“I thought that was insulting,” Todd Hollis says of a defense offer of $500,000. His client agreed, and Todd went “guns banging” to trial. The case involved a woman who was killed when the driver of a rental car, who had a suspended license, hit her head-on. In this breakdown with host Brendan Lupetin, Todd describes how the rental car company acknowledged that 15% of their 525,000 annual rentals potentially go to drivers without valid licenses. When the defense argued that the legislature doesn’t require electronic background scans, Todd argued that the legislature does say that a rental car company can’t rent to anyone who they know is incompetent to drive. Tune in to hear how the jury responded with “millions” in punitive damages.

☑️ Todd Hollis | LinkedIn

☑️ Todd J. Hollis Law on Facebook | YouTube

☑️ Brendan Lupetin | LinkedIn

☑️ Lupetin & Unatin, LLC

☑️ Connect: Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube

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1. Todd Hollis describes “jumping” from criminal defense after a painful moment waiting for a client to pay him $200 that he would use to buy Christmas gifts for his son. After a humbling experience selling hotdogs for a year, and after his daughter was born, he switched to the plaintiff side.
2. In the Everson case, Todd sued a rental car company after it rented a car to a driver with a suspended license. That driver killed a woman after he crossed into the opposite lane and struck her vehicle head-on.
3. The rental car company charged drivers under 25 an additional $25 per day because they're "higher risk" but did nothing to ensure these drivers were actually licensed or safe to drive.
4. Todd’s theme in the case was community safety: How many rental cars on the road have been rented to a driver who is not legally safe or competent?

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.

☑️ Greg Unatin | LinkedIn

☑️ Brendan Lupetin | LinkedIn

☑️ Lupetin & Unatin, LLC

☑️ Connect: Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube

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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...