by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
As the plaintiff recalled the days before his arms were amputated, he began to cry.
He had enjoyed water skiing, scuba diving and fishing with his son. After the accident, after his arms had been cut off above the elbow, he started each morning by pulling clothes out of the drawer with his mouth.
The man’s story was wrenching. It convinced the defendant in the case, a manufacturer of an electric lift that had electrocuted the Clay County man, to settle. The plaintiff’s identity isn’t printed due to the terms of the settlement.
The case sounds typical for a catastrophic injury, except that the plaintiff’s testimony wasn’t delivered in a court room — it played out on a television screen. It was part of a documentary put together by Video Law Services, Inc., and like most of the cases taken on by the forensic video production company, it ended with a settlement in favor of the plaintiff.
Michaela Miller, president and founder of VLS, estimated her clients’ winning percentage at around 85 percent. And that’s just the number that settle pre-trial.
“That’s where our documentaries are most effective,” said Miller. “They’re something we show at mediation to try and avoid trial.”
The success rate helps explain VLS’ longevity. Miller recently celebrated her company’s 20th anniversary. She didn’t know what to expect when she left a career as a television reporter to start VLS. But she said she started to realize the concept’s potential when she had her own brush with personal injury law.
Shortly after she started VLS, Miller was injured in a car accident. After her lawyer advised her to photograph her injuries, Miller asked if she could videotape them instead.
“We both realized the value immediately,” she said.
The documentaries are shot in the style of broadcast news investigative features. Miller credits digital technology and a crew full of former television cameramen and producers for the look.
Her client list reads like a roll call of the top personal injury law firms in the Southeast. The above-mentioned Clay County case was handled by the late Johnny Cochran’s firm.
Another client, Bob Spohrer, partner at Spohrer, Wilner, Maxwell and Matthews, said the documentaries graphically depict the strength of a case to opposing attorneys.
For the Clay County case, Miller focused the first part of the documentary on her client’s quality of life before the injury. The images then take a jarring turn to the plaintiff’s life after an operation removed his badly burned arms.
The images of the man grappling with his shirt in the morning or combing his hair by rubbing his head against a brush nailed into the wall offer a first-hand look at his life without arms. As he recalled the searing pain emanating from his scorched arms, pictures of the dying limbs flashed across the screen. The flesh had melted away, exposing muscles and tendons. The images are far more affecting than listening to someone describe them in court, said Miller.
“The other side sees these videos and they think ‘Oh my gosh, what’s this going to look like from the witness stand?”
said Miller.