Episodes

The gods gave Clancy Boylan and his team at Morgan & Morgan a few gifts in their case against a truck driver and his employer. Clancy’s client was riding his mountain bike across a road when the truck hit him, leaving him with catastrophic injuries. One gift was the defense’s tone-deaf examination of Clancy’s client. Another was Clancy catching a trooper’s inaccurate testimony about his client. Tune in as Clancy breaks down the case with host Brendan Lupetin. It went to trial after the insuranc...

Tom Bosworth and Ben Phelps, of Bosworth Law, took calculated risks in their case against a staffing company and the driver it hired, who was taking employees of a potato chip factory to work when his van rolled over in a downpour. Several workers were injured or killed. They did not, for example, call an expert on economic damages. Nor did they put their clients on the stand. In this case analysis with host Brendan Lupetin, Tom and Ben outline why those strategies and others worked. The jury ...

Cheryl Pschirer was a lifetime smoker, at the end of her working life, adult children, no surviving spouse. “So some of the facts were stacked against us,” recalls Rudy Massa. “We had to, in essence, try to make this case about something more than that, and that’s where the early detection and the lost chance of life comes in.” Rudy and Devyn Lisi took St. Clair Hospital providers to trial for their failure to inform Cheryl that an x-ray had detected a mass on her lung. She wouldn’t learn of th...

Dominic Guerrini of Kline & Specter discusses the $7.1 million verdict he recently secured for a young woman rendered legally blind after a radiologist misread a CT scan image. With host Brendan Lupetin, Dominic breaks down how he managed the case with multiple defendants, why he decided not call the defendant radiologist to testify, and how consultants prepped his client for testifying. Among other strategies, they had the 23-year-old woman write a letter to younger self to prepare herself for ...

When David Kwass represented the estate of a golf pro who was killed during a fierce storm that swept through the Philmont Country Club, he faced at least three significant hurdles. Was Justin Riegel’s infant, born out of wedlock to Justin’s girlfriend, really his heir? Who was Justin’s employer? And was an “act of God” responsible for the storm? But the biggest question David faced was how could an 83-foot-tall, 36,000-pound tree – the tree that killed Justin when it toppled onto a cart storag...

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...

Almost 6,000 pounds of copper wire falls on a railroad electrician, causing debilitating personal injuries. Defendant Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority admits liability. The catch? The injuries aren’t clearly visible, and the defense leans into this. How does the plaintiff’s lawyer convey the catastrophic extent of the injuries to the jury and go on to win a $15 million verdict? In this episode of Just Verdicts, Daniel Purtell, founding partner of McEldrew Purtell, tells host B...

“Come and get me! Come and get me!” That’s what the 34-year-old man suffering from a mental health breakdown told state troopers responding to his family’s call for help. At least that’s what one of the troopers testified during cross-examination in federal court. Attorney Noah Geary brought civil rights claims against the trooper, arguing that he used excessive force when he fatally shot Anthony Gallo during that tragic encounter in 2017. In this unique episode of Just Verdicts, Noah and host...

Gasoline is refined from crude oil that contains benzene, a known carcinogen, but oil companies have long considered removing benzene from the gasoline manufacturing process a “dollars-and-cents” decision. Jurors considering whether ExxonMobil’s gasoline caused a Pennsylvania man’s leukemia made this decision: $725.5 million for the plaintiff. Andrew DuPont, partner at Locks Law Firm, won that verdict by framing his argument as ExxonMobil’s failure to warn consumers about benzene’s health hazar...

An inexperienced physician’s assistant misdiagnosed Richard Godshall and Christine Clarke’s client. But when they tried the case, they took it in an opposite direction than many would expect: not from the incident up, but from the top down. In the end, the Clarion County jury awarded their client $7 million. In this conversation with host Brendan Lupetin, Richard, owner and managing partner of Ostroff Godshall Injury and Accident Lawyers, and Christine, partner and head of the firm’s medical ma...

People go to hospitals to have their injuries treated. Unfortunately, however, sometimes patients are injured through the hospital’s negligence. On this episode of Just Verdicts, host Brendan Lupetin is joined by Pittsburgh med-mal attorney Sandra Neuman of Sandra Neuman Law to discuss a $1.4 million verdict she recently secured for an injured client. Listen as Sandy breaks down the case, describes what she did to show how the hospital violated its standard of care, and provides insight on how ...

“There's no glory in trying to make something out of nothing. Cases are won and lost on the facts. If you don't have a good case, you're not going to win that case 99.9 percent of the time.” In this episode of Just Verdicts, host Brendan Lupetin is joined by Kila Baldwin, shareholder at Anapol Weiss. Kila has been involved in a number of high-profile cases, including as lead counsel in trials that resulted in verdicts of $80 million, $57.1 million, and $41 million against Johnson & Johnson in t...

Slip-and-fall cases benefit from being “off code”–dialing down aggression and slowing things down. Especially when there’s no clear evidence of a premises violation, building credibility (yours and your client’s) is the best way to proceed. In this episode of Just Verdicts, host Brendan Lupetin is joined by slip-and-fall attorney Scott Perlmuter of Tittle & Perlmuter to break down how Scott (and trial attorney Katie Harris) recently won a $1.3 million all non-economic damages verdict on a slip-...

“Another one for the books.” How do you get a $2.5M verdict on two shoulder surgeries? It comes down to telling a compelling story to motivate the jury. In this episode of Just Verdicts, host Brendan Lupetin is joined by the show’s first returning guest, trial attorney Clancy Boylan of Morgan & Morgan. Tune is as Brendan and Clancy break down Clancy’s recent trucking case including, how he turned down a settlement offer more than double the medicals, the question he asked the defendant’s corpo...

A product intended to ensure safety should not be the source of an injury. In 2023, veteran trial attorney Wesley Ball of Farrar & Ball LLP helped secure a verdict against a car manufacturer that put defective seat belts in their cars. In this episode of Just Verdicts, Wes tells host Brendan Lupetin how he prevailed on behalf of a client whose devastating injuries caused by a defective seat belt left him a quadriplegic. Wes recalls how focus groups helped him prepare his trial strategy, the pro...

Fighting for what is right can be difficult. But that fight is worth it when justice is done. In this episode of Just Verdicts, host Brendan Lupetin is joined by Philadelphia injury attorney Tom Bosworth to discuss the case of Diane Melendez, whose undiagnosed condition caused her to experience extreme pain and lose her job. Tom recalls impeaching Ms. Melendez’s primary care physician, attacking the credibility of defense witnesses, and showing the jury how the defendants’ bad behavior had far-...

In Pennsylvania, plaintiff lawyers call Fayette County “Fayette-Nam.” They say jurors are anti-establishment. They say it’s one of the toughest counties in the Commonwealth. They say job one is to get their case out of Fayette County. James Tallman and Tom Crenney tried their med mal case in Fayette County. They won. In this episode of Just Verdicts, James and Tom tell host Brendan Lupetin how they prevailed on behalf of the family of a 35-year-old woman who died after what should have been a ...

Mark Schultz has regularly utilized focus groups for over 35 years and has become a firm believer in their necessity as part of the discovery and trial preparation process. On this episode of Just Verdicts, host and med mal litigator Brendan Lupetin, is joined by Attorney Mark Schultz, founder of Keystone Focus Trial Consulting. After four decades of law practice, Mark began a trial consulting practice, organizing and conducting focus groups for lawyers, and providing strategic input in both di...

We’ve heard for a while now that the “piss-off factor”–getting the jury angry, is probably the single biggest factor in driving verdicts in most cases. But what is the biggest driver of the “piss-off factor”? Defendant’s refusal to accept responsibility when there’s clear liability. On this episode of Just Verdicts (formerly Trial & Medical Error), host and med mal litigator Brendan Lupetin, is joined by trial lawyer Clancy Boylan, the managing partner of the New Jersey and Philadelphia offices...

How do you go from a $130k settlement offer to a $3M verdict on a case that was originally a garden variety slip-and-fall-hip-fracture-in-a-nursing-home case? On this episode of Just Verdicts (formerly Trial & Medical Error), host and med mal litigator Brendan Lupetin, is joined by personal injury attorneys Kelly Ciravolo and Jamie Anzalone of Anzalone & Doyle Trial Lawyers. Kelly and Jamie discuss the strategies and tactics they used to turn mundane facts into a $3M verdict against a nursing h...

The best trial lawyers are the ones who can spot the big picture and then figure out a strategy to use that to tip the case to their side. On this episode of Just Verdicts (formerly Trial & Medical Error), Brendan Lupetin interviews Ben Gideon, a med mal trial attorney from Maine who is a member of the Inner Circle of Advocates and co-host of Elawvate, a podcast for trial lawyers. Tune in as Ben shares an interesting way to frame an individual doctor case as a system failure, how to overcome c...

While there are certain venues you’d like to avoid, if possible, you just can't control where your client was injured. Our clients deserve justice no matter where malpractice happened. On this episode of Just Verdicts (formerly Trial & Medical Error), Brendan Lupetin interviews Victor Pribanic, a trial lawyer at Pribanic & Pribanic in Western Pennsylvania. Victor shares how he and his associate, Sherie Cannin, won the first medical malpractice verdict in McKean County, the different hurdles th...

There's nothing “alternative" about the mediation process anymore. Trials are the alternative because settlements and mediations far outweigh the cases that are being tried. In this episode of Just Verdicts (formerly Trial & Medical Error), med mal litigator Brendan Lupetin talks with John Noble, a prolific and highly sought-after mediator in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. John has done at least 250 mediations and arbitrations each year since about 2007. John is also a longtime trial attorne...

Being prepared for trial conveys the message that your case is important. So when you have a limited window of time to present your case to the jury, you better not wing it. On this episode of Just Verdicts (formerly Trial & Medical Error), med mal litigator Brendan Lupetin interviews Ryan McKeen, the Co-founder and CEO of Connecticut Trial Firm, LLC. A first-generation lawyer, Ryan is the author of multiple personal injury books including, Tiger Tactics. He also mentors lawyers on how to be be...