Episode 30
October 9, 2024
$1.5M Verdict in Challenging Nursing Home Death Case with Reza Davani
Episode Summary
Despite challenges including an absent plaintiff, an expert witness’ last-minute withdrawal, and a death certificate identifying Covid as the cause of death, Reza Davani secured a $1.5 million verdict for pain and suffering. In this conversation with host Brendan Lupetin, Reza shares how he exposed the nursing home’s negligence that led to the death of a patient – not from Covid, but rather from staff’s failure to properly turn the patient in his bed, which caused pressure wounds. Reza discusses how he centered his strategic opening and closing on principles of right and wrong and how he trusted the jury to use their common sense when presented with the facts.
Episode Preview
- Reza’s path from mass torts to lead exposure to his current focus: nursing home cases.
- Why Reza enjoys mining documents to secure victory in nursing home cases
- How documents often reveal the true story that Reza wants to tell
- How Reza ensures that the defense steps on its own landmines
- Background of Nelson Anderson v. Alice Manor, in which a jury awarded Reza’s client $1.5 million for pain and suffering based on the death of a patient
- Reza’s litany of woes: the death certificate that identified Covid as the cause, the out-of-state plaintiff who couldn’t attend trial, the lack of pictures of the injury, the wound expert who failed to show
- How Reza leveraged staff’s assessments that proved the patient was in pain
- Reza’s strategy of giving the jury the facts, and letting them use their common sense
- The question Reza asks himself when crafting his opening: DoI have an explanation for what happened and why? If he doesn’t, “the story sucks.”
- Why Reza focuses his closing on what is right and wrong rather than evidence
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