Law&Crime Sidebar - Top 5 Biggest Verdicts That Paid Out Millions in High-Profile Trials

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

From high-profile cases involving celebrities to families grieving the loss of a loved one, juries have handed down verdicts worth millions and even billions of dollars recently. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber sits down with attorney Dan Morgan of the Morgan & Morgan personal injury firm to discuss the five largest monetary awards.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/LCSidebarFOLLOW DAN MORGAN ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/danmorganesq/HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on A, two plaintiff, Robbie Parker. A, defamation slash slander damages past the future, $60 million. B, emotional distress damages, 60 million dollars. We, the jury, return the following verdict in regard to punitive damages. $15 million. What are the plaintiff's damages as a result of the breach of this provision? $55 million and $90,000. We have covered massive verdicts in the millions and even billions here on sidebar. Well, time to break down some of these recent cases. Who better to discuss that?

and Dan Morgan from Morgan and Morgan, the largest personal injury law firm in the country. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. All right, so before we get started, first, I know there's been a lot of comments about my voice. Yes, I'm overworked. I lost my voice.

What can I say? This is the best I can do right now. Bear with me. I'll recover. I'll be okay, but I appreciate the concern. I saw a lot of comments in our previous sidebar about it. Okay. So we have covered a number of,

of big verdicts here on Sidebar. And, you know, it's waiting to see if someone is guilty or not guilty. That's usually what we talk about. But do you know what we haven't talked about enough? The money, those major monetary verdicts or decisions or judgments. And really, I'm talking millions of dollars. I'm talking billions of dollars. So these are the five big money awards from recent cases.

And before we even get into any of that, I have a special guest to help me break this I am joined right now by Dan Morgan, an attorney from Morgan and Morgan, the largest personal injury law firm in America, and our proud sponsor here on Sidebar, Dan, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me today. Appreciate being here. You ready to jump right into it, the big cases? Oh, yeah. I'm ready to get into the high dollar verdicts and break them down with you.

Well, let's do it. So I can't talk about big money awards or big monetary verdicts without talking about Alex Jones. So Alex Jones, the InfoWorse founder and host, he had been sued by the families of those who lost loved ones in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, as well as a former FBI agent, all for comments that he made regarding that massacre, namely where he said it was staged and that it was fake and it was a hoax and the parents were crisis actors. And they sued him for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. And Alex Jones actually automatically lost all of those lawsuits because, he failed to abide by court-ordered discovery obligations. He didn't turn over materials to the other side. The court ended up entering into default judgments against him, so he automatically lost. Now, the two trials at issue, one in Connecticut and one in Texas,

they were all about how much money would he have to pay up in damages. How big of a penalty are we talking about here? And both of these trials, I will tell you, had some very memorable moments, like how in his Texas trial, He looked almost like a deer in headlights when he seemed to learn that his lawyers had inadvertently sent over to the plaintiff's side all of his text messages. One of the things that you were ordered to do in this lawsuit, you were ordered to turn over any text messages in McHendy Hook, right?

Yes. And you didn't have any, right? Not that we could find. And you, in fact, told me, in your testimony, sworn testimony before coming to this courtroom, you searched, right? I did. Okay. You've got it upside down.

That's text messages between you and Paul Watson, isn't it? Yes. And they mentioned Sandy Hook, don't they? Yep. I've never seen this text message. I guess you guys got Paul's. My phone didn't save them. So you did get my text messages.

And said you didn't. Nice trick. Yes, Mr. Jones. Indeed. You didn't give this text message, too. You don't know where this text messages. Do you know where I got this? No.

Mr. Jones, did you know that 12 days ago, 12 days ago, your attorney's messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cell phone with every text message you've sent for the past two years and when informed, did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protected in any way? And as of two days ago, it fell free and clear into my possession. And that is how I know you lied to me when you said you didn't have a text message about saying you okay. Did you know that? I, see, I told you the truth. This is your Perry Mason moment.

I gave them my phone. Mr. Jones, you need to answer the question. Did you know this happen? No, I don't know this happened. But, I mean, I told you, I gave him the phone over and just said, you said, in your deposition, you searched your phone. You said you pulled down the text, did the search function for Sandy Hook. That's what you said, Mr. Jones, correct? And I had several different phones with this number, but I did, yeah.

I mean, that's why he's got it. Or how in his Connecticut trial, when he got into this heated back and forth with the plaintiff's lawyer. That's Rodney Parker, Mr. Jones. That's the real Rodney Parker, isn't it? I mean, I said years ago, I thought San Diego. Robert Parker sitting right here. He's real, isn't he? Yes. You put a target on his back just like you did every single parent and loved one sitting here. No, I didn't. You have families in this courtroom here that lost children, sisters, wives, moms. This is a struggle session? Are we in China? I've already said I'm sorry hundreds of times and I'm done saying I'm sorry. But I legitimately thought it might have been staged and I stand by that and I don't apologize. I'm And don't apologize, Mr. Jones. Please don't apologize.

No, I've already apologized to the parents over and over again. I don't apologize to you. My overall favorite, though, was him being questioned by the judge in Texas about chewing gum? Spit your gum out, Mr. Jones. It's not gum. What is it? Because you're not allowed food or gum of any kind in the courtroom. I had my tooth pull a week and a half ago, and I had some laws in there earlier, and it's been causing me an absolute.

pain. So you're chewing on your gauze? Would you like to show you? No, I just want you to answer my question. No, I was massaging the whole of my mouth with my tongue. I'd say right here. I don't want to see the inside of your mouth. Oh no, there's no gum. What a series of trials to talk about, but in the end, the juries in both cases came back and Jones was ordered to pay almost $50 million to the plaintiffs in Texas, and almost $1 billion in Connecticut. Thus, the Connecticut judge ordered an additional $473 million in punitive damages. Now, Dan, let me talk to you about this because what are your thoughts on how the juries got to those numbers? Because it seemed to be just an outright rejection of all of Jones's arguments.

Yeah, I mean, I think when the jury came to this, it's really about the subject matter that you're dealing with. And really, they're putting themselves in that position of they went through that tragedy. bad of here that they were, you know, the things that were being alleged against these parents that lost their children, that they were crisis actors, and this wasn't real. Meanwhile, they're living through, and now they have to relive it and go through all these accusations. You just have an inflamed jury that is sending a message not only to Alex Jones, but to every other media outlet and any other person out there that's doing the clickbait are trying to get the reaction in the reviews. Hey, if you spew this type of stuff,

this or the type of backlash that's going to come along with it. So I think it was a a message to the community as a whole that we're going to put it into this type of journalism. And they rejected any idea like these claims were over exaggerated or that he never intended to cause harm. They didn't believe that at all. I wonder if Alex Jones getting on the stand, and I know he was called as a witness by the other side, but him getting on the stand didn't help him too much. I think, yeah, because that's when the jury has an opportunity to really see the character and, you know, his remorse or the way that he felt about it. And you play that side by side of the clips of him saying it and him really not owning up to it or really, you know, saying that it was he that he didn't know for sure that he was also led down that path.

So he was just repeating what he heard. And it was, yeah, it was an outright rejection by the jury. And then obviously the judge laid, laid the hammered down ultimately with the punitives and everything else. Yeah, I wanted your perspective on the biggest question, can he actually pay up, right? How is he going to be able to pay this? So we know that Jones and his company, free speech systems, they, filed for bankruptcy. And the bankruptcy court judge, excuse me, said that that wouldn't shield him from his obligations. He still had to pay. He has appealed both of the jury awards in both

Connecticut and Texas. And while that is going on, there has been a back and forth with the families because a bankruptcy court judge in Texas gave the families a choice. Either have Jones pay them $55 million over 10 years or liquidate his estate. And it's our understanding if he did sell everything, it would bring in no more than $10 million, but then you subtract the expenses, you subtract the attorney's fees, and that's like $3 to $4 million left. How is this going to shake up? Exactly. I mean, that's the main thing. When you hear about these types of verdicts that get laid out across the country, you know, is there a pocketbook behind it to really pay on it? You know, obviously if you're going against a big insurance agency or a hospital group or

pharmaceutical company, you know there's dollars behind that. But, when you're going against an individual, it's really, you know, you're playing, it's now a gamble. And like, you know, Alex Jones isn't on any Forbes list that I've seen lately. So you've got a billion dollar judgment against your name. Most likely you're headed right to that bankruptcy courts to start protecting yourself and your assets. So now it puts these plaintiffs in a tough position. Do we keep going down this battle, which obviously is going to keep ripping that Band-Aid open of the underlying issues that you're there for and now 10 years down, down the road? so now you're sometime in 2000 and then, you know, 35 still getting these checks that come in

or you say, hey, let's just liquidate him out, make sure that he's got everything, he's dried out, and you get that and move on. The problem is that Alex Jones is in kind of a nice position because he has an option to do that now and then he can go on and make money for the next 10 years and he did right back to where he is doing what he does, or the flip side is he can just kind of do this next, this long game for 10 years who not really report any income, give them checks and when he makes in, get his wages garnished. But after that 10 years, he's kind of another get out of Joe free card. So it's really is a catch-22 for these plaintiffs.

Yeah, it's a difficult decision. I wanted to ask you before we go on to our next case, a very high-profile case, before we get into that one, this was such a big award. And I wonder someone in your practice, I mean, you're part of the largest personal injury law firm in America. Did you look at this Jones Award? and you say, this changes the business now. This changes how we approach cases. This changes, you know, how maybe we, whether we go to trial or what juries or maybe

would come back with. I mean, how did this decision in the Jones case affect your practice? Yeah, I mean, I think for all kind of plaintiff attorneys that kind of deal in this way of these defamation type cases that are going against the character of people, I know there's, there's other famous ones, the Gawker one, for instance, with Hulk Hogan, where you kind of just can go in and level these companies. he's down for getting these stories or these privacy breaches out there. So there's definitely been more attention to the type of case

to when the phone are, the phones are ringing about them, that there's definitely a lot more attention being paid to them. And then just the fact that, yeah, that juries, if there's truly something that shocks the conscience or something out there that might not be a physical injury or you can point to and say on an MRI scan, that's what's hurt. That's what caused the pain.

But something more emotional, you know, there's some social media harm cases that we see now that are going on, these bullying cases that are going on with some pretty large verdicts that are coming from them. But I think it's that the society as a whole is going to start acknowledging that knows some real damage can be done from these types of cases. Yep. All right. Let's move on to the next one. And it kind of, it was a, you know, a Freudian slip. You heard me mention. Depp, that's what we're going to talk about. Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, big trial, 22, out in Virginia. And this was the case where the

Pirates of the Caribbean star sued his ex-wife Amber Hurd, the actress, for defamation. This after, she wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post, claiming that she was a domestic abuse survivor. And Depp argued that although he wasn't named in the article, the op-ed was clearly about him and what he allegedly did to her. Now, the first statement was the headline, which read, quote, Amber Hurd, I spoke up against sexual violence and faced our culture's wrath. That has to change.

Then within the op-ed, the second statement was, quote, Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture's wrath for women who speak out. The third statement, quote, I had the rare vantage point of seeing in real time how institutions protect men accused of abuse. And Depp argued that as a result of this op-ed, his reputation, his career was never the same because he was branded an abuser. And Hurd ended up countersuing Johnny Depp for statements made on what she argued was his best. half by his attorney, Adam Waldman, comments like that her claims were a hoax. And so you literally had this back and forth, this he said, she said in this defamation case. And I say literally because both Depp and Herd testified in this Virginia trial.

So for Depp, it was all about proving not only did he not abuse Amber Heard, but that he was the victim of abuse. Ms. Hurd made quite heinous and disturbing brought these disturbing criminal acts against me that were not based in any species of of truth. Have you ever sexually assaulted misheard? Never. Mr. Depp, could you please explain to the jury the circumstances that led to you having the bruise that's reflected in this photograph? There was another confrontation. She was coming out, you know, trying to, well, trying to get to me, trying to hit me, that Whitney stepped. in front of Amber and was facing Amber to stop Amber.

Amber snuck in the, she reached it, got the roundhouse in and. And one of the key pieces of evidence was a recording between the couple where heard seemingly admits to doing this. I didn't punch you, by the way. I'm sorry that I didn't hit you across the face in a proper slap, but I was hitting you. hitting you. It was not punching you. Babe, you're not punched. Don't tell me what it feels like to be punched. You know, even a lot of fights. You've been around a long time. I don't know. Yeah. No, when you...

You didn't get punched. You got hit. I'm sorry I hit you like this. But I did not punch you. I did not deck you. I was hitting you. I don't know what the motion of my actual hand was. But you're fine. I did not hurt you. I did not punch you. I was hitting you. How are you tough? How, what am I supposed to do? Do this? I'm not sitting here about it, am I?

You are. That's the difference between me and you. You're a baby. You are such a baby. Grow all the fuck up, Johnny. Because you start a physical fights? I did start a physical fight. Yeah, you did, so I had to get out of there.

Yes, you did. So you did the right thing, the big thing. You know what? You are admirable. Now, Herd defended herself, and she recounted what she allegedly experienced at the hands of Johnny Depp. Because he's guilty. guilty. He knows he's lying. Otherwise, why can't he look at me? I survived. I survived that man and I'm here and I'm able to look at him. Do you remember the first time that he physically hit you? Yes. I asked him about the tattoo he is on his arm. I didn't know what it said. It just looked like muddled, faded tattoo that was hard to read. And I said, what does it say? And he said it says, why no?

He says, why no? And I didn't see that. I thought he was joking because it didn't look like it said that at all. And I laughed. It was that simple. I just laughed because I thought he was joking. And slapped me across the face. He said, you think it's so funny.

You think it's funny. You think you're a funny bitch. And he slapped me again. I just stared at him because I didn't know what else to do. and he slapsed me one more time, hard. God, did he just hit me? No, I knew it was wrong, and I knew that I had to leave him. And that's what broke my heart, because I didn't want to leave him.

I thought if I got up out of that room, and I'd leave the best thing ever happened to me. And a crucial piece of evidence for her was a secret recording of Johnny Depp in the morning, trashing the kitchen. Nothing happened to you this morning. Yeah, you're right. I just woke up and you were so sweet and nice. We were not even fighting this morning.

All I did was say sorry. Did something happen to you this morning? I don't think so. No, that's the thing. You want to see Craves, don't give you a . There's crazy. All your crazy. Are you crazy?

Have you drunk this whole thing this morning? Oh, you got this going? No, I just started it. Oh, really? Yes. Really? See, that... No, didn't it?

You were smashing... You were violin in that clip, correct? Um... Clearly, I was having a bad time. Well, after almost 13, hours of deliberations and after a six-week-long trial, the jury came back with their verdict. Mr. Depp's claim against Ms. Heard. One, quote, I spoke up against sexual violence and faced our culture's wrath.

That has to change. End quote. Do you find that Mr. Depp has proven all the elements of defamation? Answer, yes. Two, quote, then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture's wrath for women who speak out, end quote. Do you find that Mr. Depp has proven all the elements of defamation? Answer, yes.

Three, quote, I had the rare vantage point of seeing in real time how institutions protect men accused of abuse, end quote. Do you find that Mr. Depp has proven all the elements of defamation? Answer, yes. As against Amber Heard, we the jury award compensatory damages in the amount of $10 million. As against Amber Heard, we the jury award punitive damages in the amount of $5 million. As against John C. Depp II, we the jury award compensatory damages in the amount of $2 million. as against John C. Depp the second, we the jury award punitive damages in the amount of zero dollars. So the jury believed each one of those statements in the Washington Post op-ed

piece that they were defamatory against Johnny Depp, and they awarded him $15 million. As for Amber Heard, they believed that she was defamed by one statement made by Adam Waldman, calling her claims a hoax, and awarded her $2 million. And in the end, Depp settled with Amber Heard, for just one million dollars and back to you i mean for me i was covering this case in virginia i was waiting to hear this i was very surprised that the jury came back and found no instances of abuse whatsoever on the part of uh johnny dapp you know they basically said that she defamed him completely what did you make of this verdict well you know it goes back to what you're calling the beginning it really is just that he said she said it these come down

to who does a jury believe more and to make things more complicated. You have two actors in a courtroom that are going toe to toe. So it's really who do you believe out of these two people? And the jury clearly believed Johnny more than they believed Amber. I was a little bit kind of shocked that it played out the way it did because they did award both people money as well, saying, hey, you know, you did wrong as well. But labeling him that as his career, I saw there was more damage done to his career for the things that were said than were done to her. But no, it definitely was one to watch play out. I feel like every day there was something crazy or dramatic that was coming out of that courtroom.

And what about the number, the $15 million that was awarded by the jury for Johnny Depp? And then, you know, I got to say, Amber Hurts, she countersued him for $100 million. She didn't even get close to that. When you look at the numbers, what does that tell you? Well, I mean, again, I think it goes to what did Johnny lose from these claims? So if they were able to prove, hey, he lost these two movies, he lost this movie deal, what's that worth, and they have a tangible number that the jury can then assign to it, opposed to what did she lose or what did she have to lose from?

And I think that this all playing out, the jury just saw that, you know, I believe he probably asked for a lot more money than he gave as well. So these numbers both got brought down to reality, so to speak. But it definitely shows that the jury saw that a real loss was taken from Johnny, something was taken from Amber, and that all that to say that she was able to settle out for a million so it could have been resolved a lot more quickly it seems like but this is the part this is the part i'll end it on i mean i was one of the people wondering why is johnny debt taking this to trial he wants his dirty laundry aired for the world to see and in the end it seemed like the best decision

because he his whole reputation was revived he put her on the hot seat and everybody started siding with him and saying maybe these claims weren't real so it wasn't even about the money It was more the idea of letting the world see what happened between them. And, you know, I didn't see that at the beginning of the trial. I thought it was a bad decision for him to sue her in a public courtroom and have cameras there. But in the end, it seemed like the right thing. Oh, absolutely. Because imagine if he did the opposite, if he settled with her for a million dollars, three years prior,

Johnny Depp settles the lawsuit. Now everyone, the whole public is saying, oh, see, he did do it. It was all true. So I think that was his real strategy. You know, the money was probably secondary to him, especially seeing in the courtroom, how much he was spending on bottles of wine and vacations and things of that nature. This $15 million is probably just getting him back to even a little bit on that stuff. But no, I think it was a part to say, hey, you're not going to say this.

You're not going to sling mud. You're not going to say it's not me, but, you know, infer it is me. And in the court of public opinion, I'm going to come in and clear my name. So I think that was his main mission. So I guess he was successful in that. And then the $15 million was an ad of bonus that he settled out for a million with her name on that check. was probably vindication for him. And by the way, he used that million dollars to pay charities,

not even like he took it to buy himself something. So it was interesting. All right, I hope you're enjoying my conversation so far with Dan Morgan. I know I am, but let me tell you a little bit more about his law firm. Morgan and Morgan, one of our great sponsors here on Sidebar. Look, aside from the fact that Morgan and Morgan is the largest injury law firm in America, what makes them so unique is how easy they make it for their clients. They have completely modernized the process from submitting your claim.

to signing contracts, to uploading documents, to talking to your whole legal team. I mean, Morgan and Morgan has over 4,000 support staff. This can all be done right on your smartphone. That's it. You can find out if you have a case in just minutes. If you're injured, it is so important to protect your rights and see if you should be compensated. And Morgan and Morgan is all about fighting for the money you deserve. They don't settle for lowball insurance offers.

They can go to court. Recently, they saw verdicts of $6.8 million in New York. $12 million in Florida and $26 million in Philadelphia. Now, mind you, these are considerably higher than the highest insurance offers for these accidents. Fighting big companies takes a big law firm after all. And get this, the fee, absolutely free unless you win. So to start your claim now with Morgan and Morgan, go to for the people.com slash LC sidebar or click the link in the description and pinned in the comments.

All right, now let's move on to another big trial. this was a celebrity trial from last year, rapper and singer Flo Rida, whose real name is Tremar Dillard, he sued Celsius Holdings, Inc, the company that makes Celsius energy drinks. You might be familiar with them. And he argued that the company violated the terms of an endorsement deal that they had with him. He was a brand ambassador from 2014 to 2018, which, according to the rapper, provided tremendous growth for Celsius, increased sales, stock value, brand recognition.

The idea here was that back in 2014, the stock for the company was less than a dollar, and then at the time of the trial, it's over $100. And Flowrider says this is because of him. And Flowrider claimed that he was never paid the required bonus compensation in the forms of stock and royalties that would have been worth millions of dollars. More specifically, the Rappert entered into a contract with Celsius in 2014, and that agreement was that they would work on a co-branded powder product that's poured into the drinks, and that he would also just generally promote Celsius's brand and products.

And there were two bonus compensation provisions. First, if Celsius hit a million dollars in gross cumulative co-branded revenues in a 12-month period, he would get 250,000 shares of Celsius stock. Second, if the company sold 690,000 units of that co-branded powder product, Flowrida would receive an additional 500,000 shares. The 2014 contract ended in 2016, but Celts, Celsius and Flowrider signed another two-year contract, and that contract said that he would receive royalties on another drink called Flo's flavor.

When Flowrider asked for the 750,000 shares in 2021, Celsius said no. So in other words, there were questions about whether those benchmarks, those milestones were ever hit. And also, how do you interpret the language of the contract? For example, Flowrider argued that co-branded revenues could mean, all Celsius products, not just the powder, and that the $1 million milestone was hit. And even if you say, well, it doesn't mean all the products. One million dollar milestone was hit in 2018, and Flowrider was entitled to the shares

because the 2016 agreement was an extension of the 2014 agreement. That was his argument. Now, he also argued that one stick of the powder product was considered a unit for the 690,000 units benchmark. Here's just a sample of some of that argument during the 2023 trial. He was always thinking long-term. What is this stop going to be worth? When I get involved with this big brand,

co-branding, giving part of his brand to this company with this largely unknown brand. As a bonus competition, once the company achieves $1 million in gross, cumulative co-branded revenue in any 12-month period during the terms. Okay, so each of these are going to prove important, all the different clauses, each of them are going to prove important. But that's the first one. The second one is 500,000 shares upon the sale of 690,000 units of co-branded product.

This vision, what he can do with his brand with this product. he loves and he starts to take his contract signed and he starts to exit it's not just that he's putting it in music videos and then before he already had his world record but then right right within the year of signing the contract that my house video comes out and Celsius drinks are all in that video that video that video hundreds of millions of views just on the official YouTube I mean billions of times it's been listened to. It's incalculable the value of what that was worth.

At his concerts, everyone on stage wearing Celsius things. In his riders, the product's got to be there at the conference. For him to drink, he's seen drinking, everything. People thinking, on the Today Show, on Good Morning America, on and on. The product from this little company down the road is now being seen everywhere. When you think about flowrida, little boy, obsessed with music, Gai Kid, grew up to be this international icon as this brand. What did they take him for? What did they get?

Because defense in this case really is, we would have never been. is we would have never given him 750,000 chairs of stock that would one day be worth $100. We would have never done that. So you have to know what they were getting. What did they pay? What did they pay me? Now, Celsius defended themselves. They said the company's rise to success was not because of flowrida, but other factors,

like a major distribution deal with air. Anheiser Bush. They also claim that they never reached those milestones in terms of certain amount of products sold, as Flowrider had said, and that Flowrider was wrong in his calculation, namely that a stick of the powder is not a unit, but rather a box of the powder sticks is a unit. They also said that Flowrider was incorrect in his assessment that the 2014 agreement extended those benchmarks through 2018. In fact, Celsius argued that Flo Rida is only suing now because he realized he messed up that he sold his stock too early and saw how well the company was doing.

Here's a sample of the defense. And even with Flood's representative, if they knew, we were constantly telling them this is not doing well. And you're going to see that throughout this trial. You'll see some communications. You have your testimony about the back and forth. They were constant communication. So this 2014 agreement ends, and these bonus and incentive goals are not reached. And I want to stop here for a moment to tell you that you're going to hear testimony from their own forensic expert, their own forensic account, who is going to admit to you that that $1 million co-branded revenue benchmark, that gold, was not met before March 6, 2016, when this contract expired.

And you're going to hear testimony that if you're looking at a unit at the 40-count boxes, that's not, Celsius sold, that 690,000 unit insensible was not met before this contract expired. In fact, you're getting her testimony from their own, that that 690,000 unit goal, if you're looking at boxes, wasn't even met until 2019. And during this trial, Flo Rida took the stand and talked about his impact on the brand. So what specific marketing is reflected on the third? page of the 6th7.2.5. It's depicted as me at NASCAR with Blake Cook, me and G&C. Yes. What do you recall about Pandora ads relating to both Celsius ready to drink, Celsius generally, and Flood Fusion?

Oh yeah, I recall doing overall. I recall doing, you know, ads for Celsius in promoting the product, you know. The fact that, you know, my music is played all over Pandora. It made it very easy for me to, you know, use my likeness to promote Celsius. What did you do in terms of performing and continuing to promote Celsius while the extension was being negotiated? While the extension was being negotiated, you know, I took this product with me, you know, to Asia, took this product with me to Dubai, all of my shows, you know, all of my performance. is I continue to keep it there. This is a billboard that represents the Celsius heat product.

And in my career, you know, everyone agreed that I was a proven artist and that, you know, at this point, you know, I was proven that anything I touched would basically be successful. What happened to your music integrations in your videos that you put in, and my house and Ola and Greenlight? What happened to those integrations now? What's the current state of them? Oh, you can go on social media, go to the Internet,

and you'll see, you know, these products still exist in my videos and they're playing continues. I mean, they're going to be playing forever. Are you aware of a lasting impact for Celsius as Flos Drink? Most definitely, as well as, you know, there's other big names such as Doja Cat, who calls Celsius Flores Drink. You know, they depicted as Flows Drink.

In particular. Has your influences on the Celsius brand been recognized by Celsius board members publicly? Yes. Do you know a shark by the name of Kevin Harrington? Yeah, Kevin Harrington. He actually is one of the guys who talked heavily about me coming in and using my likeness to help Celsius. Now, in the end, the jury sided with. with Flo Rida and awarded him $82 million.

Let me break that down for you. So the jury found that Celsius breached the original 2014 agreement because Flo Rida established that Celsius achieved the $1 million in gross co-branded revenue. Celsius failed to prove that this claim was time borrowed or that Flowrider waived his right to compensation and that Flowrider proved that Celsius fraudulently concealed information related to this breach of contract, and they awarded the rapper $27 million on that point. Then they awarded him $55 million because they found that Celsius breached the 2014 agreement again with respect to the 690,000 units of co-branded product that were sold.

That was a big point. A big point there was that the jury agreed that this should be counted as individual units and not bulk units, as Celsius had argued. And the jury also found that Celsius breached the subsequent 2016 agreement and didn't pay him the required royalties. And then they awarded him a little over $5,000. Big award there, Dan. What's your reaction to that one? I mean, this is just your classic contract case.

You know, they have one side saying this is what it means and Flo Rider on the other hand saying, no, no, no, I was there when this was done. This is exactly what it means. and then obviously you're going to take that to a jury when the discrepancy is that big and the jury luckily for flowrider found in his favor but I think this is just one of those law school questions or bar exam questions that we've seen as lawyers coming up but it's a classic what was offered what was the agreement about what was it agreed to was it met okay well it's time to pay up by the way I thought him on the stand helped the time I thought he was phenomenal along the stand you did you do you feel the same way i thought the way he was very calm and like relatable

nice like he was i thought he was a fantastic witness oh exactly he was able to break down exactly and put them in and his point in view of what was what was agreed upon what what was spoken to the things he did to incorporate the product into his everyday life on his social media as music videos you know he's saying i'm not just doing this you know out of the goodness of my heart because i love the product these were because i was trying to meet these obligations that And my contract, I did all this work to help grow the brand. I met the contract, went from, I think it was something, you know, like a dollar stock and he got involved to over $100 by the time the award was met.

So, hey, I had 100 extra product. Where's my reward for? And they were saying, that's not what we meant. You know, that's not what we meant. His contract was over eight years ago. I mean, it was a categorical win for him and his team in terms of, like, how the jury interpreted the language of the contract, the extension, not turning over information. You talked about how this is kind of like a standard contract claim that they won.

I also think it helped that they were still benefiting from his role with the company. You know, they were still benefiting from the powder product. They were still benefiting, I believe, from his endorsement. That's at least what I took for that. They said basically because he put those products in his videos and he had talked about them. That's on YouTube. That's on social media. People are continuing to watch that.

Yeah, like I said at the time of the trials, like 100, a million views on the My House video. He's, you know, popping Celsius and drinking it throughout. You can't go back now and scrub those out or green screen them out and re-ed them and put them out. The damage has done so those live on forever. And yeah, so the benefits of what he's done for the company and the brand association, it's there.

And it also seemed to help prove what he was saying on the stand that he is his legitimacy as a proven artist who can help a company. The reason I say that is because David Gold, who is the co-for, founder of D3M, that's Flowrider's licensing group, they said that after this massive verdict, they're pursuing other sponsorship and brand ambassador deals and flowrider launched his own energy drink brand called Jet Set 1. So similar as we were talking about with the debt case, it seemed that the win here was not just the verdict of 82 million, but what it meant for him in terms of getting other deals and starting other businesses. Oh, absolutely. I've

seen his the energy drink on his social media that he's pumping out now obviously he got a brand of buyers to get behind the celsius so just let's move those over to my brand now but he's killing and i saw you know this pat you know he was doing suits he was in the super bowl weekend performances out there with gruncowski and he's back on tour and his name's back in headline so he's definitely uh is making money on more ways than just the verdict man i i said it with the gwyneth paltrow ski case i mean she she was countersuing for one dollar in that one And the fact that she wanted, she proved her claims that she was right about what happened in that crash. That's a separate case.

But again, so celebrities, sometimes it's not even about the money. It's about the message that's coming out there, the PR message, reestablishing their name and legitimacy. Okay, as Dan Morgan and I continue talking about these massive monetary verdicts and decisions in recent cases, let's move on to a really, really difficult case, Maya Kowalski. So in 2015, Maya was just nine years old when her health deteriorated significantly. I mean, she was diagnosed with CRPS, complex regional pain syndrome. This is a neurological condition where a person's body can misinterpret even light touches as excruciating pain and it can cause stiffness, spasms, limited mobility. And the family's eventual lawsuit, which we're going to talk about, they use words like

burning, bone crushing, shooting, stabbing to describe this painful sensation. It's horrible to think about, especially for such a young girl. And the family's doctor had actually treated Maya with ketamine, which it's our understanding, can block someone's pain receptors and can try to normalize the body in a way. Now, it's not a miracle cure. There can still be flare-ups. And according to the Kowalskies, that's what happened in 2016. Maya had a flare-up and it was so bad that Jack and Biata, her parents, checked their daughter into Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital. Beata had told the hospital to treat Maya with ketamine

because it had worked for her in the past, but according to their lawsuit, the hospital staff refused to follow the family's instructions or even the guidance of the family's medical specialists. The family says that the hospital staff lacked experience with CRPS and even seemed to suggest that they weren't telling the truth, that Maya might have been making this up. The family claims that the hospital staff were suspicious of Maya's family because the ketamine treatment seems so extreme.

In fact, the family argued that the hospital suspected Maya might be a victim of child abuse and that this was a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, basically saying that Vyatta was suffering from a condition in which she was faking or causing her daughter's illness. That's what they said the hospital believed. And the family alleged that a hospital social worker contacted the family department of children and families to report. Corpiaata and refused to let Maya leave the hospital. In fact, Maya was taken into state custody and had to remain in the hospital. She didn't see her family for three months. Meyer herself told People magazine that she was, quote, medically kidnapped.

And she claims that the hospital not only ignored her wishes and misdiagnosed her, but mistreated her, harmed her. In fact, there was an allegation that an employee may have inappropriately examined Maya too. And this separation took a massive toll on Maya's family, including resulting in Biyadh's depression, fatigue, overwhelming sense of hopelessness. And sadly, in January of 2017, Beata died by suicide. This was all documented in the Netflix series, Take Care of Maya. Now, the Kowalskies sued the hospital for medical malpractice claiming medical negligence, false imprisonment, battery of Maya, as well as intentional infliction of emotional distress. They also argued fraudulent billing of Jack Gawalski, inflection of emotional distress on Biaata and a wrongful death claim. And the main question

was to see if the hospital engaged in wrongdoing, whether their actions contributed to Biata's suicide. Could this have been prevented? The defense, the hospital said, in light of all the circumstances, they acted reasonably. Now, during the trial, Maya testified about what she endured at the hospital in terms of pain and isolation. The nurses and doctors wanted to put a tube down my nose. And was here a PS, I mean, a blood pressure cuff, that hurts. Obviously, that would have caused so much pain. And I knew my body.

I knew I was not going to be able to tolerate that. That is the only time I asked for sedation. I didn't just randomly yell out. I need sedation, like depicted in the medical records. And then, were you given sedation before they tried to put this tube down your nose? I was not, and my mom was actually in the room, and she listened to the doctors and didn't demand for sedation. Instead, about, like, I would say, two or three people held me down and tried to get the tube down my nose. That is when I was screaming, crying, and thrashing around.

So her mom was there with Natalie, the friend that I had made, and I was wheeled over there, and I talked to them. Another nurse observed this interaction and quickly told somebody. Next thing I know, Kathy Beatty is in my room saying I'm not to ever speak to a patient again. And that day, Natalie had given me this little present because her mom noticed my parents were never with me. I think they just wanted to comfort me, and I have it in my bag today. Did they ever give you any reason why you, as a 10-year-old, couldn't just talk to the kid next door, for lack of a better term? I have no reason.

I mean, they didn't give me any reason. During this period of time, do you recall an instance where your mom was trying to get in touch with you, and the nurse said something different than just simply putting it through to you? So I remember that my mom was on this phone call, and the person who she was speaking to, a person at the hospital, I'm not sure what role they had, but they claimed that I never asked to speak to my mom. I was doing fine. I was okay in my room. I hadn't had any questions about why my parents weren't allowed to see me. and that

infuriated me so much because all I did for days on end was demand to speak to my parents that's all I wanted to do and I most certainly wasn't just sitting in my room I was crying and she also explained about the last time

she saw her mom my mom was like picking up her work bag and just like little things she had brought to the hospital and she said I love you and I'll see you tomorrow and I never saw her again. I bought my mom this very specific necklace.

It says, I love you, to the moon and back. It's just like she always said that to me. And then I found out later that she wore it every single day. And when she was found in the garage, she was still wearing it. And I have it on my neck right now. And in the end, after deliberating for over 16 hours, The jury came back with a monumental verdict. Claim one, false imprisonment, October 7th through October 15th, 2016,

Maya Kowalski. One, did Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital falsely imprisoning Maya Kowalski without legal authority under circumstances that were unreasonable and unwarranted between October 7th and October 13th, 2016? Yes. The jury found the hospital liable on all counts and awarded the Kowalski's $260 million in damages and that included $50 million in punitive damages.

Now, a judge ultimately reduced that amount saying that some of those damages were excessive so he reduced the award to still $213.5 million, still massive. The judge ended up denying the hospital's motion for a new trial arguing jury misconduct. But Dan, let's talk about this. What do you think of that number? And what do you think the tipping point was here in this case?

Well, I think when you think of the number, you got to think of all the claims that went into this. It's Mayas, it's the dads, it's the moms. And each of those claims now, they all have their own individual claims. So there's the emotional infliction of intentional distress, the pain and suffering, the mental language, each one of these is a separate category. So I think the number got so high because of the jury. had to consider each and every one of those categories. So when you keep dividing those up by

the claims, it actually doesn't shock the Congress as much as you just seen that number. And it does. And again, I think it goes back to what we talked about earlier in the show, that this is them sending a message to all other hospitals. Stop this now. Because unfortunately, we're seeing tons of these cases that are hopping up now of doctors saying, hey, there's abuse going on and getting the DCF involved and ripping kids away from families when it's really. overzealous doctors that should be making those calls right now. So in other words, the hospitals, there should be a wake-up call. You might want to listen to the families.

You might want to listen to their family physicians because that's what this case centered down to. They didn't believe what the Kowalski's were saying or they ignored it. Oh, exactly. And the pain, I mean, we heard in some of those clips, and also if you follow this trial and seen the documentary what Maya was experiencing and, you know, the tubes and just the cuffs on the arms, those aren't just normal and sensations.

Those are debilitating pain. So the jury has to take into consideration. You know, the doctors ignoring her pain complaints and inflicting this type of pain and torture on a girl that's there for medical treatment. Yeah, it's pretty shocking stuff. But a verdict that I think will be a wake-up call to the rest of the medical community. And they found that her mother's suicide was the hospital's fault. I mean, that was incredible to hear that.

I mean, and again, the judge in this case said, you know, even though it's a large damages award, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's excessive. So, again, just a pretty incredible case that, you know, would extend it to not only what happened to Maya, but her mother as well. I'll give you the final word on that. Yeah, I mean, I think it sends back, you know, you have to, but for this happening, what does that life look like for, for beta, for Maya, for everybody involved, the Christmases that have been taken away. all the family gatherings and future endeavors are gone because this family on one particular day her daughter is having an episode and chose this hospital

and now everything's been undone. No amount of money in the world is going to undo the damage that was done. You know, when you see these verdicts, it's really not, hey, now they have this money, everything is good and better. It's like, no, this is just to signify that a wrong was done and trying to fill that bug as much as we can as a society. Yeah. All right, let's close this out with a slightly different

verdict situation. I wanted your opinion on it. And it concerns the case of Alec Murdoch. He disgraced former South Carolina lawyer who went on trial last year for the murders of his wife, Maggie, and son Paul, who were found shot to death on their family property. Now, he was ultimately convicted by a jury of his peers, particularly after the prosecution, presented a smoking gun, namely a video from Paul's phone recorded just minutes before prosecutors say the murders happened, where you can hear Murdoch's voice, thereby placing about the crime scene, despite his earlier admissions that he wasn't there, and he was sentenced to life in prison.

Now, the prosecution put forward the motive that he murdered his family to take attention away from the fact that he was stealing from his clients and law firm, stealing millions of dollars, particularly stealing legal settlements from badly injured clients, families of those who lost loved ones,

families of those who died. And these are people who suffered and he took their money. Now, Murdoch, he actually, ended up pleading guilty to all of these financial crimes. In November of last year, 22 counts, including money laundering and financial fraud he pled guilty to. And this resolved over 100 state charges that he was facing. In exchange, he was sentenced to 27 years in prison. Here's Judge Clifton Newman, who presided over the murder and financial cases, talking a little

more about it. I have lived with this case now for over two years and I have 34 days left before active retirement and after imposing this sentence your life will continue I will turn the page and leave you behind. You're quite an enigma, a person that many of us thought we knew. And as I stated earlier, I can only recall you as being a fun, loving, happy person. I've never seen you say it. I've never seen you being anything other than a friendly, caring person. And it's so disappointing to see you again in this setting.

It's just unimaginable to me that you have done some of the things that you've done. I don't know. I don't even know who I'm speaking to now. What type of character do you have a person who would pray upon folks who are, vulnerable and who are of a lower perceived estate than you and you'll have to suffer the consequences of your acts continue to suffer the consequences an enigma indeed right well let's talk about the money okay so it was argued that Murdoch stole over 10 million dollars but he spent a lot of it and through the courts through the sale of Murdox real

estate properties and personal property and liquidation of his 401k, over $2.1 million was able to be pieced together, but then you subtract the legal fees and the cost, and there's only about $1.7 million that was left over for his creditors, lawyers, colleagues, victims, and talk about the victims. Some will be paid, others won't from this amount. I mean, the special referee in this case determined who should be paid based on factors like actual harm or actual loss. So, for example, Renee Beach, as the representative of the estate of Mallory Beach, who died in a boat crash allegedly caused by Paul Murdoch before his death, 29% of the $1.7 million will go to her. Financial victim and former Murdoch client, Arthur Badger, 24%. Murdoch's law partner,

Johnny Parker, gets 15%. And speaking of which, Murdoch's former law firm agreed that any money that it got would go to his former clients and victims. But like I said, some people didn't get a share of this because they already, you know, received money through prior settlements like $7 million. There was a prior settlement that included Tony Satterfield, whose mom died in a slip and fall at Murdoch's house, and then Murdoch stole the settlement money from the insurance company. What a sorted case. But Dan, talk to us about the difficulty in finding money to pay off victims in these types of cases. I mean, this is because when you're dealing with the pathological liar like you're in this case you never know where all the money is at too so you

don't even when you when you hear this is here's all the accounts here's all the real estate you still never know okay is that really it is that really all all there is but once you do have that pot and you do know all right this is at least what we're able to establish when we have and that pot is then uneven or you're not able to distribute it unfortunately does then go to a judge who has to play umpire and call the balls and strikes of who gets what um it's a motion of equitable distribution, they call it. You know, we see it all the times. And, you know, in car crash cases, if someone was, you know, underinsured and they only

have a certain amount of coverage and there's four people or five people in a car, the judges in those situations then have to decide who gets what. It's always a tough situation to be in with your clients and whoever else. But unfortunately, sometimes the damage is there's not enough money available to the plaintiffs to recoup it. So, Dan, look, after going through all of these cases, I mean, from your perspective, your firm has gotten massive verdicts and settlements. We talk about it a lot here on the program. What are the main takeaways from these cases?

I mean, the main takeaways, if, you know, if you're getting, you know, one of these so long code, you know, nuclear type of verdicts, usually the behavior or the actions by the defense on the other side is something that shocks the conscience. So in this case, when you have, you know, doctors, so, you know, medically kidnapping children or conspiracy theorists saying that, no, these actions didn't happen, that these deaths didn't happen, that your conspiracy actors and so on and so forth, that there is going to be punishments that there is a, that in America, there is a civil justice system that holds these people accountable, that you can't say and do whatever you feel with no, no repercussions, although people still tend to think that's, how it plays out and then they get in these situations like Amber Hurd does where all of a sudden you're in a courtroom in Virginia and you're thinking, well, that didn't go as planned. So I think that's the main takeaway that there has to be something behind the actions toward it. And two, you have to have a litigator or attorney that's able to speak for you, be a witness, that's able to speak for yourself like we saw on Flowrider that can get on the stand and

really articulate what happened, what was done wrong. And then a lawyer, like in the my case, I can get up there and put all of these. damages that hey these are separate categories that pain and suffering is not the same as mental anguish that pain and suffering uh is the is the actual pain how how you feel in the mental anguish is what that pain did to your mental state and that those damages are separate and apart uh really stack up those those those damages but i think um that we've not that we never really see these big verdicts and then find out the root cause and go that's it um there always is some substance behind it yeah you talked about need

a good lawyer. Dan, do you know a good lawyer, good law firm that people can check out? I wonder. I know about 1,000 of them that work at a small boutique firm called Morgan and Morgan. We're all 50 states conveniently, so we've got to cover. Dan Morgan from Morgan and Morgan, such a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me today. All right, everybody, that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus.

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