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From Trial Guides -
Congratulations to Nick Rowley, Courtney Rowley, and Astineh Arakelian from Shegerian & Associates on their recent $15 million noneconomic damages verdict. In 2015, Carney Shegerian and Courtney Rowley obtained a $7.1 million verdict for former sports columnist T.J. Simers against the L.A. Times for wrongfully discriminating against him. However, the L.A. Times was able to get the court to set the original jury verdict aside, forcing a retrial on damages. Nick Rowley was kind enough to share a few thoughts on the case with us:
The case had to be retried with only one cause of action remaining, very limiting instructions, and not a penny of recoverable economic damages.
[We] made sure the case was framed in mini opening and voir dire as a case where the damages sought were noneconomic for emotional distress, humiliation, and loss of enjoyment of life for the violation of T.J.’s civil rights.
The jury would only be answering noneconomic damages questions only.
With the jury being instructed that the damages verdict could not include a single dollar for an investigation that the L.A. Times conducted or for T.J.’s decision to resign, the case was presented by telling the human story of a loss of identity, humiliation, loss of enjoyment of life, emotional distress, and major depression caused by age and disability discrimination and telling a man who worked his entire life that he was no longer a columnist.
The highest offer on the case was $500,000 and the ultimate jury verdict in the retrial was $15.45 million.
To learn more about how Nick Rowley obtains full justice for the noneconomic damages his clients suffer, check out Noneconomic Damages—a recently rereleased audio lecture that highlights the Trial by Human method that Nick and others successfully use to obtain the full value of their clients' injuries.
Check out Trial By Woman by Courtney Rowley and Theresa Bowen Hatch, including their book and popular Forum. The Forum includes a traditional listserv as well as face to face time with the group every month via zoom. You can find out more here.
