← The Iced Coffee Hour
The Iced Coffee Hour
Starbucks Lawsuit Winner Breaks Silence on $50M Verdict, Burned P*nis, and Controversy
01:56:50
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- [00:00]
Mike
The Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University helps you go from I know the way to I've arrived with our top 10 ranked online MBA. Gain skills you can learn today and apply tomorrow. Get ready to go from make it happen to made it happen and keep striving. Visit strayer.edu Jack WelchMBA to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Shev and has many campuses including at 2121 15th Street north in Arlington, Virginia. So he pulled into the Drive thru. Seconds later he was screaming in pain. Starbucks ended up offering 30 million, but that wasn't enough for us to take it.
- [00:40]
Graham
And what was Starbucks primary defense?
- [00:42]
Mike
You wouldn't believe the courtroom strategies of one of the most powerful corporations in America. Surveillance video from inside the Drive Thru.
- [00:48]
Graham
Shows one of the three cups was.
- [00:49]
Mike
Not properly secured onto the container before the barista handed it to him. Things wouldn't be safe without lawsuits like this. You know the temperature of coffee at McDonald's is lower, right? People are going to do a better job putting cups into these cases now. Everything is safer in the world because of lawsuits like this. What's the price of pain? What's the price of disfigurement? What's the price of sexual dysfunction? And in this case, that price was $50 million. An LA jury has hit Starbucks with a 50 million dollar verdict after a.
- [01:18]
Graham
Customer suffered third degree burns to his genitalia.
- [01:21]
Mike
They had a couple different angles on what they thought caused caused the spill and it's the most frivolous stuff I've ever seen, let me tell you.
- [01:29]
Jack
At what point is this legal extortion?
- [01:31]
Mike
If you think that's extortion, you haven't seen what they're getting away with.
- [01:41]
Graham
Mike, thank you so much for coming on the Ice Coffee hour.
- [01:44]
Mike
Yeah, of course, man. Happy to be here.
- [01:45]
Graham
So what exactly happened in the Starbucks case?
- [01:48]
Mike
So the kind of short version of the story is our client was a delivery driver. So, you know, like doordash, grubhub, um, he went to a Starbucks to pick up three medicine balls. So it's like a tea with lemonade. I don't know if you're familiar with that drink. Um, and when he went through the drive through, the barista didn't secure the third drink properly. And when the handoff happened, the drink fell into his lap, caused severe third degree burns to his penis and his thighs. And eventually the case went to trial and we got a verdict of $50 million.
- [02:23]
Graham
And you were the primary lawyer representing him.
- [02:26]
Mike
So there were two law firms involved. So we were the initial law firm that took on the case. So we got the call, he found us online. He let us know kind of what had happened. He'd already been in the burn center and had gone through the skin grafts. He already gone through a lot of the reconstruction of his genitals. And then we signed up the case. The hard part about signing up these cases is a lot of times people don't know the victims have no idea what happened. Right. So when you have, you know, hot coffee fall on your lap, things happened so quickly that it's hard to tell. Like, did it fall out of the cup holder? Did the cup holder break? Did the handoff, you know, happen too quickly? So, you know, we had to kind of evaluate the case and figure out it was something worth taking. And because of the severity of the injuries, we decided to kind of move forward and investigate. So our firm filed the lawsuit, our firm did all the discovery, the depositions, and we had actually file a motion to compel to get the video. So Starbucks was concealing the video. And we can talk about that more later. But it ended up being a huge issue in the case. And then I have a co counsel, his name's Nick Rawley, stellar trial attorney. So when it got to the point where we went to trial, Nick joined up with us and then we all handled the trial with Nick being lead counsel on that.
- [03:45]
Jack
So I'm so curious, what were your first impressions when this person calls in and shows you the injuries?
- [03:51]
Mike
So, you know, we didn't see the photos initially. I remember the first time I got the call, I think I was like at dinner with my family and he was explaining what happened, right. Told me, you know, it spilled on. He had severe burns to his genitals. But it wasn't until I actually got the photographs and saw what happened that I understood the magnitude of how severe the injuries were. So, you know, a lot of people in the news will see, hey, he burned his genitals. Hey, he had third degree burns to his thighs. But until you actually see the photographs of what happened, it's really hard to understand how serious those injuries are. So, you know, my initial impression was, I don't know if there's going to be a liability issue here. I don't know if liability is clear. I don't know if liability is, you know, going to be hard to get. But because of how serious the injuries were, we were willing to take it on. We were willing to investigate, we were willing to file a lawsuit and find out what happened.
- [04:43]
Jack
How long does it take to get the tapes?
- [04:45]
Mike
Okay, so this was like a whole issue with the case, right? So we did what's called a request for production. You guys familiar with what that is? So in the litigation process, you get what's called discovery. So in discovery, there's form interrogatories, which is asking questions. There's requests for admissions where admit you did X, Y or Z, and there's requests for production, which is turnover, you know, documents or video. Right? So at the time, Starbucks had a firm that was very obstructionist. They were very well known for not playing ball. They were very well known for hiding things. And I think what Starbucks strategy was was to wait until our client's deposition to turn over the video because they were hoping that he would say something that was wrong, that when we saw the video, we would know is incorrect. Because the thing is, is that when you go through a traumatic event, your memory is not very good. You know, if you were out and you got shot, for example, to know what happened in the 30 seconds preceding being shot, I mean, it's going to be a blur for you. You're going to have wrong information. I mean, even 10 people who see the same event see different things. So we did a request for production of the video. We did what's called a meet and confer. We sent them a letter when they didn't produce it, and they refused to produce the video. So we had to go to court and we had to file a motion to compel. And what that is is that's where the court orders the company or the other individual to turn over a document. So we got a motion to compel out. We got them sanctioned, where they were basically fined for not playing ball. And the funny thing is, is that they didn't turn over the video until the day after deposition. So they were just really their game plan. It was seven months from when we made the request to the day after deposition that they turned it over. And, you know, the funny thing is, is they got sanctioned $7,000. And we took that $7,000 and we bought Starbucks for our office until the 7,000 ran out. So every day in the morning, right, we would take a Starbucks order from all of our staff. And I have 40 people who work for me, and, you know, maybe it was like a few hundred dollars a day, right? And we used that $7,000 to get Starbucks for like, a month for our office. But that was like one of the biggest hurdles in the the case. So that video is what, you know, essentially won the case for us, because without that video, it's really just our client's memory versus the memory of the barista.
- [07:04]
Jack
So let me get this straight. So they thought it was cheaper to spend the $7,000 fine and potentially have your client screw up in something, and they got a gotcha moment. And if they didn't, then they're only out $7,000.
- [07:16]
Mike
Well, what they were hoping is my client would say, I'm not really sure how the, you know, cup fell, right? Because it all happened fast. He was handed the cup, right? Within 1.2 seconds, the cup had fallen over and onto his lap. And they didn't know if he would say, you know, I dropped the cup, or that the holder broke or that the cup fell out. And they were hoping that he would say something that could impeach him later. And by impeach, what I mean is, you know, attack his credibility. But the funny thing is, is that what he remembers is irrelevant because we have video, right? We don't need his memory to figure out what happened. All we need is the video. And the video is extremely clear. So once we got the video, we knew we had something really good.
- [07:55]
Jack
Video's shocking. Have you seen the video?
- [07:57]
Mike
Yeah. Yeah. So for the people who haven't seen the video, you know, I'll explain it kind of briefly. So there is a cup carrier. Have you seen those, like, cardboard cup carriers that they have at Starbucks? And it's about 2 inches deep. So what happens is when you put a drink in, it goes 2 inches down into the carrier. The carrier grabs the drink and kind of holds it tightly. And then when. When you hand it to someone, it's not gonna move. You could shake it. You can twist it. You can, you know, tilt it like it's not gonna go anywhere, right? So in the video, you see the barista, he was getting three drinks. She takes one drink, puts it in properly. Two drinks, puts it in properly. Third drink puts it down maybe a quarter to half an inch, right? Then when she hands it over to our client, Mr. Garcia, you see her pass it through the window, and then he takes it. And when he takes it, you know, the momentum of stopping when you receive it and kind of stop caused the third drink to fall over, right? And then that third drink falls over into his lap. And you know that it was the cup holder not holding it well, because the other two drinks didn't move. He grabbed him. He pulled him into his chest. When he got burned, you know, he's in pain. It was kind of a reaction. And Then he drove forward. Cause his foot hit the gas. But it's super apparent that the reason it fell out was it not being pushed in all the way.
- [09:13]
Jack
So I'm curious, what was the barista's reaction to this? Were you able to talk to her and get her side of the story?
- [09:23]
Mike
So we took depositions, right? The barista really doesn't remember a whole lot. And it's same thing with our driver, right? All of this happened in a couple seconds. So we went frame by frame to look at how fast things occurred. And from when she handed it to him, from to when the spill happened was a matter of like 1.4 seconds. Like, if you go frame by frame, it's literally 1.4 seconds. And the reaction time of a human is very, very, very short. It wasn't fast enough for him to receive it and react in any way whatsoever. And in trial, we had a, you know, biomechanic who basically said, look, this is the reaction time. This is what happened. This is the, you know, what chance he had to make any corrective action. But at the end of the day, the liability is because Starbucks didn't secure the cup into the holder properly.
- [10:11]
Graham
What happened to the barista?
- [10:12]
Mike
I may have no idea if she got fired or not, but the manager was called to the stand. And this was a hysterical part of the trial, right? So all of this trial was televised on cvn, which is a court, you know, TV network that you pay a subscription for. Some of the biggest trial attorneys, you know, in the world are televised on their trials. And so they had the manager there and Nick, you know, the partner who I had on the trial, who, you know, tried the case, he goes up to her and he's like, I'm going to put one drink in. I'm gonna be put two drinks in. And then he put the third drink in kind of halfway. And he goes, is this safe? And the manager grabs the drink, pushes it down all the way, and goes, it is now, right, like, totally making our case, right? She basically said, like, if it's, you know, not down all the way, it's not safe. And then he goes, you know, would you hand it to me if it wasn't in all the way? And she goes, pushes it down. Now I would, right? But then she hands it to him and he goes, if I spilled it at this point, would it be my fault? And she goes, yes. So, you know, I don't know what the Starbucks official policies are, but there's kind of this unspoken thing that, you know, we Kind of see where once the drink is passed to the customer, they blame the customer for anything that happens after that point.
- [11:26]
Graham
And what about the manager going up against her job like that? Did she get fired or was there any repercussion for her?
- [11:32]
Mike
I don't believe she got fired. And I think she was there, called to be one of their witnesses, but ended up helping us instead. Right, because you can't say that a drink sticking out halfway is safe. And the crazy thing thing is, is that they hired an expert to make a reconstruction of the events, a video of the events. And, you know, they had the handoff, they had the cups in the tray, they had the spill. They had our client in the car, which, first of all, was funny because it was supposed to be an accurate representation. And, you know, our guy is a Filipino man, and the person in the car looked like Jack Reacher. He was this, like, jacked white guy, right, who was, like, receiving the beverage, right? Like, looks nothing like our client. It's supposed to be anatomically correct. And like, all of the, you know, physics are supp. Supposed to be correct. But they have some dude who's like the six, two Jack, you know, guy. And we have, you know, a smaller Hispanic male, right? Or I mean, a Filipino male. So. But in their expert's own video, it shows the cup. It shows two of them in a hundred percent and then one of them in kind of halfway. And so they had a completely different defense, right? They had a couple different angles on what they thought caused the. The spill. And it's the most frivolous stuff I've ever seen, let me tell you. They try to blame his dog, right? So he had a dog in the back seat of the car, went to the front seat, kind of moving around a little bit, right? There's no policy from these rideshare programs about animals in the vehicle, right? Or, you know, these food delivery services. And the funny thing is you can kind of see the dog in the video, and you could kind of see, like, to the side of him that the dog's tail or body, right? You see, the dog makes no contact whatsoever with our client. And so they try to say, well, we don't know what the dog was doing. It could have been the dog. You know, you can only see the dog partially. You know, they don't even talk about the cup being out halfway. So it's crazy that Starbucks is trying to blame his dog on the spill. And Nick, who was, you know, the one trying the case, you know, my partner, he goes, you know, he was a good boy. The dog was, you know, in his closing argument, the dog was a good boy. And they're trying to blame the dog and because it was so ridiculous that they were trying to, you know, blame the dog for this. And their other defense was that he took his hand off the container when he received it. So they're saying he received the container, took his hand off and that caused it to spill. But, you know, that doesn't make sense either because the other two cups stayed into the cup holder, right? How are those cups staying in the cup holder and then the other one fell out if, you know, it was just his hand coming off and not them being put in improperly.
- [14:08]
Jack
How much of this was due to the temperature of the tea?
- [14:12]
Mike
So obviously the temperature of the tea caused the actual injury. Right. But the temperature of the tea is not really the angle that we were looking at for liability. Right. It was more the fact that they didn't secure the coffee. Right. Or, sorry, the tea. Right. We weren't saying it was the lid. We weren't saying it was the temperature. What we were saying is that there was a cup holder. They didn't put it in the holder properly. The manager had to push it in to make it safe. Right. And when they handed it to him, it fell out. Right. Now there is an old McDonald's case, which I don't know if you've heard of, right, that was in big News in the 90s and that McDonald's case was all about temperature. So people are trying right now to compare that McDonald's case to the Starbucks case, Right? And they're completely different. The only thing they have in common is that it was a beverage that was hot. Right? So, you know, what do you guys know about that star McDonald's case? You know anything about it?
- [15:04]
Graham
Like Skullditter?
- [15:05]
Jack
Yeah, yeah, but it wasn't it like past 200 degrees or it was at a temperature that it should not have been. That's my understanding. I could be wrong.
- [15:12]
Mike
It was only a temperature issue. So she actually spilled it on herself. So that's com. That's the part that's completely different from our case. She didn't, you know, have them spill it on her. It wasn't a lid issue. Right. She spilled the coffee on herself. But the difference was is that the temperature of the coffee was so hot that it only took a second or two to cause third degree burns. Now at the time, I think they had done a study that the average coffee temperature was like 140 degrees at most places, I think at the time, and, you know, don't quote me, but it's a pretty accurate. Was around 180, 190 degrees. And because of that, you only had, you know, two seconds, one second to wipe it off. And it gets, you know, absorbed by your clothing. It sits on your body. You can't wipe it off once it, you know, your clothing's absorbed it. Right. And so they, they look at every 10 degrees, you bring it down at 10 degrees less, you have like 10 seconds. At 20 degrees less, you have like 15 seconds. 30, you know, you have like 20, 30 seconds. So you could keep the temperature at a reasonable temperature for someone to enjoy a coffee, but also low enough that someone can also, you know, wipe it off of them if they get burned. And all of it was a business decision. McDonald's wanted to make sure it was warm for their customers. They knew their customers preferred hotter coffee. When people would pick up a coffee and drive to work, it would still be warm when they got there. So, you know, the argument in that case was all about how hot the coffee was, right?
- [16:35]
Graham
Yeah. Why did they offer $30 million and still go to trial?
- [16:37]
Jack
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- [20:08]
Mike
Yeah, so in the Starbucks case, It wasn't a $30 million offer, it was a $3 million offer, right. So before the case started, there's something called a 998-offer, right? It's a code of silver procedure 998. And what that says is, is if you make an offer that's like an official statutory offer and you beat that offer at trial, you get 10% a year interest until the the verdict is paid. So from the date of trial, the date of the offer, till the verdict. Right. And when the verdict's paid, you get 10% a year. Right. So they made an offer of 3 million, a 998 offer, right. And we made one, I think it was around $19 million. Right. So both sides kind of set their, like, boundaries. So if we beat 3 million, right, or, sorry, if we beat 19 million, we would get our interest of 10% a year and all of our costs. And if we got under 3 million, we would owe them all their interest and costs. And if it was in between, right. You know, nothing happens to anyone. So that's kind of like the stage set for pre trial. Then we got to trial, during trial, at some point, they offered what's called a high low of 10, 20. What that is is that they agree, regardless of the outcome, the lowest they'll pay is 10 and the highest we'll get is 20. So if we got a verdict of 5 million, they'd still pay us 10. If we got a verdict of 100 million, they'd still pay us 20. Right. And we didn't agree to that. Then the case kind of got tried and it was what's called a bifurcated trial. So it's a trial that they have two phases. There's liability, right, and there's damages. So the liability phase was a week. The jury found 12 to 0 that Starbucks was at fault. The second phase of it was the damages phase, where we only put on a trial about damages, right? And then that was a week, and that's when we got the 50. So when the jury was out deliberating on the damages, Starbucks offered 30 million. Now, we would have been willing to accept it on a few conditions. So we wanted an apology, right? An official apology. We wanted them to change their practices to protect the public. You know, part of these lawsuits. And, you know, a lot. A lot of the public has issues with them, but really, things wouldn't be safe without lawsuits like this. You know, the temperature of coffee at McDonald's is lower, right? People are gonna do a better job putting the, you know, the cups into these cases. Now. Everything is safer in the world because of lawsuits like this. And if we allowed them to keep it confidential, if we allowed them to, you know, keep it a secret, then none of this stuff changes, right? No one would know that this happened. No one would know that things need to be fixed. So our client, especially because it ruined his life, was adamant, right? It was our client's decision that he wanted them to do the right thing. So we turned it down, right? We turned down the 30 million. And I'll tell you, that's scary, to turn down 30 million. A jury could give 5, a jury could get 15, right? Jury could give a hundred. But we. We trusted on the jury, you know, we thought that they would do what was right, what was just. And we got 50 million when they came back.
- [23:04]
Jack
Why wouldn't Starbucks apologize?
- [23:06]
Mike
It's a PR thing. I. I think I, you know, I can't say for certain, right. I don't want to say any of the things I'm saying are facts. These are all speculation. But, you know, if they apologize and it comes out they paid 30 million, think about how many other people are going to pursue Starbucks, right? Like, even since this verdict, I've gotten a million calls about Starbucks cases, and most of them don't really have a lot of merit. Right. A lot of them, you know, are just people who are upset because they had a bad customer service experience. So I think Starbucks is just worried about the floodgates opening up. But this was a righteous case. You know, in this situation, our client's life was ruined. He deserved the compensation he got. In fact, I think he deserved a lot more.
- [23:45]
Jack
How do they come to $50 million?
- [23:48]
Mike
So there's a bunch of components that go into a verdict, right? A verdict isn't just pain and suffering. So when you go, you know, in front of a jury, there's something called Casey instructions, and those are basically court, you know, written instructions that lay out how you're supposed to calculate damages. So there's past medical expenses, right, which no one's surprised about. There's future medical expenses, which no one's surprised about. There's past pain and suffering. There's embarrassment, there's inconvenience. Right? There's loss of wages. I mean, there's there's all of these factors, and the jury has to itemize each one of these things to give money, right? So, you know, in this particular case, we weren't really looking for medical expenses. We were looking for pain and suffering. We were looking for anguish, embarrassment, inconvenience. Right? And, you know, there's something called the golden rule, which you can't do in trial. It's. I can't tell you, hey, Graham, how much would you take to have your penis burned in a way that, you know, was catastrophic, that essentially disfigured you and made it unusable? But you, as a reasonable person, could say, hey, look, this guy's his 20s. He's at 50 more years of life. Is it really unreasonable to get a million dollars a year for a penis that lost function, that lost girth, that lost length, that hurts to pee? That's disfigured, Right? Like, every time you have sex, it's going to cause you emotional distress. I don't think a million a year is really that much for, like, it's. It's torture. Like, I don't know anyone who would want to do it for a million a year. I mean, I think if I offered you a million a year to have a year of a disfigured penis that didn't work, that caused pain, there's no way you would take that. That. There's no. And I don't think you would either, Jack.
- [25:24]
Graham
Grandma. Because a million's. A million bucks.
- [25:27]
Jack
100%.
- [25:28]
Graham
Would I. I would not know that. That's. And also the pain of just, like, spilling that on me with the initial.
- [25:33]
Jack
Thing, that Jack has enough embarrassment as it is. Top that on top of it.
- [25:38]
Mike
I mean, maybe people think it's interesting and, you know, get more. More dates or whatever.
- [25:42]
Jack
Dates?
- [25:42]
Graham
Yeah, yeah. $50 million dates.
- [25:44]
Mike
Yeah. There's some people are into that, you know, some people into, like, amputees and, you know, people who have other. Other disfigurements. But. But yeah, just. And just to put in perspective how bad this injury was. So after it occurred, he. In the video, you can see him slam on the gas because he's so surprised by what happens. He just hits the gas, moves forward. And like I said, you can see him cup, like, all of the other cups in his. His hands. None of them fall out. They call an ambulance. He's in the Grossman Burn center for two weeks, right? So it's one of the top burn centers in the country. They do a cadaver skin graft on his penis. He Gets a pig skin graft on his penis and goes to psychologists, right. Has all these issues. You know, basically it's reconstruction of his penis. And what people don't realize is when you get these burns to your genitals, you lose size on your penis. Right? You lose girth, you lose length. Because it's soft tissue. It's like a sponge when you burn it up. Right. It just doesn't grow back all the way.
- [26:41]
Jack
Yeah.
- [26:42]
Mike
So these are not just like little burns to his thighs or his genitals. I mean, these are third degree burns that go all the way through the skin, through all the layers and destroy the nerves. They destroy, you know, visually what it looks like. You know, he's gonna need for the rest of his life, AIDS to get an erection. So it's something where it ruined his life. It really, truly ruined his life.
- [27:08]
Jack
Can he still have kids?
- [27:09]
Mike
So that's kind of a tricky one. So, you know, in order to have children, generally you need a relationship, Right? Um, you know, like, you can adopt. You can always adopt. Right? Like that's an option. But he had a couple of his ex girlfriends get up on the stand and they talked about their sexual relationship with him. And over months and months, they only had a few encounters. And the encounters that actually went to completion were even fewer than that. So in order to, you know, be able to get a wreck to. In order to perform, he would need, you know, some aid like Cialis or Viagra, and even that really isn't strong enough. They talked about doing injections to help him get an erection. And so, yeah, I mean, I guess technically he could have a family, but it would be very difficult. He'd have to find a woman who was okay with his disability and disfigurement. He'd have to find a woman who would work with him on his erectile issues. You know, someone who's compassionate. Right. And it's hard. And his last relationship, he ended because it was just too distressful for him.
- [28:11]
Graham
How did the jury respond during the trial? What were the first signs that they were kind of on your side?
- [28:15]
Mike
You know, the jury had an interesting constitution. It was three men and six women. Right. And, you know, there's a lot of jury consultants out there that kind of will speculate as to what a jury will do. Certain groups of people, you know, are more conservative. I'm not going to go over the specifics, but certain are more generous, some are more compassionate, some are more analytical. You know, like engineers are more analytical. They tend to offer lower amounts of money than non engineers. Just as an example, Just curious, who.
- [28:46]
Graham
Offers the most money?
- [28:47]
Mike
There's several groups that do. And I don't want to kind of go into the demographics too much because I don't want to, you know, offend anyone in terms of how we analyze it. But you know, certain groups, like for example, Asians will give a little bit less. Right. They're just typically more conservative, you know, in terms of culturally. Right. You know, people who are, like I said, engineers typically give a little bit less. They're more analytical, they're more likely to believe, leave experts and you know, hold them in higher self esteem or higher esteem than, than, you know, non experts. But you know, as far as the constitution of the jury, it was nine women and three men. There was two trials, like I mentioned, one on liability and there was one trial on damages. Now for the liability issue, it's insane that we even had to have that trial. The video is so clear as to what happened. You can see the barista put it in. You can see the cup hanging in crooked. You can see her hand it to him and it fall out right away. You could see the dog do nothing. Right. And like I said, my co counsel was like all times like, he's a good boy. Like, that dog's a good boy. Look at him, you know, he's just, he's not doing anything. And to say he took his hand off without any evidence, like there's no evidence he did that. He grabbed it with both hands. So I think the jury was probably pissed off that they had to spend a week of their life trying a liability portion of the case. They found 12 to 0 that Starbucks was responsible.
- [30:12]
Jack
Did you expect 12 to 0?
- [30:14]
Mike
Oh, yeah, 100%. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I would be shocked if they didn't, you know, give a 12 to 0 liability on Starbucks because it's all on video. Like what my client said in his deposition is irrelevant. Right. It's like if there's a video of me punching you in the face and you sue me for assault and in the trial you don't remember how I hit you because you were knocked out. Out, right? Who cares? There's a video of me knocking you out, right? Like we don't need your testimony. Your testimony is irrelevant. Right. And so the defenses from Starbucks were just completely frivolous. Completely the most frivolous defenses I've ever seen in a case. So. And then we went to the damages phase. We really believed in the jury. You know, they were very attentive. They, I think they took good notes. You know, I think that they were paid a lot of attention to what happened. And at the end of the day, like this was a catastrophic case, right? This was something that anyone can understand. A 25 year old man not being able to have sexual intercourse, not being able to start a family and have children because he might not even get a relationship. Right. Ptsd, like the depression you get, right. I think every single person can understand that.
- [31:23]
Jack
So what was it like? What was his reaction when they awarded $50 million?
- [31:28]
Mike
I mean, I think he felt validated for his experience. Right. I think the thing is in, in these trials, when someone doesn't get the money they feel deserve, it's not just the disappointment about the money, it's the disappointment about the validation of their feelings. Right. Like, you know, it's like when you argue with a spouse or a girlfriend or a boyfriend, a lot of times it's not about being right or wrong, it's about being heard. And I think, you know, Mr. Garcia was very, very appreciative that the jury heard his pain. They were, is very appreciate appreciative that they understood everything he went through. And I think it gave him a lot of peace of mind to know that he wasn't in it alone.
- [32:08]
Graham
Do you expect an appeal?
- [32:10]
Mike
So appeals are a tricky thing. Every company is going to say they're going to appeal because they want to. Kind of their first reaction like PR wise is this, you know, verdict's unjust. We did nothing wrong. And you know, three weeks before this case happened, we had another case we got $37 million on. And it was me and Nick again, right, where we kind of did a lot of the depositions and litigation. And Nick came in, you know, to try the case with us. And he's a rock star. I mean, he does a stellar job. And it was a woman who was rear ended by a big rig. She had three fusion surgeries, which is where basically they take out the disc and fuse the vertebrae together. She had a traumatic brain injury and prior to trial they offered $5 million. Right. And I think our demand was 7. We were so close together, I couldn't believe that the case didn't settle right. And that they would take the risk on such a big injury. So, you know, she, her husband had left her, she had gained some weight. I mean, she had cognitive issues, memory issues. I mean, she was very, very, very messed up. We got a verdict of 21 million. Right. And because remember I told you about that 998 offer that you get Interest on because our offer was six and a half years earlier. We got 65% interest, right? So we got 65% interest plus our costs which were in the millions, which added up to 37 million. Now that case, they said they were going to appeal. We talked to them post verdict and it ended up settling for a number under 37. I'm not going to say what the number is, but it settled for a number, right. Under 37, you know, confidential, confidentially. Right. And that case got resolved. So you know there's risk because if you appeal a case, that interest clock is ticking. So Starbucks owes us over 60 million right now on the $50 million verdict because we made that offer two years before. So they're over 60 million already. And for every year that they don't pay that, we're fighting an appeal. They owe $5 million in interest.
- [34:12]
Graham
So they don't pay you until they decide not to appeal.
- [34:16]
Mike
So if they called us and said, hey, we're willing to settle for X, Y or Z and we said we were willing to accept it, I'm not going to give even hypothetical numbers because I don't want to affect any type of future negotiation. Then we would sign a settlement agreement. The settlement agreement would prevent them from appealing it. Right. They couldn't go back and say, well we didn't want to sign it, like let's go back and appeal. And then they would pay us within a certain amount of time. 30 days, 60 days, 15 days, whatever it was, Right.
- [34:42]
Jack
I'm really curious, who pays this? Let's say they owe $50 million $60 million. Let's just use 60. Where does that money come from? Do they have insurance that pays that out? Is this like Starbucks corporate bank account? Is there somebody at Starbucks who's like personally coming out of pocket, like where does the money come from?
- [34:59]
Mike
So it's different for every corporation. So some companies have self insured retention where they're paying the first X dollars of a verdict and then insurance kicks in, right? So like for example Macy's just as a example, they pay all the claims up to a certain dollar amount and then insurance kicks in because their premiums would be so expensive from all the small claims that they kind of just like self insure the small ones, right? Then when it gets to the big ones they have insurance. So on that trucking case where she was rear ended, they had 150 million of insurance. They had like I think it was like a 10 or $20 million first layer, then there was a second layer and then a Third layer, which added up to about 150. Right. So the company didn't pay it out of pocket. They had insurance. Same thing with the Starbucks case. Our understanding is that there is some insurance layer up to X dollars that is covering things. And then after that I would, I imagine Starbucks would cover it unless they had an excess policy.
- [35:56]
Jack
Yeah. Now, given the nature of this case and how much public it's gotten, do you think this spurs copycat cases where other people are maybe likely just to drop coffee on themselves?
- [36:07]
Mike
I think Starbucks probably gets sued all the time for things like this and I think that's probably one of the reasons why they undervalued this case. Right. People sue all the time for, you know, oh, I spilled on my hand or the lid wasn't on. And even in the news, like they got a lot of the facts of this case wrong. Wrong. I think almost every article I've seen where I read the comments, they're like, oh, the lid wasn't on correctly because it wasn't a lid issue. It was a putting it in the holder issue. So I don't think that there's going to be more copycat like cases. I think there's already like thousands of cases a year like this. And I think Starbucks just figured it was one of those cases where maybe we get a couple million bucks and, you know, they move on. It's that, that, you know, companies have defense strategies for things like this. And what they look at is if we get hit once in a while, like on a fairly large verdict, it's okay because we can just fight everything else to death and settle for pennies. So when you average it out, we still like save a lot of money. Right. But what I think they didn't expect was like a nuclear verdict here. Right. I think they. So Starbucks asked the jury to award seven and a half to 10 million. And I thought they thought they were being reasonable. I don't think they had any idea it could be 50. And the crazy thing is, is that the jury, three of the people on the jury wanted to give 125. Right.
- [37:26]
Graham
125 million.
- [37:28]
Mike
So our, our ask was 75 to 125 million. And Starbucks asked was 7.5 million to 10 million.
- [37:35]
Jack
Why didn't they want to fix the issue? The other thing I, I read online was that your client wanted an apology and for them to fix the issue, that doesn't happen again, why wouldn't Starbucks at least fix the issue? Is that just admitting liability? If they say there is an issue to begin with, I can only speculate.
- [37:52]
Mike
But I imagine that anyone who's had a drink fall out of a cup holder will then say, starbucks already admitted that this is a problem. We don't even need to have a liability trial. Starbucks already admitted this, and they're just concerned about emboldening people who are making claims to say this is an accepted issue already. Right. It's like, you know how, like, there's recalls on cars, and like, sometimes they'll settle a case without admitting that there was a problem because they don't want to have to issue a recall. Right. Because once you issue a recall, the floodgates come in. You owe billions of dollars in, you know, costs of, like, bringing those cars back and repairing them or replacing them.
- [38:27]
Graham
So you're saying your client has not been paid yet?
- [38:29]
Mike
Correct, he hasn't been paid anything yet.
- [38:31]
Graham
And so how is he living his life now without the money, but potentially expecting $50 million?
- [38:37]
Mike
So his penis injury doesn't prevent him from working. Right. So he's still trying to work. He's still trying to live his life. Right. So, you know, he can support himself. He can pay for, you know, his living expenses, food and all those things. But really what the money is there for is to compensate him for what he's lost. Right? The pain, the anguish. Right. You know, money can't replace what he lost. You can't get a new penis for, you know, $50 million. There's no amount of money that will replace what he received. But the hope is, is that money will make him feel at least somewhat better. Right. He can use it to live a better life, to have a better quality of life. And those things can bring him joy, to kind of substitute for the joy of what he lost.
- [39:19]
Jack
What is it like for taxes on a judgment like this? Like, let's say he gets the 50 million bucks. Is he paying tax on that?
- [39:27]
Mike
No. So out of that 50, a portion goes to attorney's fees. Right? A portion goes to the costs. I mean, these trials can cost like that trucking case I told you about. Seven figures in costs. Right. And then some will go to medical expenses. You know, he has to reimburse his health insurance for whatever they laid out. Some of those doctors are treated on a lean, meaning they don't. Don't charge up front. They bill it, and you get paid when the case resolves, and then the rest goes to him. And all of that is tax free. So it's kind of like if you had a TV that I broke by accident. I bought You a new tv, you wouldn't pay tax on that tv. It's just replacing what you lost.
- [40:01]
Graham
What do you think he's going to do with the money?
- [40:04]
Mike
So a lot of times when our clients get settlements this substantial, we do some type of annuity or we set them up with a financial advisor who's going to help with like index funds or some, you know, basic real estate investments, you know, buying a home. A lot of people who get in these situations don't have, have a home, so, you know, making sure they don't overspend, making sure they're reasonable because there's no taxes on this money. So if you get $50 million, let's say he ends up with half of it, just hypothetically, right. $25 million is life changing money. Tax free. Like, I mean, it's very, very wealthy. But also $25 million is a small enough amount that you could blow it if you don't know what you're doing. You could go out and buy Ferraris and buy your friends. You get, you know, people get entourages, right, People they're supporting. So, you know, one of the things that we do when our clients get these very big verdicts is we put them together with a financial advisor who will help decide if an annuity is a good, you know, route, if they should do index funds, if there's any other investment products that'll help them. Because otherwise you're just giving them a check for 25 million and they, they might just spend it, put it in a checking account. You know, it's like lottery winners, you know, they don't know what to do with it.
- [41:16]
Jack
What would be your advice for him in terms of the money?
- [41:18]
Graham
Money?
- [41:18]
Mike
My advice for anyone who comes into a windfall is you're not sophisticated, most likely enough to make good decisions with investments. People who buy real estate, for example, spend their whole lives learning about real estate, finding deals and knowing what to buy. There's no way someone who just has $50 million fall on their lap will be able to make good decisions about real estate purchases. So I, I'm a big fan of index funds. I have a lot of money in Vanguard, in vtsax, vtiax, which is basically domestic IND funds and international index funds. They're hands off. You get a dividend, you get growth like the normal stock market. If the US economy is doing well, you're doing well and you just don't have to think about anything. Spend 3%, you know, at his age, maybe 3% withdrawal rate, 4% if you're a little older and just coast. He has enough money, he never has to work again.
- [42:10]
Jack
Now, I'm curious, how common are personal injury cases that should be pursued but are not?
- [42:16]
Mike
I think a lot of people have no idea what the rights are. I think, you know, so a little background on my firm. I've been doing this for about 15 years. I've done around 10,000 injury cases, and we probably have right now about 2,000 active ones. And what I found is that a lot of people don't understand what the rights are. A lot of people think if I'm in an accident, my leg's not broken. If I'm in an accident, I don't have surgery or brain damage, I don't have any right to recover money. But really, there's so many injuries that are invisible. Injuries like neck pain, back pain, shoulder pain. Right? You could hurt your neck in a way that you have neck pain the rest of your life, but you didn't break anything. You could have a disc bulge, you have a disc herniation. It could be impinging your nerve. So I think a lot of people pursue cases, but a lot of people also have no idea that they have a right to pursue a case.
- [43:07]
Jack
How many events do you think happen in the average person's lifetime that could warrant a lawsuit?
- [43:11]
Mike
Probably a lot. I mean, maybe the lawsuit's a couple grand.
- [43:16]
Graham
Yeah, right.
- [43:16]
Mike
Maybe it's a couple hundred grand. But I think that at some point in everyone's life, there's something someone screws up where you have an injury of some sort that you could sue for. I mean, think of it this way. If you go to a cafe and you order a sandwich and they get it wrong and they won't refund you, that's a lawsuit. I mean, I wouldn't take it. No lawyer would take it. But, you know, you had a right. You paid for. It was a contract. You paid for a sandwich. You didn't get the sandwich you wanted, wanted. And they have an obligation to remedy that. And if they tell you, you know, like, we're not going to fix it, you have, like a lawsuit, like, you have a case. So I'm just saying, in everyday life, there's a million things where you're wronged that you have, you know, legal recourse. But at some point, you have to figure out, is it worth it to pursue that legal recourse?
- [44:00]
Graham
What are the most commonly overlooked things that people could sue for, but they don't.
- [44:05]
Jack
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- [44:28]
Graham
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- [45:00]
Jack
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- [46:34]
Mike
I mean, I think it's injuries from accidents, right? I think there's a lot of times when people are in accidents. Like I said, they. My neck hurts, but nothing's really wrong. I don't have back pain. I mean, I don't have. Need surgery. I don't have stitches. I don't have brain damage, right? And they go through life, like, just hurting, right? They. They go to, you know, the mall, and they hurt when they're walking or they're working, hunched over a computer and, you know, causes them pain, and they just don't do anything about it. They're just like, I'm gonna suck it up. There's nothing I can do.
- [47:05]
Graham
You're saying car accidents?
- [47:06]
Mike
Well, not just car accidents. Slip and falls, trip and falls, assaults, right? Like, so many things hurt people in such a minor way, and it just compounds and compounds and compounds. There was a WWE wrestler who, you know, at some point, he had, like, a slip disc and ended up, like, bending over on a plane or I forgot the circumstances, right? But he ended up being paralyzed. You know what I'm talking about? Have you heard this story? And it was one of those things where he probably was injured from wrestling, probably toughed it out, and it ended up causing him paralysis later. And I think it's the same thing with car accidents. People get in a car accident, they have a little bit of pain over time, and throughout their life, it builds and builds and builds until it's catastrophic. And they should have made a claim. They should have gotten treatment.
- [47:52]
Jack
So when it's too late to file a lawsuit, like, let's say in that case the wrestler, what if that happened 10 years ago? Are you out of luck after a certain amount of time?
- [48:01]
Mike
So you have something called the statute of limitations, right? So. So. And every state has its own law when it comes to how long you have to file. So in California, for example, for property damage, meaning like your car, your tablet that gets broken, all those things, you have three years for liability. For injury, you have two years. So if I rear end you, you throw out your back, right? If you don't sue me within two years, you're gone. Like, I can't. I'm. I'm bulletproof, I'm untouchable. I can't be sued, right? So it really just depends on the state law. Some are two, some are three, some are one. Medical malpractice in California is one year. You know, personal injury is two years. So it really just depends.
- [48:41]
Jack
How could you tell if clients are calling you and they're lying or they're exaggerating? Like, what's a tell?
- [48:46]
Mike
I mean, you know, it's kind of like a criminal lawyer where, you know, you don't want to ask your client, like, kind of like, did you do it? Right. You want to give your clients the benefit of the doubt, of trusting them on face value. Right. So, you know, I have people who I thought were completely shady when I retained them. Them or when they retain me, you know, we get their MRIs, and they're just. Their back is destroyed, and everything they're saying is 100% true. And I get people who seem like the nicest, like, sweet teacher. Right. And then we find out that they lied about everything. There's 10 witnesses against them, and we have to drop their case. It's really unfair, I think, to judge someone by their initial presentation, because some people aren't charismatic. Some people aren't articulate. Some people just have a bad, bad look. So I try to take everyone in and give them the benefit of the doubt, and then, you know, kind of investigate the case to find out what really happened.
- [49:38]
Jack
What about people who might embellish, maybe play up their injuries a little bit?
- [49:42]
Mike
Yeah.
- [49:43]
Jack
You see all those cartoons.
- [49:44]
Mike
People, like, wearing the neck braces. Yeah, yeah.
- [49:47]
Jack
And then they just take it off and play tennis.
- [49:49]
Mike
Yeah. There's no way to tell. And I think the perception in general of people who see injury cases is that it's all shady, it's all frothy fraud. Right. So defense lawyers kind of have this strategy that they are going to stand up in front of a jury and just say, let's be reasonable. Like, who believes these people are hurt? It was a minor impact. Or these medical bills are, like, way too high. And what they're playing on is, you know, the general public's expectation that all of this is fraud. Right. And it's just simply not the case. Like, I meet with people every single day who insurance companies are just completely taking advantage of. And the way you can see it is, is that once we get these cases and we get into them, the offers, like, go up exponentially. Right. The communication goes up exponentially. Attorneys get assigned to these cases. You know, there's a lot of cases we get into, and they hire an attorney before we even file a lawsuit. And these are people I know. Right. There's insurance carriers that know who I am, like, most of them, that the attorneys there know who I am. And so once they see My name on a case, they get attorneys involved right away, right? They know that we're going to file a lawsuit. They know that we're going to push and we're going to take it seriously. So, you know, in those circumstances, you know, the client ends up doing better because they're not getting that same view of fraud as they would otherwise by themselves.
- [51:07]
Jack
And what are the general payouts for different injuries? Just on average, if you're in a car accident, a dog bite, you fell, how does that look between the two?
- [51:17]
Mike
So it really depends. And I know this sounds really unfair, right? But this is me being completely pragmatic. The insurance company matters more than anything, right? The insurance company is a huge indication of how you're going to do in the case because insurance companies have different business models. So, for example, some insurance companies would rather litigate everything, spend a lot of money on attorneys and pay very little on the claim. Some other insurance companies would rather pay very much on the claim and very little in litigation costs and find that that's a better business decision. And what typically happens is insurance companies oscillate between paying a lot and defending a little, and defending a lot and paying a little. So what'll happen is, is that their insurance defense costs will balloon and they'll be like, like, we're spending way too much money on insurance defense. Right? We got to start paying claims more so our. We don't have a thousand attorneys on payroll. And then they start doing it and then all of a sudden they start paying out more claims. Claims. Right. And spending less on defense. And then eventually they get to the other side and they're like, God, we're paying so much in claims. We should fight some of these. Right? And so over the years, I've been doing it 15 years. Carriers go back and forth, tight and loose and tight and loose. And so where they are in that cycle will really help determine where you're going to end up in your case. Because you can't try everything. Like, it's impossible. I have 2000 cases, I can't try 2000 cases. So when it comes to results, a lot of it has to do with where carriers are in that cycle. Cycle.
- [52:46]
Graham
What are the easiest verdicts to come to? Like, is it a dog bite, a slip and fall? Which ones are just clear cut? Where if, if this happens to you.
- [52:54]
Mike
You can get money, you know, kind of same thing. And I'm doing that like, lawyer thing that people hate, where I say it depends, right? Like all of this depends. Every single case is unique Right. So you could have a clear cut liability case, but your damages are really like complicated. And you could have a really clean damages case where your liability is really complicated and they could be very similar injuries. Right? You could have a slip and fall where the manager of the store dropped water right in front of you. Like he dropped his glass of water, he tripped right over it. Immediately. Liability is good. You could have one where you fall on water. It's like same situation but no one knows where the water came from. And you both have the same injury. So your case is worth a lot more because liability is very clear. Your case is worth a lot less because liability is more speculative. So when you ask kind of what are the better ones, you know, spinal injury cases are very strong. Wrong death cases, you know, surprisingly are not the most valuable. Unless you're a high income earner. A death case is not the most valuable case because what happens is, is when you get killed, all your medical expenses in the future get cut off. So, you know, if you know, Michael Jordan died, case is worth a billion dollars, right? His income potential is like nearly infinite. Right? But if a target worker gets killed, right, it's his life plus, you know, some minimal income that he would make, you know, in his career. So, you know, depending on the death, it could be a lot or a little. And death cases really are valued on the relationship that people had with the decedent. If you want to know what the most valuable cases are, it's brain injury cases and quadriplegia cases. This episode is brought to you by Global Global X. Since 2008, Global X ETFs has been committed to empowering investors with unexplored intelligent solutions. Global X specializes in exchange traded funds that offer exposure to the artificial intelligence ecosystem, including themes like data centers, robotics, semiconductors and cloud computing. To learn more about Global X's entire suite of ETFs from covered calls, fixed income, emerging markets and more, Visit Global X ETFs. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You might say all kinds of stuff when things go wrong, but these are the words you really need to remember. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They've got options to fit your unique insurance needs, meaning you can talk to your agent to choose the coverage you need. Have coverage options to protect the things you value most. File a claim right on the State Farm mobile app and even reach a real person. You need to talk to someone like a good neighbor. State Farm is there because they have tens of millions of dollars in future medical Care. So if you have brain damage, right, you can't dress yourself, you can't eat, you can't wipe your ass, whatever those things are, right, you're going to need someone 24 hours a day to help you, and that's going to cost. You're a young guy. How old are you, Jack?
- [55:44]
Graham
26.
- [55:45]
Mike
Yeah, man, you got like 50 years, right? So having like three nurses taking care of you for 50 years. Years could be $80 million, right. Whereas if you died, your death might be worth 30 million. Right? So when you're talking about valuable cases, you know, the, the death and paralysis cases, or, sorry, the paralysis cases and the brain injury cases are the worst.
- [56:05]
Graham
What's been your biggest settlement?
- [56:07]
Mike
I think this Starbucks case is our biggest result. Right. You know, we'll see if we get paid and what the appeal process is. The one we got for 37 million is up there. We also had a case that was in the news. We were working with Maxine Waters. I don't know if you're familiar with the congresswoman. So that was kind of an interesting case. So our client, her name was Ashley Wells, she had gone out on a weekend and met a off duty sheriff's deputy. And he was trying to impress her and her friends. So he took him out driving, he was speeding, and we have have on Instagram or Snapchat videos of them speeding down the road. And he ended up crashing into essentially a light post as she was killed. Her friend was paralyzed in a coma. The officer or the deputy walked away totally fine. And it was kind of interesting because when the Torrance police came, they didn't do a field sobriety test, they didn't arrest him. I mean, I think it was a case of, you know, officers protecting their own. And we had to put a lot of pressure on the police in the city to actually even pursue charges against him. And we reached out to Maxine Waters, who was wonderful and helped us, you know, do press conferences, put pressure, and that case ended up settling for, for 10 million.
- [57:39]
Jack
Are doctors ever incentivized to make the injury seem worse than it actually is?
- [57:44]
Mike
You know, people always say that, and I think it's actually quite the opposite because you have to remember insurance companies don't just pay because a doctor says this is worth money. Right? Insurance companies, they hire nurse practitioners to review medical records. They hire their own doctors to do what's called defense medical exams. So if you were in litigation on a case, they're going to send you to their doctor to examine you, to come up with Their own opinion. So if my doctors exaggerate, we just lose credit liability. So, no, I don't think it's really a high risk of our doctors exaggerating. I think it's more a risk of defense doctors underplaying the injuries because they want to get paid. Because if you're a defense doctor and you don't give a really minor diagnosis, insurance companies aren't going to use you anymore. Like, if my client has a spinal surgery and you're a doctor and you're like, hey, they needed that, what insurance company is going to hire you again, right? No one. No one's going to hire you.
- [58:41]
Jack
And who pays the doctor cost if they lose? Like, let's say they don't have money to pay the doctor, the doctor's taking a lean, like you said. What happens to it?
- [58:50]
Mike
So at the end of the day, what a lean is, and let me kind of back up to explain what a lean is for people who don't know. So when you hire an attorney for a personal injury case, the doctor can put a lean on your file. It's like putting a lean on the house, you know, like a first position, second position on a. A mortgage. Mortgage. What that does is it says that when the case resolves, we get paid first for whatever our medical costs are. But it also says most of the time that if we don't settle your case, the doctors are still entitled to get paid. So these doctors, you're on the hook for them regardless of the outcome. The only thing I can tell you is, is that if the outcome is unfavorable, I have relationships with these doctors because I work with them all the time. So I can kind of step in and say, hey, look, we paid you on the last, like, 80 cases. Can you do me a solid and try to, like, wave or reduce the meds on the one we weren't able to settle? And typically they will because it's a relationship business. Right?
- [59:48]
Graham
What are some of the simplest things someone can do to protect themselves from personal injury lawsuits? Like a dash cam.
- [59:54]
Mike
Yeah. Get good insurance, number one thing. Even before dash cam. Right. There's so many people out there who drive with inadequate insurance. Right?
- [60:03]
Graham
What do you mean? Like, how would you know if your insurance is adequate?
- [60:06]
Mike
So you should have at least as much insurance as your net worth, first of all. So if you own a $1 million home and you have $100,000 in liability insurance, you're, like, really screwing up badly, because if you end up hurting someone and you have 300,000 in equity in your house, they're going to go after that equity, they're going to try to get money out of you and you're going to be really unhappy that you don't have the insurance to cover it. The second thing you can do is make sure that if you're in an accident, you go right away to get checked out. Right. One of the biggest defenses of insurance companies is that you waited too long to get treatment. So you waited a month, you waited a week, you made it two weeks. However long it is, if you didn't go in the first two days, like they're going to give you shit about it. A third thing is it is a hit and run. If you are hit by someone who takes off and doesn't have insurance, you have to report it immediately, immediately to the police. A lot of Insurance companies require 24 hours maximum for you to actually report it. And if you don't, they can deny coverage. So there's a lot of things that you need to worry about when you get in a car accident.
- [61:17]
Jack
What are the best and worst insurance companies?
- [61:21]
Mike
You know, I'll try to be nice kind of in what I say. Sure. None of them are necessarily bad or good. Some of them are more tight and more generous with their payments. Right. And there's a trade off between also the service you get. Like State Farm to me is the worst insurance company in the world. Like I, I hate State Farm. They fight on everything. Their offers, initial offers are low, but I respect them for having a well oiled and managed company. They have great lawyers, they have a very organized in house defense department. They have good phone call pickups, they have good customer service service. But they get all of that because they don't pay claims. All the money that they'd pay to claims is building their infrastructure. Right. And then there's other insurance companies that pay claims very well. Berkshire Hathaway, they pay claims very well in my experience. But I can't get anyone on the phone. I can't reach an adjuster. It takes weeks to get a manager, right. So it's like would you rather settle quickly with someone who is responsive but pays less or would you rather wait two years with someone who is non responsive but is willing to pay more to get it settled?
- [62:32]
Jack
So what's better for people who are getting sued?
- [62:35]
Mike
You know, if you're getting sued, State Farm, like in Mercury and like Allstate kind of suck because like let's say that you rear ended me, right? What you want is your insurance company to pay as Much as they need to pay to get the case to go away, you don't want to be sued, you don't want to be deposed. You're a guy who's like, people know, right? Like, it would be very, very uncomfortable for you. You to have to go through litigation, right. And you'd rather them pay and your premiums just go up, you know? Another one. Do you know who Eddie Bravo is? He's Joe Rogan's friend. He's a jiu jitsu guy. One of my friends sued Eddie Bravo. And it was funny because Eddie was making a right turn, right? He hit like a pedestrian crossing the street. And Eddie was like, apologetic about it. He's like, I'm sorry I hit him. But his insurance company kind of wanted a fight still, right? So, you know, you ask, like, is it better to have one that's stingy or not? It would have been way better for Eddie to have an insurance company that's just like, we did it. We're paying, like, you know, please go away. And then Eddie, who's a well known guy, wouldn't have had to be deposed, Right? So for you, you want a generous insurance company because you don't want to get into litigation, right? Yeah.
- [63:41]
Jack
So if you're hurt, what's the first thing that you should do?
- [63:44]
Mike
I think the first thing you need to do is get medical care. Because the biggest argument, like I said, is that if you're really hurt, why aren't you going to a doctor? Right. If you hurt your back so badly you couldn't work, would you just go home and take Advil? Or would you go to urgent care or the emergency room, or at least call your primary and go in like a day or two later to get checked out? Right. That. That's the biggest killer of cases. And the second biggest killer of cases is going to doctors who don't understand the litigation process. Because what happens is, is that you go to these doctors, let's say you go to Kai, and you're like, hey, my knee hurts. And they go, well, did you play any sports in high school? And you're like, yeah, like, oh, well, it could be related to that. And you're like, well, I never had pain like, back then. Well, we never know. So I'm gonna just make a note that you played high school sports. And all of a sudden that note gets into trial and you're on the stand and they say, graham, you know, isn't it true you played high school football? Like, isn't it true you had sore knees sometimes when you played high school football and you have sore knee now. Right. Like, you know, don't you think that's a coincidence or not a coincidence? Right. And then they, they use it to impeach you. Whereas if you go to doctors who understand PI, they're going to really filter the relevant from the irrelevant, and it's not going to allow the defense to kind of like do slight a hand to trick the jury into finding other causes than what really caused the. The issue.
- [65:05]
Jack
Do you think this is legal extortion or justice?
- [65:10]
Mike
I mean, I think it depends on who the attorney is. There's. And like, don't get me wrong, I love what I do. I feel like I'm getting justice for clients. I do it because it makes me feel good about helping people. But there's also the other side where there's tons of shady attorneys who literally just push unnecessary treatment on clients. And I think that's legal extortion because there's a cost to defense. Right. If someone sued you for like some frivolous reason, Graham, or you, Jack, for some frivolous reason, you're going to have to pay a lot of money to defendant. And sometimes it makes sense to pay to have it go away. Right.
- [65:47]
Jack
So how is that not extortion?
- [65:48]
Mike
Well, I'm saying it is. Right. But my firm, that's not what we do. We screen for injuries. If you tell us you're not hurt, like anyone who's watching this, who calls my firm and says, I have no injury, can I make a case? We're going to tell them no. We're going to tell them we can't help them. Yeah.
- [66:02]
Jack
What are the repercussions if someone just files a frivolous case? That maybe they exaggerate their injuries or maybe they were in an accident, but they're totally fine and they're like, you know what, maybe my neck hurts. I'm. I'm having issues. Are there any penalties that come with that or. No.
- [66:19]
Mike
Nope. No. No. So California, where we are at least, and I don't know how it is in other states, is very, very open to litigation. Right. There's no real limit on what you can plead. They have very lax pleading standards. And by pleading standards, I mean the requirement of what you write in a lawsuit to be valid. Right. So in some states, you have to plead certain facts, some like certain volume of information, or else the case gets thrown out. California could just be like, Jack rear ended me, I'm hurt lawsuit. Like, I don't have to say what you did. I don't say how you did it. I have to say what my injuries are, how much money I want, right? I just say over 25,000 for unlimited or under 25,000. Thousand. Right. So the ability for me to sue you is super easy. There are things called vexatious litigants. So if you're not a lawyer and you sue too much, they can essentially shadow ban you from lawsuits. And what that means is when you file a lawsuit, a judge has to approve it before it's, you know, allowed.
- [67:22]
Jack
How common is that? That someone's just out there every, like, month filing lawsuits.
- [67:26]
Mike
So we have this case where. Where my client's father was living in one of these motels that was kind of like a halfway house, right? Where, you know, people stay there. They're not temporary residents. They're kind of really permanent residents. The place caught on fire, and he died of smoke in inhalation. Right. And we sued the building, and we actually got a settlement for the policy limits. But there's one pro per defendant, right? Or, sorry, plaintiff. Right? There's one guy who's representing himself. Himself, and he's talking about the government having listening devices and the judges and the attorneys colluding here and, like, tinfoil hat kind of crazy, right? And, you know, in that circumstance, that's the kind of guy who they're going to ban at some point because he just files frivolous lawsuits all day long. And he happened to be in that motel when this incident happened. But that's the kind of individual that he does this two or three times, and the court's gonna flag him, and he's gonna have to get court approval to file a lawsuit. And if he tries to file something crazy like, hey, you know, the. The CIA is monitoring me, and Jack is an agent of the CIA, and Graham is, like, the undercover director, right? Like, they're gonna, like, not let that go through, right? So. So it's kind of like, you know, shadow banned on that.
- [68:49]
Jack
Why is California so litigious?
- [68:51]
Mike
It's a very liberal state, and I'm not getting political in any Anyway, right? But they really care about consumer rights. They really care about landlord. Right. Or, sorry, tenant rights. They really care about employee rights. They really care about victims of accidents, and they really push that as a priority. Now, there's a lot of downside to that, which is the cost of insurance goes up. I don't know if you saw a lot of insurance carriers are pulling out of California.
- [69:15]
Jack
State Farm being one of them.
- [69:16]
Mike
State farms pulling out, right? Before the fires, I don't know if you saw people were getting cancer canceled, right? So literally the fires are coming down the street and people are canceling insurance policies. You know, like the carriers are. So, you know, California is very, very lax with litigation, but there's a price you pay. Auto insurance rates are insane in California. Insane homeowners rates. You know, I live right by where one of the fires was. My homeowners went from 3,000 to like 10,000 and went year. So you, you know, you pay for it. Right. And I think everyone in California kind of understands, like you pay all this insurance, but if you're hurt in a car accident, at least you're getting well taken care of.
- [69:58]
Graham
Have you ever had a case where the client was 100% lying but you found out too late?
- [70:04]
Mike
I'm trying to think. I don't think I had one where I found out too late, but there's ones I've had where I found out. And then we ended up dismissing the case. So we had one. So there's this Persian lawyer, I'm not gonna say his name, but he used to send us lots of cases to litigate because, you know, like I said, I have a 40 person law firm, we have a large litigation department, we have members of aboda, which is the American Board of Trial Advocates, in my office. And so he would send us all these cases, and he sent us this one case where the guy was adamant, he never had back pain, he needed a back surgery, and we were mediating the case. And mediation is what, where one side's in one room, the other side's in the other, and the mediator goes back and forth to try to settle the case. And it turned out during mediation that they lowered their offer from like 500,000 to like 50,000, which is so unusual, insurance companies almost never lower their offers. And we found out that he had a case in Michigan a few years earlier where he was also recommended a spinal fusion. And he told us he never had back pain, he never had spinal problems, he'd never been recommended surgery. And we found out that the exact same physical issue he was having, he was having in our case. And we basically were like, take the 50 and let's walk away. Right? And we didn't drop the case, but I mean, he still probably had aggravation, but it was one of those things where the client was lying through his teeth and we just settled for what we could.
- [71:36]
Graham
Have you ever felt bad about a win?
- [71:39]
Mike
No. No, I think I believe every case of mine is righteous. I believe every case of mine is really a fight to get just justice. And if I didn't believe in a case, I wouldn't take it.
- [71:51]
Jack
What's your wildest story?
- [71:53]
Mike
Oh, it's another penis case, actually. So we had a case where a guy was at a strip club, right? And he got a lap dance from a stripper. And our position. This was early in my career, right? Like, I don't remember a whole lot about it, but it was really early in my career, you know, 10,000 cases, you know, before now. And. And we argued that the lap dance was too aggressive, right? It was too aggressive of a lap. Lap dance. And he broke his penis, right? Now, I don't know if you can know this, right, but, like, you can break a penis. There's all these blood vessels in there, right? And if it, you know, bends in a wrong way, you can actually break your penis. And so we filed a lawsuit, and our position was that this aggressive stripper, Harper, right, negligently broke his penis. And we ended up losing on what's called a motion for summary judgment. Are you guys familiar with what that is? So a motion for summary judgment is a motion that someone can make to the court that says, given the facts that are admitted by everyone, is there still a basis to move forward? Right. So if we accept everything everyone's saying is true, is there a legal basis to move forward? Forward? And the judge essentially said, based on everything I'm seeing, there's no legal cause of action here. There's no legal reason to move forward. And the case was dismissed. Right. But that was probably the craziest case.
- [73:20]
Jack
Do you think you could win that case if you had it today, knowing what you know now?
- [73:26]
Mike
You know, I don't know a lot of the MSJs that motion for so many judgments depend on the judge. Some judges just want to get rid of cases. Like, they have a big caseload, and they're like, listen, anything that is borderline, like, okay, I'm just going to kind of shoot out and grant the msj. And there's other judges that hate to be involved with the case getting resolved. They don't want to be the reason a case failed or a case was successful. They want to leave it in the hands of a jury. So it just depends on the judge. And I believe that judge was very aggressive about motions for summary judgment.
- [73:58]
Graham
Have you ever had a high profile file lawsuit with someone that's, like, famous?
- [74:03]
Mike
We had one against Ashley Tisdale, and it was a word versus word dispute. And according to my Client. When Ashley got out, she threatened her. There was, like this whole drama on social media about her getting doxed. Right. So my client, you know, alleged that Ashley Tisdale or her husband had posted her personal information where she worked online line, you know, trying to bully her essentially into dropping the case. And, you know, that case, you know, ended up going on for a really long time. But, you know, the thing with those cases. Oh, actually, there's one with TJ Miller, too, I'll tell you about in a second. But the thing when you have celebrities in a case is that it's very difficult to get their depositions. They try to avoid their depositions at all costs. And if you can pressure them on their depositions, you end up doing very difficult. Well, because, you know, Ashley Tisdale doesn't want to sit for seven hours with Michael Parker while I kind of on her and what she did. Right. Like, she just doesn't want that video to come out of her in deposition. It just doesn't look good. Right. She hit this young girl. She caused her injury. She doesn't want anyone to know about that.
- [75:12]
Jack
Allegedly.
- [75:13]
Mike
Right. Allegedly did. Well, allegedly. Right. All of these are, you know, are allegations against her. Right. And most of these cases settle with no admission of liability. Right.
- [75:24]
Jack
And what's the one on tj?
- [75:26]
Mike
So TJ Miller is just a famous comedian, actor. He was in Silicon Valley, and my client was a driver for him. And there was an allegation of assault. And we sued T.J. miller. It was like in TMZ and all over the news. And we tried so hard to get his deposition, and we ended up settling because we pressured him to have a depth deposition. Celebrities do not like being deposed by lawyers for, like, six or seven hours. And if you can get that pressure on them to, you know, have a deposition, you're going to be able to settle the case in most circumstances.
- [76:00]
Jack
Why is it public information in terms of a deposition?
- [76:05]
Mike
Why. Why is a deposition. Yeah.
- [76:06]
Jack
How is that public? Isn't this. Shouldn't this be a closed matter, that it can't leave the courtroom?
- [76:13]
Graham
Like, some depositions have gone incredibly viral, like Kanye West's depositions. I feel like a lot of people have seen that. I think Justin Bieber, neighbor, had a deposition that just was everywhere.
- [76:23]
Mike
Yeah. So be aware, a deposition is technically a court hearing. You're under oath. Right. The power of the court extends to the deposition. There's several rules that apply to how a deposition works. Right. So you know the code of civil procedure, how objections work, what's allowed to Be said, you know, on the record, how objections have to be made. So, you know, a deposition is a public hearing. If I had a deposition in my office, you're more than welcome to just sit. Sit in on it. Like, you can. Guys come to my office anytime and watch a deposition, right? It's. It's a public hearing. Every deposition is a public hearing. Now, there's some limitations on who can go to a depot. Like, for example, if you guys were in a car accident together and Jack was being deposed, you couldn't sit in because they wouldn't want you to hear what he says about what happened to taint your, you know, testimony. But other than that, if Jack's friend was like, I want to sit in for support, they would allow it. It's totally okay.
- [77:19]
Jack
Why is it. Why is it public? I feel like between. Between a private lawsuit, that should be between the individuals and their counsel and not something that's broadcast to the world.
- [77:28]
Mike
Because the. The deposition is kind of like an exploratory meeting for actual cross examination and direct testimony at trial. So when you, like, let's say I take your deposition, right? That is basically the preview of what you're going to do at trial, right? So it's public. Because everything you're going to say and everything I'm getting out of you, a jury's going to hear anyways. So why keep it private? Why does it to be private? Just not protecting any of your privacy at all? Because every single thing you tell me, I can ask you on the stand later in court.
- [78:00]
Jack
One of the things that I've seen online a lot is that lawyers say, never speak more than you have to. How often is that the case that your clients overspeak or overshare information? Or is it always a good idea to never say anything?
- [78:13]
Mike
You know, it's like when you're told if the police talk to you, don't say anything, right? And just here's like, a really basic example. So you get in a car accident, right? And you're like, listen, I'm just gonna call my insurance and, like, open my claim. So you call them and like, hey, Graham, what hurts? You're like, you know, my neck kind of hurts. Maybe my shoulder a little bit. Other than that, I don't really know right now. And then you report your claim. So two weeks later, you're like, picking up a box, like, on the floor over there, right? And you throw your back out and you're like, I've never had back pain. I've never had problems like this is almost certainly from the car accident. Then when you go and update the insurance with your back claim, they're going to say, listen, you're full of. You told us it was neck and shoulder. We didn't hear anything for two weeks. And now you're saying it's back, right? So what you want is your attorney to make those statements for you. Because what I say is not evidence. If I'm like, Graham hurt his neck, his back, his ears, his shoulder, his calves, whatever, and we only submit bills for your neck and back. None of what I said is admissible evidence. I'm not a party to the lawsuit. I'm not the one who's hurt, right? I'm not a percipient witness. There's nothing that I know other than what you tell me, right? So if I, like, you know, misstate that by accident, like, the insurance company can't hold it against you, so you.
- [79:30]
Jack
Should never be the one to make those statements. You should always get a lawyer to make the statements on your behalf.
- [79:35]
Mike
Your, your attorney's completely insulated from, from like honesty. I'm not saying we're allowed to lie. What I'm saying is, is we're allowed to make mistakes. And if we make mistakes in our communication of the facts, then you guys are completely off the hook. Because our mistakes with communication have nothing to do with your communication or ability to communicate.
- [79:56]
Jack
That's really interesting.
- [79:57]
Mike
And same with a criminal lawyer, right? If you get pulled over to the cops, shut the fuck up, like, don't talk to them, Right? Nothing you say can help you. Because if you say, if they say, hey, look, why, why were you driving to, you know, the mall? And you're like, you know, you give some answer. If that answer has anything to do with a crime that had happened, even if you didn't even know a crime happened, they can use it against you.
- [80:19]
Jack
In terms of criminal cases, I'm really curious about this. Let's say there's a murder case, sure. And you're representing me. And I say to you, hey, listen, between you and I, I did it. Can you still represent me knowing that I'm guilty?
- [80:33]
Mike
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
- [80:35]
Jack
How do you both reckon that morally, but then also put doubt in other people's mind that I didn't do it.
- [80:45]
Mike
So my job is a lawyer is a couple things. Number one, my job is to advise you on your rights. So what does the government have to do for you? Regardless of what your conduct was, I have to advise you on the consequences. If you take this to Trial. What is the worst and best case scenario for you? Right. I have to analyze all your information to see do they meet the burden of proof? Maybe you did it, but they can't prove it. And my job as a lawyer is to make them prove it. Right? I can know you killed someone. I can know you committed bank robbery. I can know you assaulted someone. But it doesn't change the fact that the legal burden of proof is beyond reasonable doubt. And it's okay for me to hold the prosecutor to that burden. And even though it may allow a guilty person to be let free, as a society, we've agreed we'd rather have more guilty be people be free than innocent people be in jail. It's a balance, right? Would you rather have, you know, error on the side of imprisoning innocent people or error on the side of imprisoning guilty people? Right. And that's kind of a balance. You have to do.
- [81:54]
Graham
What's one of the most creative solutions you've had to apply to get a verdict?
- [81:58]
Mike
So there was a law called the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. So I pretty much only do personal injury, right? But for a while, me and my buddy had a firm that did consumer class actions, right? And we had a case that was the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. So it was a law from 1991 that was meant to prevent spam faxes and spam phone calls, right? And there was this attorney who's a friend of mine, his name's Abbas Kazaronian, right? And he figured out, well, we could kind of apply this to text messages, right? And without written consent, right? Prior written consent, you can't text message an ad to someone. And there's a penalty for that, right? There's a statutory penalty for each text message message. And so me and one of my friends, his name's Kevin, we said, you know what? On the side, we get text messages all the time. Like, we get these like, you know, spam text messages. Why don't we just, like, kind of start litigating some of these for fun? And on Memorial Day, we ended up getting a case where a furniture company had sent out, like, tens of thousands of text messages, right? And we, you know, pursued them for it. They were all without prior written consent. And we ended up filing a class action settlement against the furniture company. We ended up settling it, and I think the settlement was around $6 million. And all of that money that they paid, all $6 million was just because they sent text messages out without permission. So there's a lot of avenues of law that allow you to recover large amounts of money with not minimal work, but creativity and not as much work as you would think.
- [83:46]
Jack
Are there any other loopholes right now that you're seeing that maybe companies aren't aware of?
- [83:52]
Mike
You know, it's not that. It's that, you know, a lot of what works is people find it and then just kind of exploit it over and over again until they find the next best thing. And let me kind of explain what I mean by that. So with personal injury specifically, there's like, popular types of treatment that get popular for like a few years, and then like a different type of treatment becomes popular, and then everyone kind of uses that. So I used familiar with like, tmj. Have you heard of tmj? It's like, you know, jaw issue. So back before I started, TMJ was like the it thing for personal injury. Every time you get an accident, airbag hit me. TMJ go to a dentist, they do a full workup. No epidural injections, no spinal surgeries. It was all tmj, right? And eventually insurance companies kind of caught on and they're like, this is B.S. we're not going to pay for TMJ. And, you know, people are innovative, and they're like, okay, well, look, you're not paying for tmj, but these people have neck pain and back pain too, so why don't we start getting them, like, epidural injections, facet injections? And that kind of went on for a really long time. And then people realized, well, these traumatic brain injuries are really good cases and they're hard to see, and we've just been missing them completely. And now kind of traumatic brain injuries are like the flavor of. Of the month. So, you know, I don't know about any loopholes, like in particular, but what I can say is, is that the kind of zeitgeist of the time changes with what's acceptable and what's popular in terms of treatment. And it's gone kind of from TMJ to epidural injections to traumatic brain injury. Now CRPS is kind of popular, and I don't know if you've heard of that. So this is actually, if you asked about an interesting case, cases, it's called complex regional pain syndrome. Right. And what it is is a neurological condition, and it's usually caused by a trauma. So let's say like a baseball. You're sitting at a baseball game and a baseball hits you in the arm, you break your arm, right? When that arm breaks, what can Happen is is it can cause a neurological damage that creates phantom pain in your arm. So you'll have pain in your arm. It's not physically caused by anything. It's all in your brain and it never goes away. Surgery makes it worse, right? You can do ketamine injections to kind of improve like how, how much it, you know, the pain causes you. But it's really a permanent cognitive, you know, injury that just you live with for the rest of your life. Right. And we had a case where a woman's foot got run over, she fractured her ankle, ankle, and she had CRPs. And we ended up getting like one and a quarter million dollars for the CRPs case. And it's a very unusual diagnosis. And you talk about like kind of loopholes or things to look for. It's one that 99% of personal injury lawyers have never heard about. Right. There's other ones like thoracic outlet syndrome. There's, you know, there's a lot of things like there's neuro ophthalmological issues that people kind of find too. But it's one of those weird things, things that people don't look for. People like, oh, a fractured ankle, well, do they have discoloration? Do they have swelling? Do they have shooting pain to that area? Well, it might be CRPs.
- [87:09]
Graham
So of the 10,000 plus personal injury cases you've taken on, which one did you disagree most with the verdict?
- [87:18]
Jack
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- [87:37]
Mike
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Jack
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- [87:51]
Mike
You don't wake up dreaming of McDonald's fries. You wake up dreaming of McDonald's hash browns. McDonald's breakfast comes first. So, you know, we haven't had any verdicts that we got zero on. There are verdicts that we got smaller amounts on. So I had one. I'm not going to give the client's name, but it was in Rivers side and we had very, very high hopes for this, this trial. She was at a Chinese food restaurant and she was a very nice lady, very attractive older woman, had, you know, large, you know, fake breasts. Right. She was with her boyfriend who was a pilot. Right. And the waitress spilled hot Tea on her breasts. And it left scarring, obviously, psychological problems, ptsd. They offered, I think, three or four hundred thousand before trial, and we turned it down and we went to trial and we didn't realize, you know, how little a jury would value a scarring, you know, on a breast like that. I think one of the problems, she was a slightly older woman, you know, late 40s, early 50s. Right. You know, scars on younger women tend to perform better, I think, you know, when people have fake breasts, you know, and are a little more superficial, people maybe don't sympathize as much with them. But we ended up getting like 180,000 in that case, something like that. And the verdict was, you know, so low. Even though 180 is, you know, a decent amount. It was so low for expectations that the judge actually added money to the verdict. He did what's called an adder. So a judge can actually add money to a verdict if they think it's unfair. So that was probably the most disappointing, biggest letdown in terms of, like, what a verdict was.
- [89:43]
Jack
I'm really curious, when it comes to profiling, have you found that things lead to larger claims like age, tattoos, hair color, piercings, things like this?
- [89:54]
Mike
No, I haven't seen anything that indicates that. The only thing that is unfair is weight. They heavily, heavily, heavily take into account weight, height. Like if you're like 6 foot 5 in a tiny little car, like, your ability to be hurt is much higher. Right. You have a lot less protection. You know, you can hit things more easily. But really, weight is a huge one. They'll say, oh, you have a knee tear, but, like, you're fat. So, you know, it's probably from your weight and, and age. You know, if you're an older man, you're more likely to be injured. Right. If you fall on carpet and you're 90 years old, you're going to break your hip. If I do a kickflip off five stairs and fall on my hip, I'm going to be sore for a couple days. My, my kid might make fun of me, but that's, that's about it. Right.
- [90:41]
Graham
What about disposition? Like, if you're very friendly and outgoing and innocent and kind of naive, do you think that the jury tends to side with those types of people more?
- [90:49]
Mike
So I think people like people who are more relatable. If you're too professorial. Right. If you're too academic. Right. Too, too put together, a jury might think you're kind of stuck up. And if you're too the opposite direction Right? And, like, you can't speak properly. You seem like kind of a deadbeat or a junkie, right? They're gonna feel less sympathy with you because you're like, I'm gonna give this guy's money, and he's just gonna do drugs. Right? I think, you know, you want someone who is professional, who's articulate, but also who isn't stuck up and who's kind of friendly, right? And that's why this Michael Garcia case was great. Our client was well put together, well spoken, not a rich guy, not a poor guy. He was just like, he could have been anyone on the jury. And I think they really. That really reson. Resonates with them.
- [91:38]
Graham
What are some of the craziest requests that you've ever gotten? For example, let's say someone punches someone else in the face and they break their knuckles and they try to sue for that. Have you ever had any requests like that?
- [91:47]
Mike
Oh, I mean, I get bar fights. I get, you know, like they said, the broken penis at the. The strip club. You know, Most of the cases, though, we get are car accidents, slip and falls. We get our car accidents, slip and fall. We get a lot of people who go to stores and boxes fall off and, like, hit him in the head, you know, get knocked unconscious. We get bar fights, right? You know, we get people who are stabbed. But really, you know, the most unusual things are really, like, the penis cases. We get weird brain injury cases. We had one where a woman was going down a water slide at her friend's house. And the funny thing is, the friend owned an MRI facility I work with, and I went to high school school with him. So I ended up suing someone I knew from high school because she went down his water slide. And the theory was that the water slide whipped too hard and caused her to hit her head when it whipped, lost consciousness, dumped into the pool, right? And I call my buddy who owns the house, and I'm like, listen, like, you're lucky it's me who's suing you, because I'm not going after you personally. The client's your friend. She doesn't want to go after personal personally. We just want to get this insurance money. And we ended up getting it. But, you know, it was just a really weird set of circumstances. Like, people have been going down that water slide for five, six years, but she, for some reason, whipped around really hard and hit her head, you know?
- [93:11]
Graham
How many penis cases have you had?
- [93:14]
Mike
Like, 10, man. Like, a lot. Like, like, way more than one in.
- [93:17]
Graham
A thousand Cases have to do with.
- [93:19]
Mike
Yeah, like a lot of cases, right, Right. We had one where a guy was on a motorcycle. He flew off his penis. Like his whole front part of his body went into a wall. His testicle was crushed so hard that it basically exploded. Right. Like he lost his testicle completely. Like it got smashed up against the wall. And unfortunately for him, it was only a hundred thousand of insurance. So, you know, one of the things that. Who did he sue? The other driver who hit him?
- [93:46]
Graham
Oh, I thought, okay, okay.
- [93:48]
Mike
Yeah. So someone basically clipped him. So you know what a pit maneuver is, right? Where like the police come and they like, come and hit you on the side. So someone had changed lanes in him. Almost like a pit maneuver. Right. And then he went and hit the median. Oh, and another motorcycle, one that I think is kind of fascinating is we had a woman who was on a motorcycle. And officers are very, very harsh on motorcycle riders. Right. When they write police reports, they almost always blame motorcycle riders. So she was on her husband's motorcycle in the back. They were going down, like fourth or third in. In Santa Monica. Right. And there was a stop light. The light was green. Right? The light. They were going through the light and a car made a left turn in front of them. They went over the car. So they weren't at fault at all. So they were just going straight. Car on a green light, turned left in front of them. She flew over and she hurt her uterus. Right. She had significant, like, vaginal bleeding, uterus was swollen. She went to the OB and they did MRIs and saw that there was some structural damage and she was unable to have a period for a little while. And the expert said she'd eventually be unable to continue conceive. And so that ended up being like a big, you know, seven figure case. But it was highly unusual. I've never had an injury like that. Right. And they try to blame it on her genetic condition, and they try to blame it on, you know, like, her sex history and all these things. And kind of going back to this Starbucks case, do we talk about. I don't think we did. The arguments they had against his damages. Right. They had some crazy arguments against his damages. So he was a diagnosis diabetic, and they were trying to blame his erectile dysfunction on his diabetes, which is just crazy. Right.
- [95:40]
Jack
How do they argue that or try to prove that?
- [95:43]
Mike
So what they said is, is that so diabetes can cause cardiovascular issues. Right. I'm a type 1 diabetic, so I was super pissed off about this argument. So when you have cardiovascular issues, right? Your, your penis gets hard based on good blood flow to your penis, right? You know, your penis fills up with blood, it gets hard, you get an erection, and then when you' it kind of like decreases. So what they were trying to argue is, is that he could not get an erection because he had bad cardiovascular health, because diabetics who have uncontrolled blood sugars, you know, get erectile dysfunction. But it's ludicrous because at 25 years old, you'd have to have diabetes for 30 more years to really have that issue set in. And it really pissed the jury off. Like, really, really pissed them off. Because, you know, clearly he had no erectile function problems before this incident. And then immediately after he does and they try to blame his diabetes. It was just disgusting.
- [96:42]
Graham
What's the most you've ever seen the defense shoot themselves in the foot?
- [96:46]
Mike
I, I think this case, this Starbucks case was so, so they were just flagrant. It was.
- [96:51]
Graham
And, and you think because they were so bad in this, it made the jury award more.
- [96:57]
Mike
I will tell you that jurors tend to award more when they're pissed. Pissed off, right? So in this Starbucks case, liability was cut and dry. Like if I actually sat down and we'll, we'll do it after the podcast. I'll sit down, I'll show you the video, right? And I'll show you frame by frame how there's the cup holder, the cup is sideways, right? And she hands it to him and it falls over. Like you go frame by frame in the video, it's unambiguous. You know what happened, right? And in that trucking case that I told you about with the woman who got 37 million, she was rear ended and they fought on liability. Can you believe that? So the reason they fought on liability is she had no memory of the accident. And of course she has no memory because she has brain damage, right? So she's rear ended. They're like, well, we think she cut him off. He, she stopped abruptly and she was going somewhere. She had gone a million times. Her nine year old son was in the car the whole time. He said, they come to a complete situation stop, and they still try to argue. She cut off the truck and slammed on her brakes with no basis. And on top of that, the police report said nothing about that. Don't you think if you were the truck driver, you would have told the police you were cut off? Right. So all of those things just piss off a jury. They just make them super upset.
- [98:10]
Graham
One thing that I think would be fun just to comb over real quick is how you learned about him.
- [98:16]
Jack
Oh, this is fun.
- [98:18]
Mike
Okay.
- [98:19]
Jack
Years ago, you posted on Reddit, fatfire, and you would post these updates every single, single year about your net worth, your income, what you were doing.
- [98:27]
Mike
Yeah. Working.
- [98:28]
Jack
What wasn't working. And I followed this for years.
- [98:31]
Mike
Yeah.
- [98:32]
Jack
And you posted something about a year and a half ago. It might have been two years at this point.
- [98:36]
Mike
Okay.
- [98:37]
Jack
Where you posted the stats of where you were net worth wise, your income was going up, and you posted stats about your wife.
- [98:44]
Mike
Yeah.
- [98:44]
Jack
Like, she's five foot one, she weighs 107 pounds, stays fit. I bench this. And everyone was just ganging up on you for, like, objectifying your wife.
- [98:55]
Mike
Sure, sure.
- [98:56]
Jack
And I reached out to you, I think, from that, because I found your story really, really, really interesting. And I reached out, I said, hey, if you're ever in Vegas.
- [99:04]
Mike
Yeah.
- [99:04]
Jack
Let me know.
- [99:05]
Mike
Yeah.
- [99:05]
Jack
And it was through that that we became friends.
- [99:08]
Mike
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I really love mentoring people. I really love sharing information about how I've been successful, because I don't think it's necessarily hard. I think it's. Most people don't have the information to do it. Right. You know, the process. If you're willing to work hard and you have the information, you can get rich, you can become successful. So I really like sharing those stories online. So I've been posting every year for maybe the last eight years. My revenue, my net worth, where the status of my firm is. And I think, like you said two years ago, I think you saw it. And I think one of the things that kind of drew people in that was interesting is me posting about my wife. Right. And I got all these comments. It was like, you know, you're objectifying your wife. And, you know, this is, like, chauvinistic. And I think my response to that was, my wife likes being objectified, right? Like, what woman wouldn't want her husband? I've been with my wife just, you know, 22 years. What woman wouldn't want her husband of 22 years to still think she's sexy, to still think, you know, she's an object worth possessing and, you know, loving and, you know, spending time with and touching and all those things, right? Like, that's like. That's romantic to me, right? That, like, you know, it makes my wife feel happy. She likes it. Right? So who's anyone else to say that's a bad thing, you know?
- [100:29]
Jack
So why do you think that so many people have unsuccessful and unhappy marriages?
- [100:34]
Mike
I think There's a lot of things that come into marriage that make it bad. I think one of the things is intimidating intimacy, right? I think. And I'll go through a few of them, right? And I've, I've had these conversations with people before but one of the big things is intimacy. I think, you know, if you kind of get to the point where you're just friends or roommates and the intimacy goes away, it really is hard to have a close, you know, relationship with someone. So like my wife and I always make it a point to have dates, right? Every single week we go out and have dates. Every single week we talk about our goals. We really like share deep, like, you know, what our desires are and our needs. You know, I have a five and a seven year old and I get my brother and sister to watch him or my mother in law. So we spend a lot of quality time together both in and out of the bedroom. And I think that keeps us really close. I think you also need someone who's easygoing and I know like people are going to take this the wrong way. But like, you know, women are really difficult, right? Like 80% or something of divorces are initiated by women and women are going to set the pace of the relationship. Relationship. If you come home and you have a bad day, your women, your, you know, your wife can make it good or bad, right? Your wife, how they react when you get home can turn it into a good situation or a bad situation. So I'd say outside of intimacy, the number one thing for me is having a wife who's very, very chill. My wife's not a big spender. My wife doesn't have high expectations. My wife is very maternal, right? She loves taking care of the kids. And I mean she's smart, she's a lawyer, she worked for a crypto company, company. But she's also not highly ambitious in the sense of, you know, she puts career before her family. So there's a lot of things, but I think those are kind of like the big bullet points. But number one is intimacy and number two is a wife who is easygoing. If you get a type a wife, you're in for a lot of trouble.
- [102:25]
Jack
And what's your advice to single guys out there who are looking to try to find the right person?
- [102:30]
Mike
I would say, you know, give it time, time. People are in such a rush, especially guys. If you're talking about guys you have forever, like you could be 50 and find a wife, right? For women, you know, the timeline's a little shorter. Right. But for men, I would say, you know, make sure you get along with this person. Spend a lot of time with them. If you meet a girl at 40 and you wait till 45 to marry her, there's nothing wrong with that. I, I started dating my wife at 19, and we didn't get married till 29. Nine. Right. And it's not because, you know, I didn't want to marry her, but there's no rush. Like, I, you know, I vetted it out, we lived together, we bought a house together, and I saw through all the stressful things that she was super chill. But yeah, I got a lot of hate from that Reddit post. And at the end of the day, my wife loves when I call her, you know, sexy when I slap her butt. Right. Like, like it makes her feel good, it gives her high self esteem, and it makes me excited. And, you know, there's nothing wrong with that at all.
- [103:26]
Graham
Do you feel like you have fu money?
- [103:28]
Mike
I'm probably in the low 40s for net worth right now. My income last year was probably around 15 or so million. This year, probably closer to 35 or 40 just because I have some big verdicts.
- [103:40]
Graham
35 or $40 million. In income.
- [103:43]
Mike
In income this year. Yeah, yeah. And that's net. That's not gross.
- [103:45]
Jack
California one, man, the IRS is the real winner here.
- [103:49]
Mike
Yeah. Oh, I pay a lot in taxes. Right. So. So the way my firm set up is we, we do no advertising. But by the way, I0 advertising. I think I might have had a sponsored post from this verdict.
- [103:59]
Jack
But clarify, by the way, that this is not an advertisement that you're not paying for this. This is purely just interested.
- [104:06]
Mike
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, so we don't advertise. It's all word of mouth. I have about 2,000 cases. I sign up about 150 to 200amonth. And it's all customer service. Clients have my cell phone. My brother works for me, my other brother, my sister, my brother's best friend, his brother. We have a married couple, their three cousins. It's a family, family business that specializes in hard work and good communication. Right. Like, we treat everyone like family. So our costs are extremely low. Our margins are 80, 90%, which is why I net so much. But yeah, last year netted around 15 with these two big verdicts. Maybe 35 or 40 I'll net. And probably my net worth by the end of the year, 60 million, something like that. So if your question is, do I have FU money? The answer is yes. But I've Never cared about money. I bought a house for a million bucks in 2016. Still living in the same house. I pay 15k a year in property tax. You know, I send my kids to Catholic school, which is like six grand a year. I think our family expenses are maybe 250 a year with travel and everything. You know, we do a few big trips a year, but my hobbies are all cheap. You know, scuba diving, jiu jitsu, I shoot. You know, I don't care about money at all. I just, I care about winning and doing good job.
- [105:20]
Graham
Is there anything that you watch the price of?
- [105:23]
Mike
No. Your data is like gold to hackers. They're selling your passwords, bank details and private messages. McAfee helps stop them. Secure VPN keeps your online activity private. AI powered text scam detector spots phishing attempts instantly. And with award winning antivirus, you get top tier hacker protection. Plus you'll get up to $2 million in identity theft coverage. All for just, just $39.99 for your first year. Visit McAfee.com cancel anytime terms apply. Oh, no. Like in terms of investments or in terms of what I'm doing in terms.
- [105:57]
Graham
Of like expenses or spending money on fun or this or that.
- [106:00]
Mike
No R A watch. There's nothing. I get what I want. That's actually the best part about having money. And I always tell people the first two to three million dollars gives you 90% of the happiness with money, right? Like literally 90%. When you can go to a restaurant and order whatever you want and not think about the price. When you can go to the grocery store and not look at what the price of meat is or bread or eggs, right? The eggs are the big one now, right? And you could just buy it without even looking. Like, I just hand on my credit card. I don't even think about it, right? That's like 90% of the happiness you're going to get, right? Getting like a Bugatti or like a McLaren or Ferrari or flying private in a private jet. That stuff adds such a small amount of happiness at the end of the day. And I've tried those things, right? Like I've tried driving exotic cars and flying private. They don't make me that happy. I feel way happier when I can walk into a restaurant, order like an awesome meal and then like hang out with my wife and have fun and go home.
- [106:55]
Jack
Walk us through the different tiers of wealth. Like what you could get access to at a million dollars. 5, 10, 20, 50.
- [107:02]
Mike
Right? Right.
- [107:03]
Jack
Is there, is there like an ideal.
- [107:05]
Graham
Network what are the primary changes in your life?
- [107:08]
Mike
Sure. Going through those, I mean, I can' you for like 100 million or more. But what I can tell you is like up to 50 million kind of what you're looking at. Yeah, right. So, like, you have the first stage, which is you're living paycheck to paycheck, you're struggling, you can't eat, you can't pay your rent, you're doing all these things. Like, that's when not having money really causes you unhappiness. And no matter who you are, no matter how positive, you're going to be miserable when you're broke. Everyone who's broke is miserable. Right. Then there's kind of the next tier where you're like meeting all your bills. You have enough income, you're living paycheck to paycheck, but it's a decent paycheck. You can get a nice apartment and all those things. I think then the next huge jump is just having discretionary income. Right. I'm talking about people who make like 100k a year. Right. You can go to movies, you can go to Disneyland, you can not worry about gas in your car. And then there's this like, you know, kind of dead zone where it jumps up to a million or two where really you are comfortable if you don't like your job. And I think this is the best tier to hit. The most important tier to hit 1 or 2 million bucks. If you hate your job, job, you can quit for six months. If you hate, you know, where you live, you can sell your house and buy another house. If you want to go on vacation to decompress, you can pay for it. Right. Kids want to go to a better school, you can afford it. That's like I said, 90% of the happiness. 5 million. You know, there's. What was that, that movie where they talk about the brokest rich person. Yeah, the brokest rich person or the largest midget at the circus or whatever it is. Right. 5 million is cool because you kind of can do all the those things, but you still have the risk of losing it from a medical issue or being sued. I think 10 million is really where you've won. Right. I think if you can't be happy at $10 million, you'll never be happy at $10 million. A young person at 3%, an older person at 4%. You're getting enough income even in a high cost of living, you know, city to have a house, go on vacation and kind of enjoy things without worrying about costs. I Haven't noticed much of a difference between 10 and 20, 20 and 30. At 40, I kind of notice a difference. I can fly business class or first class, don't worry about that. Our vacations now, instead of being 20 grand or 50. But the increase in happiness is still minimal, right? There's diminishing returns on money. Like a billionaire and someone who has 100 million. There's going to be no difference in happiness. Happiness.
- [109:29]
Jack
How do you protect your money?
- [109:30]
Mike
Lots of insurance, right? Lots and lots and lots of insurance. So we have an underlying policy for everything. So we have 250,000 for auto, 500,000 for homeowners, and then a $10 million umbrella. So if we get sued, it would have to be something so catastrophic that 10 million would be adequate. But to be honest, if we had an injury worth more than 10 million, they would probably accept the policy because the risk of getting less than 10 million would kind of them to accept that $10 million policy.
- [110:03]
Jack
Could you get an umbrella for more than 10 million or is that the, the highest it goes.
- [110:07]
Mike
Oh, you can do layers. I mean, you can go to like Lloyd's in London and get like hundreds of millions.
- [110:11]
Jack
So why don't you do 20?
- [110:12]
Mike
I mean, @ some point there's diminishing returns, right? At some point, like, what's the chance of me getting sued for like more than 20 million? 30 million? I guess I could spill coffee on someone, burn their penis. But I mean, what, what have you noticed in terms of, you know, increase as you've gotten more. More wealthy?
- [110:30]
Jack
No difference.
- [110:30]
Mike
Yeah, right.
- [110:31]
Jack
Really, no difference?
- [110:32]
Mike
Like, I live the same life as I did in 2016, and I think you probably do.
- [110:35]
Jack
I think honestly the only difference that Jack would have noticed is that now I'm. I could splurge a little more for an Airbnb and I don't sweat like the hundred dollar difference.
- [110:45]
Mike
You could have done that $10 million ago though, right?
- [110:48]
Jack
Yeah, I still look at prices, but.
- [110:50]
Mike
But that's just because, like, I think that's just me. Graham.
- [110:54]
Graham
Graham is like, selectively frugal. There are certain things that he's very frugal with, and I don't think that will ever, ever change. There are other things that he really values, and I guess he's okay with spending more on that. And that kind of also hasn't really changed.
- [111:09]
Mike
Yeah.
- [111:09]
Jack
And nothing has really changed.
- [111:10]
Mike
But that's more of like a personal preference versus, like, it is more of a personal. Yeah, yeah. I'm just talking about generally, like, you just don't have to worry about certain things. Like, if I take friends out to dinner, I'll just always pay for them because I just don't care. Right? Like, it just.
- [111:23]
Graham
Jack.
- [111:24]
Mike
What? What? Looking at Graham.
- [111:26]
Graham
Yeah, it's a great. You know, I like that a lot, actually. I think someone could take some notes from that.
- [111:30]
Mike
Yeah. I mean, I like being generous. Like, I like, you know, taking people out to dinner. I like helping people out. Like, actually, a lot of the things I've done with my wealth. I bought my brother and sister a house, right? I take my brother and sister on every vacation we take. So we just went to Iceland, you know, I paid for my brother and he brought a friend. You know, we all flew first class. We all stayed at, like, really nice hotels. And to me, that's what money's for. Like, I don't want. Want anything, you know, I mean, I guess I have some nice watches, but I bought these six years ago. I haven't bought a watch in six years. Right? I live in the same house I got in 2016. You know, my kids go. Their. Their school cost is 6,000 a year. So even though I have, you know, $40 million right now, and I'll have another 20 by the end of the year, like, nothing I'm doing is expensive or much different than I did before, right?
- [112:18]
Graham
If you could impart one piece of wisdom to the viewer, the average person. Person out there, what would it be?
- [112:22]
Mike
Stop giving a. Like, stop worrying about other people. Like, the happiest I am is when I don't worry about other people, right? Like when I go to work and someone's upset or someone, you know, clients pissed at me. Just, you know, the only one at the end of the day who cares about you is you. Maybe your mom, right? Maybe if you're lucky, your kids. But at the end of the day, no one. When you die, no one's going to give a. They're going to talk about the same things they were talking about the day before. They're going to leave your funeral and talk about the food or whatever it is, right? Like, no one's going to care about you more than, like, one or two people in the world. So just remember that every time you're, like, scared about what you're going to do, who you're going to let down every time you're scared about failing, like, the number one thing you need to look at is that no one in the entire world is going to care about you except for, like, one or two people. Your mom, your kids, maybe your wife. Right. And those are the only people whose opinions you should value.
- [113:18]
Jack
Cool.
- [113:19]
Graham
Thank you so much for coming on the iced coffee hour. That was a great conversation.
- [113:22]
Mike
Yeah, thanks, dude. I appreciate you guys inviting me. And it was. It was a good time.
- [113:26]
Jack
Absolutely. We'll put your info down below in the description. Yeah, and like I said, none of this is sponsored. We have no financial compensation. I don't want one person. Oh, you're just promoting.
- [113:35]
Mike
Yeah, there's zero.
- [113:37]
Jack
There's nothing.
- [113:38]
Graham
It's all from a Reddit post.
- [113:39]
Mike
Yeah. If you go on Reddit, like, you could probably find my information. I don't know. If you want me to give it.
- [113:44]
Jack
Out, I'll link it. Yeah, yeah.
- [113:46]
Graham
Will be down below too, if you.
- [113:47]
Mike
Guys want to see Cali shit. Law guru. Yeah, so.
- [113:49]
Jack
So, yeah, I'll link it. Thank you so much.
- [113:52]
Mike
Yeah, of course, guys. Thanks so much.
- [113:53]
Jack
Until next time.