This week, we’re replaying a classic episode where your hosts Steve Lowry and Yvonne Godfrey interview Andy Scherffius, Of Counsel Attorney for Conley Griggs Partin LLP and Jeff Harris of Harris Lowry Manton, LLP.

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Episode Details:

The case of Sasser vs. Ford Motor Company was tried to a successful jury verdict on March 4, 2004 in the Circuit Court of Fulton County, Georgia.

In this case, Kelsey Sasser, who, at the time of trial, was 9 years of age, was awarded an actual damage judgment against Ford Motor Company in the amount of $33,000,000.00, and, during the punitive damage phase of the case, was awarded punitive damages of almost $14,000,000.00. This case involved a 2000 Lincoln LS vehicle, which had a defective rear seat which collapsed during the impact of an accident subjecting Kelsey Sasser to a permanent injury to her thoracic spine, which resulted in paraplegia. Ford Motor Company, represented by Don Dawson, decided to take this case to trial. As a result, the jury, in this case, returned an actual damage award, which was the highest actual damage award, to-date, for an injury case in Georgia.

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Guest Bios:

Andy Scherffius

Andy Scherffius currently serves as Of Counsel Attorney for Conley Griggs Partin LLP. He enjoys a national reputation for his aviation accident practice. His representation on behalf of plaintiffs in these matters includes both commercial and private aircraft disasters. Mr. Scherffius has handled approximately fifty aviation cases in the past twenty years. Included among the many cases he has handled are the following:

• Valujet/Florida Everglades crash in which he represented numerous families of victims and served as a member of the plaintiffs steering committee which organized and directed the litigation on behalf of all plaintiffs.

Mr. Scherffius is a multi engine- and instrument-credentialed pilot with thousands of hours of flight time and the experience of owning, maintaining, and operating a variety of planes over the years. He is a member of the aviation practice group of the State Bar of Georgia, American Trial Lawyers Association and the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association and maintains an AV rating in Martindale-Hubbell.

In addition to his experience with the specialty field of aviation, Mr. Scherffius is uniformly known and respected by lawyers locally and nationally, as well as by the courts. He has been asked by a variety of courts to represent individuals and his profession in numerous capacities. He was nominated and elected to membership in the American College of Trial Lawyers over 10 years. He has been honored as the trial lawyer of the year by the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association. At present he is serving, at the invitation of the United States Supreme Court, as an attorney representative on the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In this capacity he has extensive contact with the federal district and appellate judiciary.

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Jeff Harris

One of the nation’s top trial attorneys, Jeff Harris is an award-winning litigator who handles high-profile, complex cases across a wide variety of practice areas. He excels at securing justice for clients who have been seriously injured or killed, holding responsible parties accountable for their actions as well as their negligence.

Over the course of his career, Jeff has secured hundreds of millions in jury verdicts and settlements for his clients and has helped make a variety of products, vehicles and industries safer for everyone. His cases have been featured in The New York Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, 20/20, CBS Evening News and many other national media outlets.

Jeff has obtained numerous record-setting verdicts and settlements on behalf of his clients and has been repeatedly included on the annual survey of top jury verdicts in the United States, compiled by the National Law Journal. He has been inducted to the Georgia Verdicts Hall of Fame and honored on the Georgia Super Lawyers Top 100 list, the National Trial Lawyers Top 100 list and the National Association of Distinguished Counsel’s Top One Percent list.

Jeff has earned a reputation as a strategic, aggressive litigator who takes on major corporations and wins cases on behalf of his clients. Jeff has successfully litigated cases involving product defects, business disputes, wrongful death, catastrophic injury, bad faith, aviation accidents, medical negligence and industrial accidents. His specialty is trying cases to a jury. He is routinely brought into complex cases at the request of other attorneys to handle the trial of those disputes.

Jeff excels at product liability cases and has successfully sued virtually all of the major automakers for manufacturing defective vehicles. He represented a client who was paralyzed due to an injury caused by her Ford Explorer, securing a $40 million jury verdict while demonstrating that the company knew for decades that its transmission suffered from a “false park” defect. He also secured a $47.7 million jury verdict in a case involving a 6-year-old girl who was paralyzed due to a defect in the design of the Lincoln LS sedan and obtained $16.52 million in damages against Michelin in a high-profile product liability and wrongful death case, demonstrating that tread separation on a defective tire caused his client’s death.

In addition, this talented litigator has had major wins in business tort cases. He took on the City of Atlanta and Clear Channel, winning a $17.5 million federal judgment arising from illegal bid awarding practices related to advertising contracts at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Jeff has also earned a reputation as a fierce litigator in wrongful death and catastrophic personal injury cases. In a highly publicized Narconon-related wrongful death case, he helped shut down dangerous drug treatment facilities and secured a confidential settlement on behalf of the family of a patient who died as a result of negligent drug rehab treatment. He also represented the family of a two-year-old who tragically drowned in an unsecured pool at an unlicensed daycare facility, securing a $9.85 million jury verdict, and secured an $8 million verdict for the victim in a sexual molestation case involving a youth minister.

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Free Resources:

Stages Of A Jury Trial - Part 1

Stages Of A Jury Trial - Part 2