How We Won $7.5M in an Unwinnable Case, with Greg Unatin and Brendan Lupetin

An unwitnessed fall, a client with prior back problems, 10 years of unemployment, and over $5 million in disability benefits already paid – this case had every reason to fail. Yet trial partners Brendan Lupetin and Greg Unatin secured a record-setting $7.25 million verdict for the former chief of pain management at UPMC Hamot. In this case breakdown, Brendan and Greg reveal the strategies that shaped their victory: exposing UPMC's betrayal of their client through a series of emails, levering focus group insights to develop their winning liability theory, and highlighting their client’s loss of his passion in life: being a doctor.

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1. Their client fell on snow-covered ice while exiting a UPMC surgery center through a required after-hours door, suffering severe back and shoulder injuries that ended his career as chief of pain management at UPMC Hamot.
2. The team strategically navigated the issue of their client’s prior back problems by explaining to the jury that he’d recovered from a spine surgery; the issue at trial was his shoulder injury: “I think that that ultimately played just fine, and we really made it all about the shoulder,” Brendan says.
3. The attorneys dropped their theory about a code violation relating to a defective step after focus groups showed that jurors cared more about the snow and ice issue.
4. Their winning liability theory became simple: When UPMC directed staff to exit a specific door, they had a duty to ensure that door was safely maintained.
5. A trail of emails revealed UPMC's corporate betrayal: praising their client as their "golden boy" when he was profitable, then ghosting him after his injuries...