thank you your honor yes i'm gary printed tell as he florida i'm the attorney for richard spencer webber who was the plaintiff in an action in the northern district of indiana on diversity jurisdiction involving a truck accident where his van was rear ended by a sunday changer we're here today because after a jury trial the judge reduced the one million dollars verdict to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and mr spinnin webber refused to accept the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and requested a new trial a new trial actually took place he represented himself i don't know why i did that but that's what he did and so here we are because he believes very strongly this was his st and only trial going to his life that he ever was in court and he believes very strongly in this jury verdict that the jury got it right and that he wants me to speak on behalf of this jury verdict so i know the standard is very high on an order granting a new trial abuse of discretion is very difficult but i think there are some things here this is a very simple little tort case it was in a complex matter where you know apple is suing samsung and there was a eight month jury trial with the ten were one hundred dollars experts testifying just was a very simple trial where these the jury heard from rick spin and whatever they heard from his family and friends and people he worked with and they heard from not his expert on medical matters but on the defendant's expert on medical call their expert and so that was presented by video testimony everything was video except there was a law enforcement officer who justified who was at the gras night i asked myself why did this jury if the judge thinks they got it so totally wrong why did they enter a one million dollar verdict why didn't they enter a fifty thousand dollar under thirty thousand or two hundred and fifty thousand do and i think the reason they did it is because while there wasn't any medical expert directly on point for mr spin and whether this jury did get to hear a group of his family and friends as i said his mother testifying and they may not be experts in medical things but i do think they came close to being experts on richard spin and weber and who he was before this car accident and who he was after the truck accident and i think that's what the jury saw and heard is we don't you know we don't know why he is this way but he certainly is because this man is different than he was he has memory problems that he didn't have before he has to post posters to remind himself to do something that he was going to do fifteen minutes later like he's and he is more he's irritable he's forgetful the lots of things he and he has tonight is ringing in his ears that he didn't have before and these people ought testified to that and they said it wasn't like that before the sax that this accident took place may  have a trial he didn't want to settle and he didn't want it resolved out of court at all he wanted to have a trial he wanted to tell his case to a jury he did he said he wasn't even asking for emotional pain and suffering damages what he wanted was he wanted trucker companies like this company to install automatic braking devices on their trucks so that in the future people like him mind driving down the road minding their own business won't get rand in the rear end by a semi tanker because the jury heard that the jury heard from the state highway patrolmen or the state policeman that you know i was i measured the skid marks of this semi truck they were seven hundred and twenty three feet long as two football fields to stop that truck this the jury saw and heard and were allowed to touch and feel the trailer hitch that was on the back of mr spinner weber's van this thing a five thousand pound hitch bent down like you know somebody a giant just grabbed it and bennett downed perpendicular to the ground so all that force from that truck that it took to bend that trailer hitch down was sent through that truck into mr spin and weber's by that's what happened here he got rear ended he was driving down the road fifty five miles an hour looking for a right exit lane and his truck came up in the middle lane and decided to switch lanes and he told the cop he didn't even see mr stern and whatever so that's what happened i think he was barreling along not paying much attention but saw there attorney i'm concerned about this because what this looks like to me you know i had not to do with the trial but what this looks like to me is the defense lawyer in this case just  does it really matter what happens at this trial because at the end of the trial the judge will have the opportunity to just fix it so i get a a mulligan on whether i decide to object to closing argument that raise these kind of issues i mean that the lawyer for the plaintiff asked for a one million dollars and the jury gave him a one million doubt the defense lawyer even though his own expert who testified described medical damages said giving twenty thousand dollars and two thousand eight hundred dollars for some travel change i think that's the kind of thing that motivates a jury to say you know we don't put any stock in anything that defense lawyer says if he said give me my one hundred thousand dollars give me money or fifty thousand dollars they might have said that's reasonable but they did they just made this guy don't waste talking about because how did they do this there wasn't prejudice here i mean this isn't a case of spin and weber's from i am in indiana and they're trucking company from north dakota and you know we just  they can't let these out of staters come in here and run into our people this is a man from florida he had no standing with a jury just a guy trying his case in the northern district of indiana and they awarding that one million dollars and i ask myself that's none the puzzle why i think it's because they heard the his friends his family his mother describe how different he is and said we don't there's injury here and those people that are experts on that like i said there are experts on him and that's what they went with because there's there has to be some explanation for why that happened you can't get they didn't go in there they only deliberated for now so they came out with a clear idea what they wanted to do and that's why i'm harping on it's a simple negligence case because i was reading these cases on motions for a new trial and that's one of the factors you look at is you know why did the jury in the judges i get it wrong was it a really difficult case that's beyond the comprehension of jurors no this was not jurors drive on the roads every day jurors know what happens a car accidents and so there wasn't anything difficult here at all they just said to themselves please the court all parties in this case agree that this matter should be reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard generally an abuse of discretion only occurs where no reasonable person  discussing the standard of review in the appellate brief the appellate cites to the case hough the white motor court for the alleged proposition that a verdict should not be disturbed if the verdict leaves the court with the uncomfortable feeling that the verdict is too h citation to this case is not relevant to this matter and an incomplete statement of the law because the th circuit in the huff case was actually reviewing the trial court's denial of for a minute or and indicated that it would not disturb the fighting of the trial court despite the fact that it was uncomfortable with the verdict in fact that the th circuit stated we would not have awarded seven hundred thousand if we had been the jury and be white we might well have set aside the the court made a reasonable decision to conclude that that verdict was simply too high and not supported by the evidence the deference given to the trial court in huff should be given in this case here the trial court reviewed all of the evidence and made a determination that it was excessive because there was no rational connection between the order and the evidence and the order was not comparable to similar  cases reason this appellate counsel has indicated that this case is not a complex one it's just a simple tort matter but the issue of damages in that case and mr spinner weapons claim of a permanent injury is a complex matter mr or did not request any medical treatment at the scene of the accident in fact he drove from the accident in the the same van that he was rear ended all the way to michigan attended three days of go kart races then drove one thousand miles home to florida before seeking any medical attention and at that time his medical attention was only seeking claims for neck injuries it was not until months after the accident th plaintiff started to make a claim of ringing in the ears for tonight s and started to claim that he had some sort of brain injury there were no traitors that were deposed in the case that would actually relate an alleged brain injury to the accident that's the reason no triggers testified to it and while appellants counsel claims this isn't a complex matter it is not within the purview of that lame a layman on the jury to look at an accident and make a determination that someone in fact had a traumatic brain injury and that accident when there is no objective finding to support that injury the only expert to testify in this case and it was over the objection of red river supply was only testified to a temporary whiplash injury and potentially a minor concussion that potential of a minor concussion he did not relate to a permanent brain injury or any of the ongoing symptoms that mr spenlow w and his family and friends presented testimony to the jury so once the trial court heard that verdict of one million dollars the trial court made a determination that yes the jury  heard testimony from family and friends that mr spin a letter had been permanently changed by the accident but the underlying foundation for those changes that being a traumatic brain injury was never actually presented to the jury and therefore the foundation for any type of permanency was not placed before the jury and the one million dollars verdict could have only been rendered for two reasons one the jury was trying to punish the trucking company based upon the improper arguments of plaintiff's counsel in closing or because the jury relied upon the speculative then proper opinions of mr spenlow everest family and friends that he in fact had a brain injury and permanent injury from the a one million dollars verdict is not reasonably connected to a temporary whiplash injury which was the only injury for which there was evidence actually put before the court one issue i wanted to address plaintiff had an objective injury of five fractured ribs but the treater could not say exactly whether those fractured ribs occurred when he rolled his van or when he was struck by the semis and that testimony of the objective injury come bind with his testimony that he did not have pain until he was struck by the semi the court determined was sufficient to at least place the issue before the jury smith v bt however is not a case that this court should follow because it's distinct for two reasons one it was a review of h erected verdict for the defense and two that case was later distinguished by top versus leffers which was cited by the at police in their brief on the basis that subjective injuries such as the complex subject of injuries such as in the top case and aggravation of that pain from a rear end accident require expert testimony well this case is one of a brain injury in which there is simply no objective injury that could be viewed by anyone if any case were to require expert testimony to support a claim of permanent injury that would be a brain injury case it takes a brain surgeon to figure out or a neurologist to know whether a traumatic incident resulted in a brain injury  the accident before mr spin a web or even such treatment and it was months before he tried to claim a head injury so here you've got a previous history of head injuries which dr carney explains and you've got the distance in time to when the head injury was claimed after the accident it would certainly take a medical expert to opine on that issue to place the issue before the jury appropriately and for that reason judge martin appropriately to only injury that was supported by the evidence before the jury was a temporary whiplash injury and cut and chilly a short term concussion and in the judge's view one million dollars was not recently connected to those injuries and could while we can only speculate as to why that yury reach its verdict it has to be either they were believing on the speculative nature family and friends testimony that he had a brain  tell me what that trial it took place what happened well about a month or two before the trial mr spinner whether filed a motion asking to remove the jury trial component and at the time it took it took a week or two after that before we could get authority to waive a jury trial so originally the nd trial was supposed to be a jury trial but that ended up being waived by mr spin webber and it proceeded as a bench trial at the trial mr spin a webber proceeded to represent himself at which point he made a speech at the beginning of the case seeking a symbolic verdict of zero dollars apparently lamenting the fact that the jury's verdict had been overturned and because of that we move for a directed verdict as he presented no evidence and no witnesses and the jury entered and the trial judge him if mr spin weber had previous brain damage as identified testified to under oath by dr kearney then that is permanent that's brain damage and the jury saw or heard that from him that's coming from the defense's expert not the plaintiff's expert patti's got brain damage she's got prior brain damage she's got exacerbated brain damage because you getting a concussion on top of your prior brain damage is what this jury heard and we can't allow the argument that well deterrence was in effect the guy didn't object to that so you're saying is you know we're supposed to have a trial is the main event you want that to go right everything's posed to go right in the trial if one lawyer is going to say i don't really feel like getting jane fired up about this i said when your lawyer got a one million dollar verdict he had done his job because you got leverage but he just i'm actually think he's there is some real truth to the the damage that he suffered in this thing because i totally i personally tony nice you know i got hired right before that nice that i want to take up a lawyer over time but him just go in there and say judge you have previously determined that the evidence in this case is worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars so i'm starting from there you know i want i want to one million i got to say i want to one million dollars that's what the evidence in the st row i want you to use read it again and give me a one million dollars so we don't have to go through the bother i'm going to read the entire transcript of the trial again but anyway i inclosing i want to say this this is my st maybe it's my last ever case in the th circuit i just been a lawyer for almost forty years a great honor to appear in this court and i once met judge power at a needed trial and need a trial thing in gainesville when i was in law school that was thirty eight years ago it tells you he's obviously been around a long time because he was there at that thirty eight years ago and i gave a ride to the airport as a student to judge from our been asked and i was going to i just wondered if ya know him  have a very beautiful seven circuit court of appeals certificate that you get it's much better than the eleven circuits just tell you that he's got the color on it and anyway