A recent Law.com story by Katheryn Tucker, “Judge’s Question on $12M Legal Bill: ‘I Want to Hear Why This Is Something Legitimate’,” reports that a big fee was the sticking point during Zoom oral arguments before the Georgia Court of Appeals. The panel of three—Presiding Judge Sara Doyle, Chief Judge Chris McFadden and Judge Ken Hodges—is being asked to decide whether plaintiffs lawyers can tack on their 40% contingency fee award on top of a $33 million wrongful death verdict.
“I want to hear why this is something legitimate,” Doyle said to Mike Terry of Bondurant Mixson & Elmore, arguing for the plaintiff’s side to defend the verdict and attorney fee claim. Doyle said she understands that plaintiffs lawyers take on the risk of a case with no guarantee of being paid, and that’s “why they get more.” But why wouldn’t the fee come out of the $33 million judgment, she asked.
Terry said plaintiffs counsel is entitled to the added fee under Georgia law after making a $1 million offer of settlement, then far exceeding that sum at trial. So the plaintiffs counsel’s math subtracts that $1 million from the $33 million verdict, which makes $32 million, multiplies that by 40%, which is about $12 million, then adds the two together, making $45 million.
On the other side was Laurie Webb Daniel of Holland & Knight, representing the driver who turned left in front of a reportedly speeding motorcycle. Daniel was hired by the insurance company, State Farm, which now has $45 million on the line between the verdict and the added-on fee award. Daniel told the panel that the plaintiffs counsel had shown no documentation to justify the fee demand. Plus she said Terry’s argument had been “based on an erroneous order,” and that “improper material had been presented to the jury.” She said the judge allowed plaintiffs counsel to question the defendant about her prior driving record and past speeding, which had nothing to do with the case. “The law does not allow collateral impeachment,” Daniel said.
The case was tried in February 2019 before Spalding County State Court Judge Josh Thacker. The plaintiff is the wife of a man killed 15 years ago when a car turned left in front of his motorcycle. The jury awarded: $63,000 for medical and funeral expenses, $3.25 million for general estate damages, $4.1 million for wrongful death-loss of wages and $26 million for wrongful death-noneconomic value of the life of Daniel K. Mayfield Jr.
“This was a tragic case of a driver who turned left directly in front of a motorcyclist that she failed to see approaching,” Mayfield family attorney Ben Brodhead of Brodhead Law said after the verdict. “The case was complicated by three independent witnesses who claimed that the motorcyclist was traveling at approximately 80 mph to 100 mph as he approached the intersection.” But Brodhead said he was able to establish that “no one observed the motorcycle’s speed in the 10 seconds before the crash.”
The jury apportioned 3% of the fault to Mayfield and 97% to defendant Vickie Lynn Fain Kennison, the driver who turned left into the path of Mayfield’s motorcycle. Broadhead said he made requests for the $100,000 State Farm policy limit over the course of a decade of litigation. He said immediately after the trial that he would be asking for the added 40% fee award in addition to 97% of the verdict, plus interest and litigation expenses.