CVN screenshot of plaintiff attorney Clell Warriner delivering his closing argument
West Palm Beach, FL - A Florida state court jury delivered a $405.4K verdict on Friday to a woman alleging she suffered a concussion and injuries to her neck and back after being struck by a heavy plumbing truck that blew through a righthand-only turn lane, and the full trial was recorded gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Network.
The Palm Beach County jury awarded plaintiff Sue Pomerantz $405,412 following a three-day trial. Pomerantz claimed the collision left her with debilitating injuries resulting in chronic pain that increasingly invasive medical treatments have failed to resolve, however the defense, in addition to disputing liability for the underlying crash, argued her symptoms stemmed from a variety of pre-existing conditions.
Pomerantz’s attorney, Clell Warriner of Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, told CVN after the trial the parties never engaged in any meaningful settlement negotiations, and that the jury’s verdict beat the defense’s best settlement offer by “more than fourfold,” which he said exposes the defendant, Rapid Plumbing and Mechanical Inc., to “significant” taxable costs and attorney’s fees.
Subscribers to CVN’s online trial video library get unlimited on-demand access to the full trial including all witness testimony. In addition to this trial, a monthly or annual CVN subscription also provides access to hundreds more civil trials featuring many of the top plaintiff and defense attorneys in Florida and throughout the United States.
Rapid Plumbing employee Roy Thorpe slammed his Ford F-350 heavy work truck into Pomerantz’s car at 35 mph in 2022 while she was stopped and waiting to make a left turn into her neighborhood. Warriner argued the impact aggravated a number of underlying medical conditions that already made her neck and back susceptible to injury such as arthritis and fibromyalgia. He also presented testimony that the collision caused a mild traumatic brain injury, which he argued left her with persistent headaches.
Warriner told CVN after the trial that Pomerantz’s complex medical history, including conditions overlapping with injuries sustained in the crash, posed a significant challenge. However he suggested his team’s reliance on testimony from her longtime treating physicians versus paid experts played a decisive role in swaying the jury.
“Without question, my client’s complex medical history was a central challenge in this case,” he explained. “The testimony of her treating physician, who could provide context for her medical history and clearly explain the changes following the crash, was instrumental in overcoming that hurdle.”
Warriner suggested the defense relying exclusively on on “CME doctors” (paid experts who perform a compulsory medical exam) backfired with the jury, and that attempts to “cherry-pick isolated words or sentences from records years before the crash” ended up strengthening his case.
“We presented only her treating physicians and close family members to testify regarding her injuries,” he said. “By confronting her medical history directly and emphasizing the critical pre-crash records, rather than avoiding them, we were able to turn that complexity into a strength.”
Attorneys for the defense did not respond to a request for comment from CVN.
Warriner expressed satisfaction that the amount of damages were largely in line with what he requested in closing arguments, an outcome he attributed to his firm’s standard practice of utilizing pre-trial focus groups.
“Searcy Denney conducts internal focus groups for every case headed to trial, and the outcome of this case fell squarely within the range we anticipated,” he stated.
On a personal note, Warriner added that in addition to the normal stress of a jury trial his wife was 36-weeks pregnant at the time, and the day after the trial concluded she gave birth.
“I was hoping she could hold on until it (the trial) concluded,” He said. “Thankfully, she did, and our daughter arrived the very next day, a perfect blessing following the verdict.”
Pomerantz was also represented by Edward Ricci of Searcy Denny.
The defense was represented by Sioli Alexander Pino.
The trial took place before Judge James Sherman.
The case is captioned Sue Pomerantz v. Roy Thorpe, et al., case number 50-2023-CA-006225-XXXX-MB in Florida’s 15th Judicial Circuit Court in Palm Beach County.
E-mail David Siegel at dsiegel@cvn.com
