Trial Lawyer John Prudhomme Analyzes How His Virtual Focus Group Compared to the Real Jury Trial
Join us as we speak with John Prudhomme from CPM Injury Lawyers about a gripping case involving a fuel tanker rear-ending a dump truck on I-35. Despite undeniable footage and an outright admission from the tanker driver, the defense stood firm with no settlement offers. Find out how a virtual focus group became a game-changer in predicting jury perceptions and why the trial venue added layers of complexity to an already dramatic case.
John also shares insights from a case involving a veteran client whose trial took an unexpected turn. We discuss how the jury’s interest veered from medical details to family dynamics, revealing the nuanced way personal stories can sway verdicts. With veterans on the jury panel and collateral source issues lurking in the background, emphasizing the family impact became crucial. Tune in to hear how highway speed regulations and surveillance footage reshaped the narrative and influenced the jury’s decisions.
We also get into the nitty-gritty of trial strategies and financial considerations. From life care plans to the client’s lifestyle choices, find out how these elements played a crucial role in the jury’s perception. John emphasizes the unpredictable nature of trials, the importance of expert testimonies, and the critical role of pre-trial preparations. This episode is a goldmine of insights for any trial lawyer seeking to refine their skills and connect more effectively with juries
In this episode, you will hear:
- Case study: fuel tanker rear-ending a dump truck on I-35.
- Utilizing virtual focus groups to understand jury perceptions and defense strategies
- Adjusting trial tactics based on real-time feedback
- Challenges of dealing with surveillance evidence and unexpected jury reactions
- The critical role of life care plans and financial implications in influencing jury decisions
- Importance of pre-trial preparations and adapting to unpredictable trial elements
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Supporting Resources:
Would you like to talk to John Prudhomme about his experience? Questions about his trial?
You can reach out to John by email: jprudhomme@caglefirm.com
Learn more about John’s practice here: https://www.caglefirm.com/
If you are interested in working with me on a focus group, please book a free call using this link: www.calendly.com/elizabethlarrick
Episode Credits:
If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Emerald City Productions. They helped me grow and produce the podcast you are listening to right now. Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Let them know I sent you.
Episode Transcript:
Elizabeth Larrick: [ Hi there. It’s Elizabeth. I wanted to jump in before we start this episode and tell you a little bit about my guest, John Prudhomme.
He is with CPM Injury Lawyers. He got his undergrad at the University of California, went to law school at SMU School of Law. [00:01:00] and has been in the Austin area for many years now. It has tried many cases of lots of variety. He and I have worked on a few and we will talk about that in the episode. If you have questions for John or want to get ahold of him, just know his contact information will be in the show notes.
Okay, let’s get to it. Hello and welcome back to the podcast, Trial Lawyer Prep. I am your host, Elizabeth Larrick. And today we have a guest joining us, a very good friend who’s local. I know we have a lot of folks that come, uh, in here recently, people from Montana come, but now we’ve got a nice local Austin lawyer joining us.
Hello, John, how are you?
John Prudhomme: Doing well. How are you?
Elizabeth Larrick: Doing great. Doing great. Trying to get through this heat, uh, a little bit. . If you’re just now listening to this episode, when it comes out, it’ll be July, I think it’s the week of almost July 4th. If not, you’re catching up. Hey, listen, it’s in Texas. We’re today.
I think they’re forecasting the first a hundred day. 100 degree weather day. So we got a [00:02:00] little warm for a while. Yeah. Yeah. But I wanted to bring John on because his firm has done focus groups with me before, but he has had one that’s come all the way to the gamut. They went to trial. And so I really wanted to bring him on to talk about it because he had a pretty interesting piece of evidence that we sometimes find in our cases, which is video footage.
And so we want to talk about that. I wanted him to talk about his experience and kind of give y’all kind of a backstage view of what happened and how the virtual folks group helped and kind of how we set it up. So, you know, that’s, we’re going to talk about. So John, tell me now, first of all, let me give a little background.
So I’m really not even sure how Chris and I. Got, I think Chris just remember how we ended up getting connected. I want to say it’s probably through BNI, but which is a networking business, networking thing. And he came to me and you guys had a super complicated medical device [00:03:00] and guys, this was complicated.
Like there were just drilled in the brain and had lasers. And so it was this super complicated. thing. And so we end up doing several really long ones, right? So we had these long ones and they end up having a very good result in that case. But we had a little different thing here. So tell us John, a little bit about the case and how come you wanted to do virtual focus group?
John Prudhomme: Sure. Yeah. So that was, yes, this was a very different case from that. That, uh, medical device case, that was a wild one. I think we focus grouped like four different theories of that case, trying to figure that one out. Yeah. So this one was much more straightforward. This is a fuel tanker, rear ending a dump truck on, on I 35, you know, seemed from our perspective to be pretty straightforward.
We had a video from the dash cam of the oil tanker that we thought made it pretty clear. Video showed our guy going pretty slow, but. The oil tanker essentially just plows [00:04:00] into the back of them. So it seemed pretty straightforward. And then we got two plus years into the case and we hadn’t gotten an offer and everyone seemed to be digging in on the other side that this was just the liability case.
And so while we thought it was pretty straightforward, I definitely started to get a little bit paranoid, especially as we started to get, I think maybe Three, four months out from trial and there didn’t seem to be any indication of the settlement coming at any point soon. So that’s when we reached out to you to see, you know, Hey, can we get, get a group of people in here to see, get another perspective on, on what, what the defense might be looking at from, from that side, what a jury might think of that video.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yes. And what john is being so polite about is it wasn’t just that it was a video. Okay. And it was a nice crisp video. By the way, this wasn’t like one of those crummy ones. And also his client was getting on the interstate. Y’all, it’s not just driving real slow on the end. It’s getting on. [00:05:00] And the fact was that turned out like, why did this happen?
Was the fuel tanker driver was sound asleep. Totally admitted he was sound asleep. So look like super clear liability. So John comes to me and he’s like, I must be missing something because There’s no offer feels like a super clear situation. We got video. So we said, okay, let’s throw it to a focus group.
But also I think the other thing that was a little bit precarious was the venue, right? So venue a little bit North of us, that’s just different, different venue. I will say it with some few different factors that we want, you guys want to make sure, because, you know, sometimes we can spot what. Defense is hanging their hat on and sometimes we can’t
And so this is one of those places where, you know, like you said, they litigated for two years and originally, of course, the position or originally was okay, dude says it’s a hundred percent his fault, he’s sleeping and now. It’s a 50, 50 situation. So a couple of [00:06:00] things just to test out. So we, we took it to the focus group and we did a pretty simple, straightforward, right?
Didn’t want to put our fingers on the scale when we’re the other, we just did pretty neutral, straightforward thing. So I had some people from the venue. What were you going to say, John?
John Prudhomme: Oh, I was just going to say, yeah, we had a, you know, one of the first things, one of the first depositions on the case was a company rep for the oil tanker company saying that it was 50, which.
we thought was great for us. And then as, as we got a year and a year longer into the case, then all of a sudden nothing had changed as far as, as far as they were going, we were trying to figure out, wait, wait, so they were serious about the 50 50.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yes. Yes. So we, we get in the focus group and you know, John, you’re watching, right?
What were some of the things going through your mind as you’re, as you’re watching these folks digress or digest, I should say, into the, into the video?
John Prudhomme: Well, yeah. And so the way that the way that you did it was you showed the video and you asked them what they thought about it. And that had me [00:07:00] terrified because they were, they were willing to put a decent amount on on my client for what speed they were going at that point.
At that point, they didn’t have the knowledge that he was asleep. That did certainly change their mind a little bit. But I mean, even after we went through the different iterations as they learned more about the facts, they were still ready to put at least 5, 10 percent at a minimum on my guy, despite the fuel tanker driver falling asleep behind the wheel of a loaded truck.
So that was pretty surprising and a little discouraging, but it certainly gave us some insight as to at least where the defense was coming from, what to expect from a jury up there, because like you said, it was a group of people from that area. And most importantly, told us that we needed to change what our strategy was as far as approaching or dire opening and obviously our clinic direct and, and.
And I think [00:08:00] this, yeah, this was before we had taken liability expert depos in the case and so that allowed us at least a little bit of runway to change, change some of our, our theory on liability that we thought was just, we’d already checked that box.
Elizabeth Larrick: Right, right. And, and mostly for liability, but we also did a little bit of damages work too.
So was it, what was it that were some takeaways about the damages that the focus group told you? Right.
John Prudhomme: Yeah. And so for damages, I mean, when I, when I first reached out, reached out to you, I asked you purely about the video. I was just getting a little paranoid about, about liability. And I think we talked a little bit about the images then, but I wasn’t really thinking too much about, about focus grouping damages.
We had a veteran as a client who, Was, you know, I had a back surgery. He had been recommended for spinal cord simulators. He’d done the trials. He had been through quite a bit of medical treatment. So we weren’t terribly concerned about that, [00:09:00] but we, we decided to at least throw in a little bit at the end.
And that also was extremely helpful as far as figuring out where to focus. Cause they were less interested in the treatment that he had. And they, they ended up being far more interested in this is credit to you, the his family and how it was going to affect his family and kind of the change from being, you know, this guy was essentially Paul Bunyan before and the way that his family was going to be impacted as far as his inability to do things moving forward.
They were far more focused on that, which ended up being true of our, our jury in this case, than they really were as far as what he was dealing with on a day to day basis, which ended up being extremely helpful as far as, again, his, his direct, we shifted things around as far as what the plan was there.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, we also, you bring it to the collateral source problem,
John Prudhomme: which
Elizabeth Larrick: with the military thing in here and just give you guys a little kind [00:10:00] of behind the curtain, this particular venue, it is a very good thing because you’re going to have veterans on the panel. You’re going to have people. So it was like, okay, like we want to make sure we talk about this.
And then of course the flip side of that as well, we got some collateral source. things pinging around in people’s brains. And of course it came up and naturally wasn’t even remotely true for the case, john.
John Prudhomme: Yeah, there was no insurance coverage whatsoever, let alone the collateral source issues that they were concerned about.
It ended up getting worse when we got to trial, what most of our panel ended up being employees of the VA and the local hospitals around. So just kind of compounded itself. Yeah. Also
Elizabeth Larrick: problem, right? So. Tell me a little bit about, I mean, you know, we ran this group, you know, anything else that like thinking at that time that you came up, you walked away with thinking, okay, we’re gonna need to move some things around.
Anything else that were takeaways from the focus group that you guys change things [00:11:00] for, for your trial approach?
John Prudhomme: You know, the approach on liability, the approach on. I’m talking about his family as the one being impacted. I mean, obviously we get so caught in the weeds as far as we’re looking at a jury charge, which is what are his damages?
What is he dealing with as far as medical pain and suffering impairment? Those types of things. But that doesn’t mean that that’s necessarily all that they want to hear about. And so really, like, That was one of the biggest things that changed. I know I already mentioned that as far as new things, you know, honestly, the only on liability, just to kind of dig into that further, we shifted our liability approach to focusing on.
I think it was something that you brought up when you were talking to them that really it’s funny to watch them work in real time as they’re talking through the issues and the issue of the highway, not having a minimum speed was something that was pretty surprising to everyone. And [00:12:00] it became a huge deal for them and the focus group.
So we made it a huge part of our, we took it a little bit further. We, we pulled out the statute on obstructing the roadway and started and focused on that hard with the defense experts with our expert and, you know, really hammered it home throughout opening and pretty much every witness that we had related to liability.
It kind of shifted our entire approach to how we were, we were dealing with the liability aspect. The one thing, you know, I would say that I wish we had focus group more, we talked about it a little bit, but I wasn’t too worried about it as they had done surveillance. Which we definitely didn’t give as much attention to as we should have, and it ended up being a pretty big deal for the jury.
It’s bad rulings on that that we weren’t really expecting, but I wish we had spent a little bit more time getting people’s thoughts on that part of it. But yeah, I mean, those were the two big things, focusing on the impact on this family and then just really [00:13:00] shifting our liability focus beyond that. Hey guys, he was asleep.
Do you need any more than that?
Elizabeth Larrick: And that’s what I was going to say. Like the other thing that was like super surprising was, and again, if you drive up and down 35 often and frequently, like it’s a blur. So we had one person plant this idea that there is a minimum and. Then everyone adopted it and it was like, and I had to say like, okay, there is no minimum.
Okay. Just so we’re clear, but people like, so that was a huge thing that like kind of caught traction. And it’s one of those things where it’s, it’s very, it’s like persuasion, right? Like that had so much credibility over, right? Like literally the video of like, this dump truck is getting up to speed to get on the highway.
And they, you know, so I think that was like, Okay. All right. This is good. This is something you could never have predicted that they were going to create.
John Prudhomme: Yeah, right.
Elizabeth Larrick: Create a law that was going to penalize your clients.
John Prudhomme: They couldn’t have cared less that he was getting up to speed. [00:14:00] It didn’t matter to them at all.
I guess people have enough experience on on the highway, at least on this highway that they were so annoyed that he was going not close to the actual maximum speed limit that They put all that stuff out the window and they just, they just focused on the fact that he was going that speed. And yeah, really that minimum speed thing really got in their mind and took off for a while.
I think until you told them there was a speed limit, which is why we took it further when we saw the, when we, we went to the trial and said, this is the law on obstructing the roadway. This is the law on impeding traffic. He wasn’t doing any of these. We got their experts to agree that, okay. that he wasn’t violating any laws with how he was driving that day.
I think That helped turn it a little bit, but man, I will tell you, people do not like people driving. It’s apparently more offensive than falling asleep behind the wheel.
Elizabeth Larrick: That was my other comment was, you know, when we, when we think [00:15:00] about doing an 18 wheeler case, a commercial vehicle case, like we kind of look for these distracted driving, are we fatigued?
And sometimes we get that out of people that say, Oh, well, was he over hours? It’s like, Very kind of rarely that it happens, but in this situation, there literally was 100 percent proof. The guy had signed on a statement. I fell asleep and they were not concerned. One iota about this guy and being over hours or, or anything.
And then they, no concern there, like more pissed about the guy.
John Prudhomme: I know it’s like, we spend all this time digging into these facts. This is the best case, all that stuff, and I just feel stupid every time. Like we talk, we gotta talk to the jury afterwards. The focus group, the people that are making the decisions on these cases, they don’t care about that stuff at all.
everything that we get so excited about.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. I mean, the other thing too, that we really wanted to [00:16:00] test, which was the flip flop, meaning they were, I fell asleep. It’s written in my company, in the company policies or the, you know, the after documents that they fill out. And then we go to depositions two years later and it’s no, no, no.
This was definitely this guy’s fault. He had a mechanical error, which there was zero proof of any kind of mechanical error. But. Was that okay? And they were just like, yeah, we expect that. Like we expect companies to totally flip flop on you and say that. So it really wasn’t expected that kind of behavior.
And I see that often in focus groups where we’re trying to see, does this have traction? Like, does this make people upset? And they’ve now come to just. That’s accepted.
John Prudhomme: And the focus group ended up being consistent with trial. You know, when we talked to the jury afterwards, they loved our guy. They thought he was credible.
There was nothing about what he was saying that they thought wasn’t truthful. And they hated the corporate rep for the other company, the [00:17:00] same guy that testified to 50 50, they didn’t like him at all. It didn’t change. Thought process as far as liability. Nothing at all. Thought he was asleep. They didn’t think for a second.
He wasn’t asleep, didn’t buy, came up with this theory that he had just dozed off and he wasn’t fully asleep. Didn’t buy that at all. But it still didn’t change. The, your guy was still driving too slow.
Elizabeth Larrick: Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. Okay, so let’s flip to trial. You guys get to trial. You, you’ve got this panel and you’re thinking, okay.
We had a panel. This is on steroids. worst kind of panel we will. So tell me a little about and again, just for you guys, like, you know, don’t, you know, in anticipation, the jury actually didn’t get the case, right? They end up settling right before closing argument. So, and you know, we’re not gonna talk about that.
That’s confidential. However, we get to talk about everything else. And I’m so excited that you guys talk to the jurors to get their [00:18:00] feedback. So tell us a little about the makeup of the jury and kind of how it was, you know, this, The focus group panel on steroids. Basically.
John Prudhomme: Yeah. Yeah. So it was, it was, you know, six men, six women really.
I think we had like four nurses. We had two hospital administrators. We had a, it was awful. We almost busted the panel and this was the good panel. This is the good, the good 12 that we ended up with. Not even joking, it was an insane panel, but yes, we ended up with, yeah, four nurses, two hospital administrators, a billing person at a medical practice, three VA administrators, one guy who just wouldn’t answer any questions and didn’t fill out his, his jury questionnaire.
Elizabeth Larrick: Oh my gosh.
John Prudhomme: And I don’t know how he ended up on there. And then we had another, I think he was, oh, he worked at Tesla. It’s like a plant, a plant operator, a Tesla or something. Anyway, so, so
Elizabeth Larrick: a great panel, so it sounds, sounds, sounds perfect.
John Prudhomme: Yeah, [00:19:00] yeah, it was, it was pretty terrifying. We were, we were definitely scared of them the whole time.
We definitely were trying to, with all the nurses on there, we definitely tried to focus more on the severity of the injuries and the medical, maybe a little bit more than we had planned It wasn’t really a tug at your heartstrings type of group. Very one thing I will say for them is, man, they, they listened to everything.
They were intent. No one was dozing off. There was not a set. They were all. And when we talked to them afterwards, they were all fascinated by the case. a little bit more so than I would have hoped. I would have thought it would just be more outraged at the guy falling asleep behind the wheel, but we did not get that.
But yeah, just, just a brutally bad.
Elizabeth Larrick: And then you mentioned kind of one of the, now there were a couple of less than desirable rulings that you guys got. And, and one of the, probably the, the bigger ones that probably couldn’t anticipate, because I feel like the law is really clear in Texas, which is The admission [00:20:00] of the full police report, which is like pretty much never happens.
And so that had some nuggets that planted some seeds that couldn’t really be overcome because there was literally no evidence anywhere. Right.
John Prudhomme: I think that’s the thing that probably hurt us the most on our guy’s speed is there was a part of the police report that mentioned our guy having mechanical issues, which like you mentioned earlier, there’s zero evidence of mechanical of any mechanical issues and so that, that got in, that got in front of the jury.
Obviously once they finally, that was the other thing is we, we didn’t know it was getting in until the third day. And so we, we couldn’t plan for it.
Elizabeth Larrick: Oh,
John Prudhomme: just assumed it wasn’t
Elizabeth Larrick: right.
John Prudhomme: Right. But yeah, we, we couldn’t get a ruling. Based law and just he held it. He held it. He held it. And then the third day, we finally got that ruling and it was a little too late to do damage control or to do too much damage control.
So that was [00:21:00] pretty harmful. I think that’s probably what, what hurt us a decent amount as far as well. Obviously, I don’t know what the jury would have done, but at least in our minds, it hurt us a decent amount on the speed. So yeah, we had that one that was pretty bad. And then you mentioned collateral stores.
We had a pretty bad collateral source ruling where one of their experts was allowed to testify to what the, for example, an epidural steroid injection reimbursement from a health insurance company would be. just for the position, not for the facility. So the only evidence that they have is our bills and the reimbursement rate for those bills for a position would be 200 or something like that.
Elizabeth Larrick: They were speaking straight to that billing juror right there like, hey, hey, hey, nothing to me. Tell me a little bit about the surveillance because I know that this is an issue that [00:22:00] a lot of people face and it’s unfortunate that sometimes we get that surveillance literally on the doorstep of trial.
Like, oops, here it is. We, you know, surveillance them for two weeks. Like we didn’t see what was kind of the nature of the surveillance.
John Prudhomme: You know, I’ll just kind of back up a little bit because our guy, like I said, he’s, he was basically Paul Bunyan, you know, army ranger, all this stuff. And so he doesn’t look hurt when he’s sitting there on a day to day basis.
Elizabeth Larrick: No, he, I mean, when he says Paul Bunyan, this person, 6’3 almost 6’4 and just, you know, a brick wall of muscle. And I did see pictures of him working out. He did like to do some muscles and do the weightlifting. So, okay, back to you, John.
John Prudhomme: Yeah. And I mean, he hasn’t, you know, obviously he hasn’t worked out since the wreck, but I mean, when you’ve got 25 years of, of that type of intense routine going on, it doesn’t just go overnight.
So You know, so he doesn’t, [00:23:00] he didn’t look bad and he could still obviously do a lot of things that, you know, a lot of us can’t do now. So he, you know, the surveillance showed him, you know, lifting up bags of ice and bending over and picking up a nice chest. You know, the thing that we did have going for us is he did have a spinal cord simulator and at the time, and he was, I think, like, Five or six months post discectomy.
So, you know, we address the surveillance through his doctors. These are the things you would expect them to be doing that type of stuff. But, you know, he’s also a pretty successful guy. And so he’s got a boat and he’s got nice cars and he’s got an awesome family. And so the part that hurt us, I don’t think was necessarily what he was physically doing.
It was that this guy looks like he’s living the life. Why are we going to give him this much money? [00:24:00] And that was the biggest part that another ruling that we thought would, would go our way is that, you know, we didn’t expect them to show a picture of the boat. They even got to ask him how much the boat cost.
Do a couple of different things there that we, we just were never anticipating would actually get in and should have planned for better. Most likely. it’s, you know, certainly influenced the jury as far as what they would be willing to award. And so, you know, honestly, as we sit here today, I don’t even know how we would address those specific aspects of it.
I think we pivoted pretty well as far as addressing the physical limitations that he had and why he was doing some of the things he did versus what he was able to do before through his surgeon, through the life care planner, talking about those types of things, but I would have been a lot more comfortable if we had figured out through a focus group what Thank you.
Appreciate it. What, because when we talked to the jurors afterwards, it was, the surveillance was a pretty big [00:25:00] deal. It was meaningful to them. And I think at least I, a lot of times discounted because, you know, it’s sleazy, it’s shady. People see it that way and they did, but then they also actually watched it.
Elizabeth Larrick: But then they were also putting it in both categories. Like, well, that’s the
John Prudhomme: best way to put it. There were so many things that I think we see sometimes as black and white. This is either good for us or bad for us. And they put it in both categories a lot of the time.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And so I think one of the things that we talked about was you guys did get to talk to them afterwards.
We’ve talked a lot about that, but tell me a little bit about kind of the feed off of them that you guys were thinking as far as like verdict amount, which ended up probably being like, you know, trust your gut. That’s why you went ahead and went ahead and got it settled. So tell us a little bit about their feedback on numbers.
John Prudhomme: Yeah, I think we probably would have ended up maybe about half of what we settled for. As far as the verdict goes, very, very happy. We were able to get it done before it went out to [00:26:00] them. Yeah, they were, they just, they weren’t buying the numbers. We had a life care plan with a great life care planner. You know, the both categories thing.
They loved our life care planner. They thought he was the best witness of the entire case other than our client. But they, they just, they were not buying the amounts, you know, We talked about the nurses and the administrators and things like that. It may be it’s a county thing, but they, they just, they were not buying the full bill charges, you know, lateral source in injected into the case or not.
It just wasn’t something that they were going to be willing to go with. So let
Elizabeth Larrick: me pause there, which was really important for your client because he had done these trials, spinal cord stimulators. He refused. I wouldn’t say refused. He made a choice. It’s not going to have narcotics. It’s never going to take narcotics because he had small kids, teenagers at the house.
So his thing was, I’ll try the spinal cord simulators, which worked. [00:27:00] However, by the time trial came, he had not gotten the permanent one. So the permanent ones were in there and that was really, really bad. Probably the most important thing I would say, yeah, for him, because, you know, he was, he was a nice guy, you know, didn’t want a lot for pain and suffering.
And we fashioned that with our focus group, by the way, we really looked at, okay, here is what he needs. And there really wasn’t in the focus group. There wasn’t a lot of like, right. Other than like, wait a second, he can go get this, you know, with the collateral source thing, like, Oh no. So anyhow, just wanted to like plant that in there because the life care planner was a really big piece of like.
This has to happen in order for him to have relief, you know, so
John Prudhomme: it was, it was, I mean, it was the biggest part of our damage model by far, that’s, we put a lot of effort into that a lot, a lot of effort into, you know, kind of focusing on that and open and, and obviously through, through all the doctor’s testimony, as far as trying to prove up the life care plan, including the defense experts and, you know, [00:28:00] That was the crazy thing is we didn’t really have a whole lot of dispute as far as the actual treatment that was going to be needed in the future for him.
They had four medical experts, three of them agreed that he was going to need essentially everything that was in the life care plan. They came down to the cost and so they weren’t sitting there saying. The jury wasn’t saying they’re saying we don’t think he doesn’t need any of this treatment. It’s just he’s not going to have to pay this amount for this.
And so we’re not going to warn him that that really ended up being the biggest deal. We were never able to really get over that collateral source. in their mind.
Elizabeth Larrick: Plus the boat.
John Prudhomme: Yeah. Yeah. Going out and buying a boat while you’re getting all this treatment with a bunch of medical bills sitting out there probably ended up being.
Elizabeth Larrick: Well, and that’s also one of those things where, you know, when thinking now, now that you’ve gone through, you, you actually got to go to, you saw [00:29:00] their case, right? And then you got to hear what resonated like they were, had a lot of writing on your guy and him being super active and buying a boat and like the surveillance, which, you know, a lot of them do that, but you know, when they, all their experts agree, you’re not really with your experts.
There’s not like, well, is that really what they’re hanging their hat on? And it, and it was, and they did it.
John Prudhomme: Yeah, it’s you know, it’s funny again. We get so caught up in all this stuff, you know We spend so much time trying to figure out how to get to all of their experts And really at the end of the day The jury didn’t care about any of the rest.
They cared about the boat. They cared about the cost. And they, they just cared about what he was physically still able to do for his family. That was, and they saw him moving around in those videos. And I, I think it hurt, it hurt our argument that, you know, he’s not going to be able to do these things.
He’s young to. And so they’re [00:30:00] not seeing what it’s going to look like in 15, 20 years. And, you know, we tried to hammer that home with, with all of our, our experts and doctors and, and even, even the client up there. But yeah, I definitely would say I’m guilty of focusing way too much on trying to get to their experts and what our guys are going to say and not really focusing on some of these things that ultimately matter to them more.
And the surveillance was one of those. Definitely. And
Elizabeth Larrick: I think, you know, it, Like people are like right now. And in the past year, like people are very conscious about costs and expenses. And when they go to the grocery store, that goes up, like when they get the gas pump, not so much, but the groceries that it’s like, there’s so much more cost conscious, plus you had, unfortunately, a jury full of experts on that kind of stuff.
And then they, you know, they are not as empathetic, like, you know, like, you know, windfall or whatever. So the other question that I have, because again, you’ve got this. [00:31:00] Great experience of we talked about your client before we talked about the focus group and kind of what his perspective was, how did his perspective change like sitting through going through trial lists and everything like, you know, how does perspective change about his case?
John Prudhomme: You know, he was very, very involved in this case. Great guy. I’m one of the better clients I’ve ever had for sure. Very smart. Which sometimes can be difficult to manage expectations, especially because he knows exactly what’s going on. And so, we had talked about the focus group in pretty good detail. We picked the jury.
The jury, he didn’t really totally understand what was happening with the jury for the first couple days, though, I would say. He also gave one of the best directs that I’ve ever seen anyone give. It was incredible. And so, they really liked him, but I think he started to see as the end. His wife was very helpful in helping him get there [00:32:00] on this.
He finally got to the point where, you know, we didn’t really have any sort of offer to consider until so, you know, We started, we were going to close on the Monday after we started, and so we got back in the courtroom on Monday, and that was the first time it was going to go to the jury at 9 a. m. that we got our first real offer, and so he didn’t really have anything to consider before then.
That was the point, I think, where he, you know, finally, he was finally able to realize, like, oh, This jury is terrifying. We had talked about it a little bit on Friday. We had talked about it a little bit over the weekend, but you know, we didn’t really, we didn’t have a choice. So we, there wasn’t really much context to have that discussion.
And then when we sat down and we’re, we’re really talking about, you know, whether we want to put this in their hands or not, they were definitely both able to acknowledge, yeah, this, I don’t know what they’re going to do. And it could end pretty poorly. Uh, it could end significantly less than, you know, [00:33:00] they were never going to.
Yeah. But it might’ve been a lot less than we were talking about it as far as so, so yeah, he, he kind of saw the evolution and then he didn’t talk to them, but he overheard them talking to the defense attorneys afterwards. And I don’t think he could have ever been happier about a decision he’s made.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah.
Again, you have this unique experience that if things do settle quite often, like in the middle of trial, but most of the time it’s at a different point, not right. So, I mean, it is sometimes happened right before closing, but when your client gets that experience and then the sitting as a fishbowl and like seeing how it’s all swirling around and thinking like, this is not at all what I thought was going to happen, you know, but again, You guys didn’t have even a single offer to consider.
So it wasn’t like you, you know, there was any kind of waffling because like, Hey, we’re going like, this is it.
John Prudhomme: So yeah, no, absolutely.
Elizabeth Larrick: Super helpful. Okay. [00:34:00] Awesome experience here. So, you know, you got to go all the way through, obviously thinking back now that we’re using hindsight probably would have done folks group on that surveillance to see how, how it would have nailed and how you kind of maybe have, because again, As we heard in your focus group, just on your video for liability, we had people on both sides of the coin, right?
And they’re tussling it out, you know, and hearing basically their strong points and why and all that good stuff. And so that’s, you know, helped you kind of shape where we had to go and what we had to lean into. And hopefully the surveillance would have provided you kind of the same thing, because normally they do, right?
You’re going to focus group, hopefully it’s good, you know, there’s a good mix that you’re going to have people on both sides and they’re going to be talking about their opinions. Either way. So anything else you feel like You would have focused grouped or maybe,
John Prudhomme: you know, I’m wondering. Oh, on the surveillance funding.
Well, yeah, well, definitely on the
Elizabeth Larrick: surveillance. I think you said, yeah, yeah, there’s been more time than you get. You would definitely would have done on the surveillance.
John Prudhomme: So [00:35:00] just 11 notes. I also Learned at trial on that surveillance is so they brought the PI alive and he testified that he had done surveillance on our guy a week before trial.
No video shockingly produced, which is interesting, but yeah. So, you know, I think I talked to my client about, I doubt, I don’t think they’re going to probably not going to be any more surveillance at this point. I was wrong. Definitely need to note that in the future, as far as focus grouping stuff. Yeah, I mean, I think we’ve been trying to figure out different ways to address the, you know, the elephant in the room as far as health insurance or lack of health insurance and stuff.
I think that might be, you know, I don’t know if that’s a full half day focus group or worked into it. a damaged focus group, something like that. But there’s definitely to figure out some better way at least. I don’t, I don’t, and [00:36:00] maybe it’s just, maybe it’s just not possible with certain juries bars in particular, but you know, figuring out some way to better address that.
You can’t consider health insurance in this case. We did not consider it or however we need to get there from that perspective. You know, the method we tried was, was through some of our doctors, but it clearly did not land.
Elizabeth Larrick: Well, and again, you had expert jurors, so that’s, you know, I think with a different panel, but again, you know, it’s kind of one of those things where, holy moly, I know you guys tried to bust the panel and the judge is not going to let you, but you know, that’s kind of the other things too, is one of these gambles that we have, especially with this.
And here in Texas, we have this, you know, like the war is on the bills right now. And like, Oh, everyone’s got a billing expert and Oh, it’s this, it’s that. And, you know, and that’s where the, you know, if you’re running a car wreck or any kind of like, that’s where they’re kind of staking a little bit of a claim, which makes a lot of people worried.
We do, we’ve done lots of [00:37:00] focus groups on these billing experts and like the challenges and stuff like that. And so, yeah, I think it’s a matter of. Figuring out how to talk to, talk to people.
John Prudhomme: Yeah. And, you know, I think we’ve gotten decent, at least that, that attacking the billing experts and undermining their credibility.
And I don’t, you know, honestly, they’re, they’re billing experts didn’t have credibility with, with the jury when we talked to them. I don’t think that was meaningful to them. I think it’s just, You know, frankly, the defendants would have been better off not bringing billing experts because it was already in their mind.
It was something that was going to affect their result anyway. I don’t know exactly what the, the path is, but I think I’ve definitely spent way too much time trying to figure out how to attack their billing experts and less time focusing on how do we address That elephant in the room through our people because that seemed to be the much bigger issue for them,
Elizabeth Larrick: right?
And that’s a lot of the results that we’ve seen is like, this is a side [00:38:00] issue. Like you’re trying to create, you’re kind of distracting me from, from this other thing. Cause anyone can come in and say, oh, it should be left, right? But ultimately, like who has the ability to negotiate, right? And that’s like, you’re asking your client, right?
Did you negotiate this? Like, as we sit here today, if you go get this in six months. Do you have any idea what it’s going to cost? No. What are you relying on? Well, the guidance that I’ve gotten from this guy who that’s his whole job, right? Like, and you know, if it’s more, if it’s less, like, you know, it’s kind of one of those things like, how do you like, where do the seeds plant?
And I think you’ve nailed it, which is, I think it’s almost everybody, right? It’s your doctors, it’s the life care planner. It’s even your client because he is fine now, but he’s a young guy and it could be, I mean, cause Could be he wakes up one morning and it’s different. That’s happened to him before.
John Prudhomme: Yeah, no, exactly. It’s happened a lot during this case.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yes, awesome. Well, hey, I really appreciate you [00:39:00] coming on and sharing your experience. I know a lot of people are curious about virtual. You guys have been early adopters and I think, you know, thinking through this case and why you came to do one and, and just to be, you know, totally black and white here, like, what John did not do it all day.
We did two hours. That was it. And in those two hours, like this is all the nuggets that he got to really reframe liability.
John Prudhomme: Yeah. I don’t, I don’t think frankly, cause we did, we did at least one in person focus group. And honestly, I don’t think it’s from the other case before, I don’t think it changed anything to have a virtual really.
Watching them work, thinking through these things and talking through these things is fascinating. You learn quite a bit about how we get lost in our little bubbles, our little legal bubbles.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yes, yes. Well, I’m just thinking through, like, if we wanted to do one for in person, like, that would have been an exponential larger cost, because we all would have had to get in our cars and go up there and get a place and, [00:40:00] you know, versus having everybody tuning in on, on Zoom, which, You know, convenient for sure.
So awesome. Well, John, if there’s anybody out there’s listening who may be on the fence about virtual focus groups, like what advice would you give them?
John Prudhomme: I would encourage you to do it. If you’ve got anything that, anything that you think is gonna be a potential issue in, in your case or you’re curious about how a jury is gonna think about it or step back for a minute because you think something is all locked in and maybe reconsider as far as the different ways that people might think of things outside of our, our lawyer world.
Yeah, I definitely encourage you to do it because it definitely changed our, our mindset on this one. And I’m not, if we had approached it kind of with the fastball, this guy fell asleep and through the rest of you approach that we were kind of going with it, I think it would have turned them off quite a bit.
So, yeah, I would definitely encourage, if nothing else, it’s fascinating to hear how they think about things. And it’ll certainly change at least one or [00:41:00] two things about the way how you approach things.
Elizabeth Larrick: Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much john for joining us today. I know it helps to hear other people’s experience and you had a pretty fun one here recently.
And this was, this was just in May, right? So I mean, we’re digging the gold out now before we move on to that next case. So thanks so much. Wild
John Prudhomme: ride. Finish June one. That’s
Elizabeth Larrick: right. All right. Well, Thank you all here for listening in to this episode. If you have questions about John and his case, maybe you have a similar case, which actually happens pretty often.
When I have my listeners email me and say, Ooh, Ooh, you talked about that. All of John’s contact information will be in the show notes. I know he is happy to talk about the case. And how they did approach things and what they use. So if you want to reach out to him, his contact will be in the show notes.
Also, if you’re curious about doing a virtual focus group and maybe want to dip your toe in the water, there’ll be a link there. You want to talk to me about doing one of those, like John mentioned, like I mentioned. Got all kinds of styles and [00:42:00] flavors for everybody out there. So if you have a question or you’re curious, please book a time to talk to me.
It’s for free. Other than that, if you like this podcast, please rate review on your favorite platform that helps other people find it and until then, thank you so much.