The plaintiff’s “home field” advantage of making the final closing argument allowed an attorney in one recent DeKalb County State Court case to powerfully turn an ill-chosen phrase in the defense’s closing statement into a self-fulfilling prophecy and secure a large verdict for his client under a difficult set of circumstances. Jewel Wicker v. American Family Insurance et al. (13A47336).

A well-planned and well-executed demonstration of a surgical procedure by the defendant surgeon in a recent med mal case, assisted by his attorney, may have been a key factor in the jury’s verdict. The surgeon, Dr. J. Eduardo Corso, had been sued in DeKalb County State Court by the family of Arlene Bailey after Bailey’s death resulting from complications arising during a catheterization procedure performed by Dr. Corso. Larry Bailey et al. v. J. Eduardo Corso, MD et al. (12A45372).

On August 12, 2011, Dr. Corso performed a procedure to insert a catheter in Arlene Bailey to enable her to receive dialysis treatments. This type of catheter placement is routinely used with dialysis patients, and Dr. Corso had successfully performed the operation several hundred times previously. In fact, he had inserted another catheter in Bailey three days earlier on August 9, but the earlier catheter did not function properly and needed to be replaced.

A plaintiff normally cannot recover damages for fraud in a breach of contract action, but, in a recent major commercial case, a successful plaintiff was able to add nearly $350,000 to its eventual recovery by successfully adding and proving a fraud count to its original complaint, based on information the defendant revealed for the first time during discovery. Nebo Ventures, LLC v. NovaPro Risk Solutions, LP (Fulton County Sup. Ct., (2012CV202767).