Eleven Story Fall on the Job: A Miracle of Survival and A Big Legal Win with attorney Loren Schwartz, JD

In this episode of The Legal MD Podcast, Dr. David Grundy and Sydney Delaney delve into a harrowing case of major trauma, miraculous survival and physical and financial recovery with esteemed guest attorney, Mr. Loren Schwartz. Mr. Schwartz is an exceptional personal injury attorney who was involved in the case of Pedro Perez et. al. vs Hearst Communications, Inc. at al. Mr. Perez was employed in 2014 as a window cleaner when he fell eleven stories onto a car below in San Francisco, CA, sustaining many life-threatening injuries. Mr. Perez miraculously survived, but overcoming his medical issues was only the beginning of the battle. Mr. Schwartz tells us about the legal complexities that followed and the clever strategy he used to reach a satisfactory settlement in this case.

Mr. Loren Schwartz is an attorney at Dunn & Panagotacos, based in San Francisco, CA. As he mentioned in this episode, he can be contacted by emailing him at lschwartz@dpllp.com or by calling him on his cell (415) 408-8383. As always, if you would like to contact Dr. Grundy, he can be found by emailing david@grundymdconsulting.com or on our website at www.grundymdconsulting.com.

Press coverage of event: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2884407/Man-fell-SF-building-leave-hospital.html

The "Splat Calculator" mentioned in today's episode: https://www.angio.net/personal/climb/speed.html

The two legal theories mentioned in the case are the "Doctrine of Non-delegable Duties" and "Retained Control Theory." A biomechanics / biophysics expert was also employed in the case and this consultation was found to contribute to case resolution and case settlement value. 

Note: This podcast episode is not intended to provide legal  or medical advice but rather to inform and educate listeners about major trauma cases while on the job and the legal considerations surrounding them. Consult a qualified attorney for personalized legal advice.

Transcript

: 0:01

Welcome to the Legal MD Podcast. Your hosts, sydney Delaney and Dr David Grundy, a renowned medical legal consultant with years of experience in clinical practice and forensic medicine, bring you insightful discussions and analysis on the intersection of medicine and law. Together, we explore complex issues that arise in cases of medical malpractice, wrongful death and personal injury. Our guests include top attorneys, medical professionals and industry leaders, who will share their expertise and insights. Join us while we examine captivating case stories that have had profound impacts on suit resolution. Hit that subscribe button now and never miss an episode.

Dr. David Grundy: 0:54

This is Dr Grundy with, as usual, my colleague, Sydney Delaney, and this is Episode 6 of the Legal MD. Today we've got a special guest, Lauren Schwartz, who is an attorney in San Francisco. Great to talk to you, Lauren.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 1:11

Likewise, how's everything going?

Dr. David Grundy: 1:13

Can't complain. We are just coming off some night shifts, so you know it's like having the flu or something, being jet lagged but you know we're pulling through it, so thanks.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 1:25

Yeah, there you go. Well, it's Friday for me. I don't know about you guys.

Dr. David Grundy: 1:28

Yeah, actually it's like a Super Friday. We've got like three or four days off, so it's going to be fantastic Right on.

Ms. Sydney Delaney: 1:35

Loren is a partner at Dunn and Panagotacos, where he represents clients in high-stakes personal injury, wrongful death and medical malpractice matters. During his undergraduate education, Loren played rugby at UCLA and graduated with a degree in political science. He then went on to obtain his law degree from University of San Francisco School of Law, where he was a published member of the Law Review and worked as a judicial extern for the Honorable Ignacio Ruvolo in California's First District Court of Appeal. Today, in addition to racking up millions in case settlements, Loren serves on the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association's Board of Directors.

Dr. David Grundy: 2:15

Very cool man. Welcome to the show, Loren. Somehow you get more out of the 24 hours in the day than I can imagine. Love what you're doing.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 2:22

Well, I try man. A lot of that stuff was in the past, but I can go back.

Dr. David Grundy: 2:28

Fair enough. So today on the podcast we're talking about a case that Lauren had. I believe it was back in 2004. Is that right?

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 2:37

So the incident itself happened in 2014.

Dr. David Grundy: 2:41

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm off by a decade. There you go. That's the night shift talking. So 2014, and this is a truly extraordinary case. Sid's going to talk us through some of the details of the case, but it involves a man who had a fall from a height, a very great height, and, against all odds, you know, survived. I don't I don't use this term lightly, but this is really a medical miracle that he pulled through and to the final functional status that he enjoys. But, as one might imagine, there were quite a lot of complex medical issues and also some really interesting legal issues that Lauren will talk us through. So you want to tell us about the case, Syd.

Ms. Sydney Delaney: 3:22

Sure. So today's case is that of a man who is employed as a window cleaner, who was working on the roof of an 11-story building in San Francisco, and he was working near the edge. Unfortunately, the roof was inadequately secured and missing an essential railing. The client ultimately fell 11 stories onto a moving vehicle below, as David said. Miraculously, the client survived the fall and was transported to a local level one trauma center.

Dr. David Grundy: 3:51

And then I was kind of imagining what it would be like to be the driver of that vehicle. But we'll move swiftly on Go ahead. So I mean again, I would say that just everyone who's listened to this podcast knows that I'm a little bit of a physics nerd and you know this physics can be really an interesting lens to look at how the human body can be injured and the people that survive against all odds and sometimes trivial injuries, in part more energy than you might guess. At some point I'll talk about, you know, blast effects, which is a real interest of mine, fascinating physics. But I was poking around on the Internet and found this thing called the splat calculator, which I will put in the show notes.

Dr. David Grundy: 4:32

It appears to be a bunch of rock climbers who also are grounded in physics and they have this tool that you can calculate, based on the height of a fall and the weight of the person falling. You know assuming no parachute and such of course, what their impact speed will be and how much energy will be imparted to their body. And in the case of our client, the fall is about 2.8 seconds, which must just be hellish to imagine, and he would have struck at about 60 miles an hour and this imparts an energy to his body you know for the fellow physics nerds out there of 26,000 joules. Now a 357 magnum bullet is just about 800 joules. So this would be equivalent to getting shot with like 33, 357 magnums sort of all at once to one surface of your body and, as you can imagine, he had extraordinary injuries from this.

Ms. Sydney Delaney: 5:26

Indeed he did. As a result of the fall, mr Prez sustained a host of catastrophic injuries, including a traumatic brain injury, fractures of his pelvis, sternum, right femur, sacrum, humorous radius and clavicle, 13 fractured ribs, a collapsed lung, extensive vascular damage to his right arm, including a complete transaction of the brachial artery, and lacerations involving his liver and right kidney. Then, in the course of his hospital stay, he developed a pulmonary embolism requiring him to go on a blood thinner eliquus. In addition to his now unsteady gait and increased fall risk, this put him at significant risk of ongoing issues with bleeding this Tons going on.

Dr. David Grundy: 6:18

It's just wild when they say there's an angel on someone's shoulder. There must have been. One thing that I'd like to point out is in these podcasts, of course, our listeners are both physicians and attorneys in the public, so I'm trying not to get too medically, but this falls into the category of what we call traumatic arrest. So, amazingly, the client was speaking, you know, initially, despite significant brain injuries at the just moments after the injury, but in the hospital he actually went into cardiac arrest, presumably because of just massive blood loss and acidemia, just all the effects of the trauma and the stats that we know about. Blunt traumatic arrest is definitely less than 10 percent of these patients survive, you know, even the admission, and less than 2 percent will be discharged from hospital. And of those, they're typically completely neurologically and physically devastated and we'll talk about the client's future course. But he really beat all the odds. Lauren, does that sound kind of like a summary of what you were looking at back in 2014?

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 7:24

Yeah, you got it. Yeah, I think the summary is right on. This was an amazing case. I know I'm the lawyer, you're the doctor. I actually think the medicine is probably a little more interesting in this case than the law.

Dr. David Grundy: 7:46

Different strokes for different folks. You know, I think what you do is amazing, like to actually make this guy whole financially. That was a journey in its own right, wasn't it?

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 7:55

It was, and I'll tell you this. You know, just like you don't choose always necessarily the patients that you see in the ER, you know I do get to choose my clients but I see all different types of clients and one of the things about Pedro was he was he didn't look backwards so much as he looked forward and he was super diligent in terms of his physical therapy, his occupational therapy and, you know, in the course of doing this type of work, one of the things I tend to notice that is that the Clients in the patients who really attack their, their PT, their OT, their speech therapy, those are the people that tend to have the best outcomes. And that was Pedro I think it was about. You know it was 11 stories. There's about 120 feet, something like that you asked about. You wonder what?

Dr. David Grundy: 8:55

Guy whose car I can't even imagine.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 8:58

Oh, I can imagine I've talked so briefly, but one of the interesting things about that was so this is in the morning, you've got a driver who's going to work. He's on Um montgomery street in downtown california, getting ready to make a left on california, and as he's getting ready to make a turn, pedro falls onto the roof of his vehicle. And as we were talking a little bit at the outset that that was actually a an amazing stroke, a lot for Pedro, because landing on that car saved his life, um, and, interestingly, the guy whose car he fell on, uh, fortunately was fine, although he then ended up suing Pedro for basically Falling out of the sky and landed on his.

Dr. David Grundy: 9:51

What do they say? Adding insult to injury? Right Did he prevail?

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 9:57

It that resolved. But um, uh, pedro was a remarkable person and uh, the care he got, starting with paramedics through san francisco general hospital, through the rehab, was absolutely phenomenal. Um, and it's really just a pretty amazing story about, uh, the human spirit and um, uh, medicine and what can happen when you've got really good health care providers.

Dr. David Grundy: 10:27

Um, looking out, yeah, those guys at sf general are just absolute wizards. And, uh, you know, I, reading between the lines, uh, I really got this from what you provided me. I got this sense that it really was this sort of indomitable spirit on his part that pulled him through. Like it's funny, lauren, I can't put my finger on it, but we see it in the er all the time, like Patients wounded or injured or with the same disease state One just crumps and dies and the other, like, against all odds, pull through and I can't put my finger on it. It's sort of like a combination of like Willpower, optimism and like kind of like a sense of humor. I don't know, like it's just, or, or. This sounds sort of touchy-feely, but it definitely people who have a thing that they're living for Will likely to achieve that goal. You know somebody with terrible cancer. They're like, oh, I've got to make it to my daughter's wedding, you know. And like, more often than not they achieve that, you know. So, uh, that's, that's really interesting.

Dr. David Grundy: 11:25

I could see how that would have played out in pager's case and and just briefly to um, just review all of the stuff he needed done in the first 72 hours. So he did have a significant bleeding in his brain which required the placement of a, a drain and evd to relieve the bleeding and pressure. He needed surgical repair of, oh my gosh, the right humeral shaft of his sacrum. He had the. The veins and arteries in his right upper arm were completely transsected and so they had to Stent and put that back together.

Dr. David Grundy: 12:00

What a big blood clot in the abdomen had to be fixed and evacuated. His pelvis was crushed and that had a lot of bleeding. So they had to Uh control the bleeding with a process called embolization where instead of um, actually you know, oversowing anything, they can go in and inject gel foam into the vessels itself. Um, a lot of soft tissue repair. So it was just like A heroic amount of work in the first 72 hours and then his course was very long after that. I mean, I think I read in your documents it was a year later that he was finally released home to his family. But uh, you know, I think it was.

Ms. Sydney Delaney: 12:38

I think it was closer to two, was it yeah?

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 12:41

it was about a year. I mean he was kind of he was been out of the hospital. You know he got out um, but there were, you know he dealt with, um, some infection so he had to uh, go back in for a very re-operation, didn't he?

Dr. David Grundy: 12:55

Yeah, he had like, uh, I believe he needed to finally have like a big Dabrideman of his gluteus muscle was, uh, infarcted or something of that nature. Yeah, quite a lot else going on. One thing I would say to our attorney clients out there is, If you do run into a case that has like this degree of medical complexity, uh, and you just need help, just kind of organizing all the medical issues, you know, please give us a call. This is sort of what we do for a living and, uh, uh, we can, we can definitely help out with that. But, um, yeah, from a medical point of view, this guy's like the super bowl of trauma care. I, there's almost too much to talk about. Um, one thing that I wanted to mention that, uh, sydney and I were talking about earlier in the day is, you know, I guess from a legal point of view, there's a lot of things you want to know. Obviously, uh, you know who is at fault. How can we make this man whole? What are the legal theories that will allow us to do that? And then you're going to want to know things like expected future medicals. You know, is his um disability likely to be permanent in this man's case it is.

Dr. David Grundy: 14:03

And uh, one other thing that I've been very interested in, obviously, is uh missed diagnoses. Now, the general didn't miss a single thing, but there are uh certain patterns. Uh, in the multiply injured patient you know patients who are, let us say, uh intubated, maybe they're trach after you know severe trauma there are patterns of things that can be missed even in the hospital. A classic example would be things like um, um, uh, knee dislocations right. So, like in severe vehicular trauma, sometimes the knee is dislocated, all of the ligaments are just thrashed and then the knee Relocates and that that sounds great, but the problem is it typically will damage, will damage the artery behind the knee and then they Infark the leg and lose the leg right. So, uh, there, there are things like that that sometimes you want to watch out for and a very alert trauma team will not miss it. But the things like that, there's sort of categories of injuries that I would Advise people to think about well, and then there are other things that inherently need More ongoing evaluation.

Ms. Sydney Delaney: 15:09

The prime example of this is a traumatic brain injury, which this client did indeed suffer.

Ms. Sydney Delaney: 15:14

Yeah, peter definitely had that and the reason is that it's very difficult to assess how Bad the deficits the client is going to have ongoing until time has ultimately passed. So you know, in his case he was later evaluated by a neuropsychologist who was able to shed more light on that and I you know to to lauren's point about Just his incredible will to recover. I was amazed, reading through those notes, that really mr Perez's primary question to his neuropsychologist was when can I get back to work?

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 15:54

despite these incredible traumatic injuries, I mean, I mean, it was like you know. You said you talked about beating the how, like a sense of humor you know, right, the guys you know in a wheelchair can't lift One of his arms above his shoulder and he's like, hey, when can I get back on top of roofs and start cleaning windows? Oh god, love him.

Dr. David Grundy: 16:18

And that, sir, you are grounded, you know, yeah, but that that's what it did Do.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 16:24

he had this beautiful family, small green child, uh, and you know, an immigrant from mexico had been working all his life. That's kind of like what he knew and part of his identity was his work. Uh, yeah, yeah, and it took some people in. You know, like I said, having a good attitude is really, really important. At the same time, we also have to face certain realities. You know, when I was a kid, I had a good attitude and I wanted to be in the NBA because I was a good athlete and I can cry as hard as I want, have the best attitude ever, but that wasn't going to happen. And so at some point, even when you have a really good attitude, it is important to accept certain realities. And I think that you know Pedro had, and has, an incredibly supportive family, and I think it can be tough to try and tell people sometimes hey, you know, actually maybe that's not something you can do right now.

Dr. David Grundy: 17:26

Well, that's really interesting, lauren. You know I'm an ex-army doc. I did nine years, a couple of combat tours, and then I've, of course, cared for soldiers after demobilization. And so you know, like my quote, war was Operation Iraqi Freedom and one of the hallmarks of that conflict was patients who are really multiply injured with like multiple, you know, amputations, traumatic brain injuries, you know significant plastic injuries.

Dr. David Grundy: 17:51

And you're right, there is this thing where, like, when we're like fighting and doing operations and all this stuff, there can be a sense of optimism. But then I find a lot of these guys really have a lull. They get into trouble when, like, all that is over, you know, and like they're back to their new reality. I feel like that's, you know, this is 100% mental health and a physician's perspective, not necessarily legal, but that's that's where the supportive family comes in, because you know, it's like, it's like when all the things to be done have been done and then it's like you know, you're back at your home in a wheelchair and it's a new reality. That's very challenging, you know. It's like what's the new mission, what's the new goal? That's really hard on some people, absolutely so, you know.

Dr. David Grundy: 18:37

But here's what we really want to hear from the legal side how did we get to you know an appropriate award or settlement, like like there were some actually novel theories that you had not novel, but maybe not something that you'd use just every day and certainly new to us. New to us, yeah, I didn't know, like how this all worked with, you know, workman's comp, compensation, and then can there be another party involved. Could you talk us through all of that?

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 19:06

Yeah, sure, so it was really a pretty. You know, it was a fascinating case on so many different levels. Obviously, the medicine was, was and is fascinating, and then the legal journey was really interesting as well. So, you know, this all happened. It was November 2014. And Pedro's on the roof of the building at 400 Montgomery Street. It's downtown San Francisco, the corner of Montgomery in California. It's a building that was put up early 1900s, before the 1906 earthquake and, yeah, and had had some damage from the earthquake, but largely survived and wasn't is technically a registered historic building, and one of the things that was interesting is so the building was owned and managed by Hearst, which was yeah, that's right, yeah, the big kind of media empire.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 20:06

And they had entered into a contract with my client's employer, which was a window cleaning company, to come and clean the windows. And so Pedro goes up there. He doesn't remember anything from the fall, but he's up there and you know, as we know, he falls. So one of the things we have to find out is why he fall, how he fall and who may be responsible for his fall. So so, generally speaking, california, if you're employed, right, if you're injured while on the job, you are entitled to workers compensation benefits, and you are entitled to those benefits regardless of whether or not your employer fall. And there's this doctrine in the law that basically says absent some extenuating circumstances, normally your quote unquote exclusive remedy when you're injured on the job is to get these workers compensation benefits. There are, however, situations where you can see compensation from someone who is not your employer, and part of the benefits of that is workers compensation. There's a lot of great things about it, but there are limitations on the type of compensation one can recover.

Dr. David Grundy: 21:30

And the amount to. I mean, a guy like Pedro just had tremendous costs and tremendous needs. So if there's another pot to get into, I mean literally making him whole or as best as possible is, is not fast and not cheap, right? So you know, I was. I was very I didn't understand this, lauren. So so what? What we're saying here is, generally speaking, you can't sue your own employer, even if they are at fault and you know, I was just.

Dr. David Grundy: 21:57

you know, I'm not not an attorney, I was unaware of that. So so, as you say, the remedy sought has to be through workers compensation, except in X circumstances, and those circumstances are that's a great segue.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 22:10

I'll get right into it. So when a company hires a contractor to do certain work, there are certain circumstances in which we can hold that company in this case a property owner liable. And so there were two things that were going on here. One is we were saying hey, you, the property owner, you have what we call a non-delegable duty, meaning you had an obligation to keep this building in a reasonably safe condition, and you can't just hire somebody and say they're responsible for it.

Dr. David Grundy: 22:45

It's on you, and no one but you, to our lay listeners. They have to do this and they have a duty to be aware of these duties as well. Am I right? Absolutely.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 22:56

And so one of the things that, in order to be able to show that they had a non-delegable duty, one of the things that you have to show is that the obligation which they had existed independent of the work to be performed, which is kind of, I guess, an overly lawyerly way of saying you have to show that this obligation existed beyond just for the benefit of the injured individual, but for other people as well.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 23:23

So one of the things we had to do in this case was hey, this isn't actually just about the safety of Pedro, this is about the safety of the people who worked at that building, who would go up to the roof from time to time. They would have different roofing contractors who would come up there from time to time, and they had a number of other contractors, some inspectors, who would go up there from time to time. So part of the defense in this case was hey, we just own the building, we hire you guys to be able to do this safely. But one of the things that we were able to show was that, hey, in fact, I know you hired them as professional window cleaners to clean the windows, but you still have responsibility if your property and your personal decision, so that was a big one, you got it.

Dr. David Grundy: 24:14

Maybe I'm not a lawyer, but I guess it's sort of like you're saying in this wise at least this building is defective, unless such is done.

Ms. Sydney Delaney: 24:25

And so was the situation in this case, because the Hearst building is technically on the historic registry. Did they somehow think that they were absolved of this Cal OSHA requirement for the guard rails, or was there some other issue?

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 24:41

It depends on who you ask. So the short answer is that was kind of a I don't want to say root for an innuendo, but there had been evidence out there that that was one of the reasons that they put the guard rails up there. They had had some discussion about putting up guard rails prior, but it just it didn't happen.

Dr. David Grundy: 25:09

We must not ruin the beautiful historic lines of this building with that guard rail or something of that nature.

Ms. Sydney Delaney: 25:15

Had they ever considered putting up historic guard rails?

Dr. David Grundy: 25:19

Obviously transparent guard rails.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 25:20

I'm just messing around. Well, first of all, go by that building now.

Dr. David Grundy: 25:25

The guard rails are there and I'm quite prominent to see, I'm sure.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 25:29

Yeah, I pass that building pretty much every time on the way to work and I will every once in a while.

Dr. David Grundy: 25:35

I'll just look up because to see if anyone's coming down. I'm just messing with you.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 25:43

Yeah, I mean, it was just a really interesting case.

Dr. David Grundy: 25:47

Oh, it's a really great. I mean, it's an amazing case. I love it.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 25:50

Yeah. The other interesting thing that we had to show is, as a matter of public policy. One of the there's this idea in the law that, hey, if I hire you to do a certain job and one of your employees is injured, that's on you. That's why I'm hiring you. You're responsible for your own employees.

Dr. David Grundy: 26:11

This plays into this retained control theory, right, which is just massive with, like, the gig economy and everyone's a 1099. I mean I'm just really fascinated by this. I'd love to hear you expand on this theory and how it might help other people out there.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 26:26

Yeah, well, now you're starting to sound a little like a lawyer talking about it.

Dr. David Grundy: 26:30

A little bit.

Ms. Sydney Delaney: 26:31

It just rubs off we like to let the knowledge flow from you all to us. It's osmosis man.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 26:37

I guess so.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 26:38

So yeah, so there is this idea that even though normally if I hire you, I'm not responsible for the injuries to your employees on the job, if I retain control over some part of your work and I exercise that control in a negligent fashion, I can't be held responsible.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 27:00

So one of the defenses in this case was hey, we hired you, it's your people, it's your equipment, this is you know, we didn't control what you were doing, this was all on you, and so one of the interesting things is, once we got involved in the case, we did a site inspection and I went up to the roof with some of my experts, and as you are going up to the roof on the I think it was on the right hand side as you're approaching the roof, there is a laminated document. It's two feet by two feet. It's called an operating procedures outline sheet. We sometimes call it an OVS, and what it basically was is this was something that was put there by the people who own the property, and what it did is it included a diagram of the roof and it has certain instructions which direct cleaners hey, you go here, you go there, if you're going to perform window cleaning on this facade, this is where you go, things like that.

Dr. David Grundy: 28:12

You are hereby directed to approach this perilous precipice, that doesn't have a guardrail. So that's their affirmative contribution in this case, right.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 28:21

Correct.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 28:22

So one of the things that we were able to go was hey, you had this operating procedures outline sheet and you required your the people whom you contracted the work there to follow it.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 28:41

And what the operating procedures outline sheet does in certain circumstances was basically say, hey, you need to go work near this part of the roof over here.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 28:53

So, again, one of the things that the employer had was this operating procedures outline sheet and it provided a certain amount of direction to the window cleaners in terms of where to go and how to perform their work. And, through the course of discovery, we got deposition testimony which provided that if the window cleaners did not comply with this, they could lose the job. The other part of it that was interesting was the operating procedures outline sheet says hey, you guys got to go to the edge of the roof here which, like you said, didn't have a guardrail. It had a like a parapet that was about 11 inches high and the window cleaner couldn't just go up there and put up a guardrail on the property owner. So, kind of through these various theories, again the negligent exercise of retentive control, this idea of non-delegable duties, we were ultimately able to demonstrate, although the case resolved, from our point of view, that Hearst was at least negligent.

Dr. David Grundy: 30:09

What was the heavy lift for you, lauren? I mean just sort of local color in the courtroom. Was the court fairly friendly to this or was it a bit of a heavy lift? Taking on the Hearst corporation seems like getting in the ring with an 800 pound gorilla to me. I mean good for you, right.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 30:23

Yeah, it was a heavy lift the litigation was going on for a non for a significant period of time, but for me it was also really interesting. One of the things I like about this work is I am always learning, so I get a case like this involving a window cleaner who is injured. I don't know much about window cleaning, but for me to be able to do my job, I better start finding out.

Dr. David Grundy: 30:52

So that's very cool. That's cool. I love it. Yeah, it's sort of like it's. You know, your job in mind, definitely have a lot of frustrations, but there is that in common that, you know, occasionally you get this opportunity to do well by doing good and what's better than that and you deal with really great people and you learn a few things. So, you know, I think that's just a great position to be in.

Dr. David Grundy: 31:16

Yeah, as we talked about offline, well, two things. I think that, as the gig economy just to you know, whether you love it or hate it there's no question that there is this ongoing trend in this change relationship between management and labor, and many, many more people are categorized as 1099s. I think that you know it behooves everyone to think about how this legal process might work if something goes wrong. That's thing number one. Thing number two is to the attorneys out there. Lauren's a really cool dude and if you have a question or a case like this, you should call him up and possibly you know, maybe not co-counsel, but don't reinvent the wheel, because he just did this one. So you know what I'm saying. So just a tip to our listeners.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 32:04

No, I appreciate it, I, you know, whether it's medicine or law. You know, I think you know, always, learn is just one of the coolest things. And you know, I joined the International Window Cleaners Association.

Dr. David Grundy: 32:20

Are you kidding me? That's awesome.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 32:22

That's so good. What's such a thing? Well, there absolutely is. I WCA, I can get you. I might be able to get you a discount on membership. There you go.

Dr. David Grundy: 32:32

Well, you know, I got my windows do need cleaning but it's just a. I'm just renting here, so we'll pass on that there you go. That's fantastic, well, great. Are there any other aspects of the case that you just wanted to tell the listeners about, medical or legal or any questions you'd run by us?

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 32:47

Well, here's, I think, a part that might be interesting on kind of a a slightly more technical side. So sure they had a, a parapet up there that was 11. Right, the OSHA requirements are that you need to have a guardrail there of of at least 42 inches.

Dr. David Grundy: 33:06

Now, does that include the?

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 33:07

parapet or no, you have to have. Whether it's a parapet or a guardrail, something needs to be there, that's at least 42 inches. 42 inches Got it. And so one of the things that you know, in a case like this, it's not enough to just prove that somebody was at fault, but you also have to prove that that fault was a substantial factor in causing some kind of result in harm.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 33:32

And so one of the issues that also came up is, as we're spending all this time trying to figure out who had responsibility here, the other thing that I had to keep in mind was would it have made a difference if he had had, if that guardrail had been up there?

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 33:49

So there was one witness who saw Pedro shortly before he fell, and basically he was trying to swing a cable from the Montgomery Street side, California Street side, and one of the things we had to figure out was well, hey, if there was a guardrail that was 42 inches, could this have been prevented? And so I guess, for all the science nerds out there, we hired an accident reconstructionist and biomechanical expert to look at this. Our client was about five foot five, and so if you look at where his center of mass is, that would have been roughly 38 or 39 inches, and so through that we were able to put forth evidence to the fact that if you had a guardrail of at least 42 inches given that his center of mass was roughly 38, 39 inches, more likely than not he wouldn't have fallen. Some of that stuff again, it's kind of hyper technical and it's a little bit above my pay grade, which is why I hire experts to help me out with that. But that was an interesting part of it as well.

Ms. Sydney Delaney: 34:59

Yeah, and it makes perfect sense. I would imagine that Kalosha developed this specific guideline because he's the height of about the average American. It's right above where I think the average American's what, maybe the average woman's five, four at this point, and men are a little bit taller. So yeah, for the, for most people, that 42 inch, you know guideline it's going to cover their center of mass. That's. That's super interesting, yeah.

Dr. David Grundy: 35:33

But, but if you, but if you're a seven foot tall window cleaner, don't even try it.

Ms. Sydney Delaney: 35:39

You got to bring your own guardrail. Bring your own guardrail.

Dr. David Grundy: 35:43

Totally fascinating stuff. Well, this is just absolutely an amazing case. I and, and you know, good for you. I'm and and good for Pedro, like I'm just so touched that everything kind of went right. I mean, again, he had not a great chance of surviving, but he's pulled through and done great.

Ms. Sydney Delaney: 36:03

And I just had one more general question for you, and I know that this this is more for the general public and I know that you can't offer specific legal advice, but I was curious, in this case and in other cases, as you mentioned when we talked before the show, that people typically cannot sue their employers, even when the employer has been negligent. Can you talk about why that is?

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 36:29

Yeah, so there's.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 36:31

You know I'm not a workers compensation lawyer, but I can speak in broad strokes.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 36:36

You know the the workers compensation system was set up to basically provide a system that will ensure that workers who are injured on the job get access to timely medical treatment and at least to a certain extent, get compensated for at least some of the wages which they lost.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 36:58

And what you have as a system which says well, even though we might not be making you fully whole, what we will deliver is a timely medical treatment and timely replenishment, so to speak, of the wages which you otherwise would have earned. So it's a little bit of a trade off because on my cases, my cases can take two, three years to resolve and I'm not getting my client any money during that time. And, subject to, you know, depending on issues regarding insurance and stuff like that, my client might not be able to get medical care that he otherwise could. So the conf case is involving an injured worker. If it's a situation where there's potentially a third party that has some responsibility, the workers comp benefits can be great to kind of keep somebody afloat during the time that their third party case is still moving, with the hopes that if the third party case results favorably. That's part of when we hopefully make that individual whole.

Dr. David Grundy: 38:09

That's really helpful. That's an excellent strategy.

Ms. Sydney Delaney: 38:11

Yeah, thanks so much for that.

Dr. David Grundy: 38:13

So, lauren, this has been fantastic. You know, what I want to do is just for our listeners out there, lauren. If you can tell people, you know, if they want to get in touch with you or learn more about the work that you're doing with your firm or other specific interests that you might have, how can they do that?

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 38:32

Yeah, I'm not hard to find, so Google me and you know you can always just send me an email. It's lschwarz at DPLLPcom.

Dr. David Grundy: 38:46

We'll have all that in the show notes too, for you, fantastic.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 38:49

Perfect People can call me on my cell for 1-5-4-0-8-8-3-8-3. And I you know I'm a little bit of a legal nerd. I love talking this stuff, so always, always happy to talk to people and collaborate with others, both in the legal profession as well as the medical profession as well.

Dr. David Grundy: 39:09

That's super helpful. Well, thanks so much, and again, we are Grundy MD consulting If you have any questions about, you know, complex cases. You need help, maybe developing medical theories or de-risking cases. And then of course, we do education, just with the general public as well, and some matters related to emergency medicine and that type of stuff. We'll have our link in the show notes as well. So this has been great. Thanks, lauren.

Mr. Loren Schwartz : 39:37

Absolutely. Thanks for having me Really nice, just chopping it up with you guys and talking Fantastic.

Dr. David Grundy: 39:43

All right. So that's it for now. We'll talk to you all next week, and bye for now, see ya.

: 39:53

Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Legal MD Podcast. If you have a case you'd like to discuss with Dr Grundy, please visit our website, wwwmdmlccom.