2019-L-100 (Kendall County, Illinois)
Ashley S. Koda just earned a complete defense verdict in her first solo jury trial.
Plaintiff (a 66-year-old man) was in a store at the cash register completing a purchase, when another customer struck him with her shopping cart. An ambulance was called and plaintiff waited in the store for an hour talking to store employees before being transported to the emergency room.
Plaintiff brought a complaint against the other shopper alleging negligent use of the cart, and against the store, alleging that the shopping carts posed a hazard to shoppers and that the store was negligent in providing the carts to customers. Costello Ginex & Wideikis was retained to defend the store.
During the course of litigation, Plaintiff managed to incur significant medical specials related to the heel of his foot, which he attributed to the incident. Plaintiff also settled with the co-defendant, leaving the store as the only remaining defendant. CGW attorneys estimated that the store faced little liability as there was no evidence of a defect with the cart, and the incident did not seem to realistically cause the increasing medical bills Plaintiff was incurring. The case went into discovery for over three years due to Covid delays and Plaintiff’s insistence that the case was worth more than what CGW and the store was willing to offer. Because CGW handled the case on a flat fee basis, they were able to efficiently defend the case without causing their client to incur ballooning defense costs.
Ashley Koda took over the case as it headed into jury trial. At the beginning of trial, Ashley barred a significant portion of Plaintiff’s medical specials, dropping the number down by nearly 70%. During trial, she succeeded in barring the bulk of Plaintiff’s expert’s opinions on the basis that his opinions were rooted in engineering principles relevant to product liability – but not premises – cases.
At closing, Ashley argued to the jury that the store was not negligent in providing or using the shopping carts in question, and that the incident did not proximately cause Plaintiff’s injuries as there was some evidence of heel complaints pre-dating the occurrence. The jury deliberated for only fifteen minutes before returning a full defense verdict in favor of our client.
