Jury awards $26.3 million in personal injury case

Maryam Hedayati, an unemployed 45-year-old woman, was crossing the street in Laguna Hills in 2012 when a driver under the influence of drugs ran into her. She woke up weeks later to a new reality - one of her legs had been amputated and she had gaps in her memory.

Now she has won $26.3 million in court, thanks to the young husband-and-wife team at Lari-Joni & Bassell LLP, a Los Angeles plaintiffs' firm specializing in personal injury matters.

Nicole H. Lari-Joni and Torsten M. Bassell, both 32, spent more than $100,000 in costs litigating the case, and recounted the uphill battle they faced.

Their opposing counsel, Patrick J. Gibbs, has 25 years of experience and is a litigation partner at the midsize firm Ford, Walker, Haggerty & Behar LLP. Lari-Joni and Bassell are the only attorneys at their outfit.

But, Bassell said, "We like to get involved with cases we really have a heart behind."

The fact that Hedayati was single, childless and unemployed at the time of the accident and her limited work history were obstacles facing her case.

"The loss of future earning capacity is a type of damage that we sought to recover," Bassell said. "It's really difficult to prove that when you don't have a past earnings history."

But the attorneys managed to convince the jury that the accident made it nearly impossible for Hedayati to get a job in the future. And that involved overcoming another major challenge in litigating the case - proving the extent of Hedayati's injuries.

"When you talk to her, she sounds perfectly normal," said Lari-Joni. "You really have to show the jury that ... there are these gaps in memory, which you can't visibly see."

The firm also had to show the jury the extent of the client's ability to adapt to life as an amputee.

"A big aspect of the case was focusing on the higher level prosthetics that were actually more appropriate for our client than others, because it reduced the amount of mental effort that she would have to have in order to walk," Bassell said.

Despite the odds, the case worked out in their client's favor. An Orange County Superior Court jury awarded $26.3 million to Hedayati in August after 11 days of trial. The verdict included $3 million for future loss of earnings and $12 million for future pain and suffering. Hedayati vs. Vanwyk, 2012-00619582 (O.C. Super. Ct., filed Dec. 19, 2012).

"It's a phenomenal verdict, even for someone who's been practicing for 25 years," said plaintiffs' lawyer Brian S. Kabateck, partner at Kabateck Brown Kellner LLP. "Its very admirable that they got that kind of number."

But damages for things like future pain and suffering and loss of future earnings capacity are more speculative and could be things examined closely in a future court of appeal, Kabateck said.

The case was in front of Judge Thierry P. Colaw. The driver, Maurice Vanwyk, had a $25,000 insurance policy with Insurance Exchange of the Automobile Club, according to Gibbs.

This is not only multimillion dollar verdict for Lari-Joni and Bassell. In 2011, a Santa Barbara County Superior Court jury returned a $3.9 million damages award for one of their first clients, a 26-year-old woman injured in a four-vehicle freeway collision. The case was later upheld on appeal.. Ricardez v. Clifton McCorkendale, 1301059 (Santa Barbara Super. Ct. July 25, 2011).

The couple, who began practicing together in 2010, say they work well together.

"I'm very detail-oriented and he's very much into the big picture," Lari-Joni said. "When you take every excruciating detail of the case and you put that together with someone who knows the full picture, then the combination of that really becomes like a full encyclopedia of a case."

Though they were able to front litigation costs in Hedayati's case, paying retainer fees for expert witnesses were a challenge when Lari-Joni first started the firm in 2008, attorneys said.

"Recovery depends on you winning at trial and even then that's money that's locked up for two years," Lari-Joni said. But, "if someone needs our protection and we think that we can help, we take it and we try no matter how hard the case is."

Though the firm is doing well, there are no immediate plans to hire more attorneys, Lari-Joni said.

"We want to have kids," Lari-Joni said. "Once we have kids, I'm sure extra help will probably be needed. I'm sure we will expand."