Trial Guides is proud to report another tremendous success from one of our longtime readers, John Demas and Tim Spangler of the Demas Law Group. Their case involved the wrongful death of a 33-year-old father of two young children. The case turned on jury selection, the powerful testimony of the plaintiffs’ mother, and closing argument.
The plaintiff attorneys framed their case around the works of Jesse Wilson, Robert T. Hall and Mila Ruiz Tecala to reach this verdict.
Case Summary
Type of Action: Wrongful death, motor vehicle v. pedestrian
Plaintiff Attorneys: Tim Spangler and John Demas of Demas Law Group
Plaintiffs: The decedent’s surviving children
Defendants: City of Sacramento, Jonathon Nangle
Net Verdict/Award: $32,160,957.00
Economic Damages: $2,160,957.00
Noneconomic Damages: $30,000,000
Jury Deliberation Time: 75 minutes
The Story
On December 6, 2022, at approximately 6 AM, Lionel Rodriguez ran out of gas as he was traveling southbound on I-5, just south of Sutterville Road in Sacramento. He pulled over to the right shoulder of the roadway, activated his emergency lights, and called his brother, Juan Carlos, for assistance. Juan Carlos arrived and began to fill the gas tank of the disabled vehicle. The brothers and their vehicles were on the road shoulder at all times.
At approximately 6:15 a.m., Jonathon Nangle was traveling southbound on I-5, at approximately 70 miles an hour in the far right lane. Nangle, an employee of the city of Sacramento, was heading to his office on Freeport Boulevard. He drifted over the fog line and struck the disabled vehicle and both brothers; both were killed. A tanker truck that was traveling behind the defendant captured his vehicle's movements on a dashcam.
Juan Carlos was a journeyman plumber who provided the bulk of the family’s financial support. He was a loving husband and father who had played a critical role in the lives of his children. His kids exclusively referred to him as “Papa Bear.” He was just 33 years old.
The plaintiff team contended that the defendant was negligent in operating his motor vehicle and that his negligence was the sole cause of the decedent's death. Because the defendant was in the course and scope of his employment with city of Sacramento, the city was vicariously responsible for his negligence.
Noneconomic Damages: Putting a Price on Fatherlessness
While the economic loss was only about $2 million, the noneconomic component was $30 million. To reach this verdict, the plaintiffs had to stress the seemingly incalculable loss following the premature death of a parent—and because California does not permit damages for grief, the team used a different approach to underscore their clients’ emotional burden.
To determine an appropriate noneconomic dollar value, the plaintiff team first divided the survivors’ lives into time periods based on the anticipated role their father would have played: adolescence to eighteen years old, then nineteen to 25, and finally 26 until their father’s expected life expectancy. They then used a per-diem value for each one of those time periods, and multiplied that hourly rate for each of the elements at play during those eras, making the per-diem value decrease over time. At the time of the trial, the value was calculated at $25 an hour, 16 hours a day. The final figure sought, approximately $60 million, underscored the survivors’ tremendous loss.
Anticipating Juror Concerns about a Government-Entity Defendant
One of the plaintiff team’s major concerns was that the jury would struggle to award large damages in a case against a public entity. “In voir dire, we started framing what I called ‘outside the box versus inside the box,’” explains John. “Anything outside the box would be things like: ‘What good is the money going to do? What impact is it going to have on the city? Will my taxes go up from this? Is it too much money for these young kids?’”
Due to California wrongful death law, sympathy and grief also fell outside the box. “I knew that the defense was going to make a big deal out of sympathy; they can't give money just because they feel sorry for the claimants, the plaintiffs, and they can't give money for grief. So I pre-habbed that early, and just owned the fact that it was something that the jury shouldn't consider. It was outside the box.
“Once we talked about that in jury selection, I was able to close the loop in my closing argument with the actual jury instruction that confirmed, essentially, that what you consider are the elements of the loss and the evidence within the scope of their consideration.”
Trial Guides Titles in Action
“Any time I see a new book published, I order it and read it, and then buy it for my colleagues to make sure they read it,” laughs John. “I think I’ve read everything Trial Guides has published at least once. For this case, John and Tim found two titles particularly useful:
Grief and Loss, by Robert T. Hall & Mila Ruiz Tecala
“For this trial, I went back and looked at Grief and Loss, just to get my mind right on what the loss of a parent means. This book helped me put words to the fact that, even though you can’t recover for grief [in California], there are still some great nuggets of wisdom that put you in the right mind frame for successfully trying a wrongful death case.
Grief and Loss by Robert T. Hall & Mila Ruiz Tecala is available in paperback.
The Most Important Juror, by Jesse Wilson
“Jesse [Wilson] was instrumental in his work with our client, and part of the presentation of the evidence, because we put the entire case on in less than a day,” says John. He has not only read Wilson’s Trial Guides catalog, but also brought Jesse in on a half-dozen cases to work with his clients. “This time, I actually had him come to our office for two days in person, and we worked with the mother of the children for several hours,” he says.
Selecting the right jury was foundational to their success; the attorneys began framing their argument in voir dire. “We opened at 9 a.m. and we were done by 2:45 in the afternoon,” explains John. “Jury selection took a day and a half. It took longer to find our jury than it did to put [on] the entire case.
“Jesse was instrumental in the work that he did, especially in helping the client prepare [for trial] and getting her in the right mindframe. He played a critical role in getting us to where we got.”
The Most Important Juror is available in paperback and ebook.