  Professor Powell will be glad to hear that we did a little better on our time management this time, using something like nine hours for our direct examination of our witnesses, and under five minutes for cross of the defense witnesses.  Fortunately we still look the same, right?  (Love the big hair - don't you miss the 80's?)

Again, congratulations to Maria and Lin on a great result for a deserving client. 

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on February 22, 2010 (boomark / email).