CVN screenshot of plaintiff attorney Clell Warriner delivering his opening statement
West Palm Beach, FL - A Florida state court jury heard opening statements Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by a woman claiming she suffered a traumatic brain injury and injuries to her back and neck after being t-boned by a plumbing company’s Ford F-350 heavy work truck, and the full trial is being webcast gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Network.
Plaintiff Sue Pomerantz sued Rapid Plumbing and Mechanical Inc. in 2023 after employee Roy Thorpe hit her car while she attempted to make a lefthand turn into her neighborhood. Her attorney accused Thorpe of blowing through a righthand-only turn lane and claimed the impact left her with a range of injuries resulting in chronic untreatable pain.
The defense disputed Thorpe’s liability for the underlying accident but largely focused their argument on claims that Pomerantz’s symptoms are the result of a variety of pre-existing conditions, and that the 35 mph collision did not leave her with any severe or permanent injuries.
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Pomerantz’s attorney, Clell Warriner of Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, accused Thorpe of using the righthand-only turn lane as his “own personal expressway” while Pomerantz attempted to make a lefthand turn into her neighborhood.
“At some point in time he decided he had enough of waiting in traffic, and he was going to blow through this intersection so he could get ahead of the traffic and make his righthand turn,” Warriner told the Palm Beach County jury.
He described how the “violent” impact pushed Pomerantz’s comparatively small vehicle up onto the sidewalk and how both the initial impact and twisting momentum, along with the deployment of Pomerantz’s airbags, caused a mild traumatic brain injury along with exacerbating other underlying conditions like arthritis that he argued Pomerantz had well under control for years.
“That crash marked a turning point point in her life,” Warriner said. “It was the start of an unending cycle of medical treatments and pain that even three years later is not getting better and continues to shape her daily life.”
Warriner detailed how along with arthritis, Pomerantz also suffered from fibromyalgia, neck pain and headaches, but he insisted testimony from her longtime treating physician would confirm those conditions were all “stable” before the accident.
He also stressed that he would rely almost entirely on testimony and medical records from Pomerantz’s treating physicians “with no dog in this fight” while suggesting the defense would largely call on experts who either briefly examined Pomerantz or never met her at all.
Aside from disclosing $140,000 in past medical expenses Warriner did not name a specific amount of damages he would seek, but he repeatedly described to jurors the to-date unsuccessful and increasingly invasive medical procedures Pomerantz sought out to treat her post-accident pain and how her quality of life has worsened considerably since the incident.
Representing Thorpe and Rapid Plumbing, defense attorney Rolando Martinez of Freeman Goldis & Cash PA briefly told jurors Thorpe admitted some responsibility for the crash but that overall liability for the accident was not clear cut.
“No pun intended, the mistake was a two-way street,” he said.
Martinez dedicated the bulk of his opening statement to Pomerantz’s medical history, arguing that nearly everything Warriner described in his opening was attributable to her pre-existing conditions.
“The very symptoms that she’s complaining of now were being treated as soon as a month before the accident,” he insisted.
Martinez disputed the claim Pomerantz suffered a traumatic brain injury, arguing her alleged symptoms were not consistent with one and that she was “cleared for neurological issues" after going to the emergency room, which he noted she waited to do until the day after the crash.
He also took issue with the claim her pre-existing conditions were stable, disclosing to jurors that Pomerantz was prescribed heavy narcotics like oxycontin and morphine before the accident, though he suggested the fact her dosage was reduced after the crash indicated her symptoms hadn’t worsened and had even improved.
Martinez repeatedly acknowledged that Pomerantz suffered from chronic pain issues, but he argued multiple board-certified experts would testify those symptoms didn’t result from any acute injuries, and that she’d been struggling with these problems for years.
“The medical records show that Ms. Pomerantz has been in pain since 2014,” he stated.
The trial is taking place before Judge James Sherman and is expected to take roughly five days to complete. CVN’s gavel-to-gavel coverage will continue for the duration of the proceedings.
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