David v. Goliath
Are your personal injury cases drying up? Do you settle your personal injury cases for less because the insurance companies have done a good job tainting jurors? Then try business litigation. The cover storey in the June issue of Trial suggested that there are many plaintiff opportunities in the business world to fight for the little guy.
I was reminded of this when I saw this article recently - a real David v. Goliath case complete with visuals of the Biblical characters. A bag boy, Jonathon Johnson, had worked his way up in a grocery chain to management. In addition he created four of his own stores in the inner city of Richmond which provided quality food at lesser prices and provided many services for the inner city residents.
Then he bought 51% of one of the stores from Rich Foods, the chain where he originally rose to management. Unfortunately another entity known as SuperValu bought ought Rich Foods and he found himself having to deal with them. They were not nice people. According to a whistleblower that worked for SuperValu they had a plan to run him out of business and replace his four inner city stores with their stores, Sav-a-Lot. They were successful.
But not so fast. In comes attorney Verbena Askew and sues on behalf of Mr. Johnson. The jury returns a verdit of $500,000 for intentional infliction of emotional distress and $15.5 million for negligent infliction of emotional distress for a total of $16 million.
I wonder how many times this kind of stuff happens every day which means I think this is an untapped area of the law. It would also seem to present challenges for trial attorneys to simplify the evidence and come up with creative ways communicate their story to the jurors - in other words a trial attorney’s dream come true.
