How do insurance companies compensate victims of a tragedy like the 2021 Waukesha Country Christmas parade?
In this episode of Groth Gets it! from Groth Law Accident Injury Attorneys, Jon talks with our newest attorney at Groth Law Firm, Ryan Harrington, as well at attorney Mitch Raasch. They discuses many things including the ongoing trial against Darrell Brooks Jr, what one should wear in court, how insurance companies view a tragedy like the Waukesha County Christmas Parade, and how uninsured motorist claims work. Mitch also finds out who Zsa Zsa Gabor is.
Transcript:
Jon Groth:
Here we are again, Groth Gets It! podcast. We’re talking about some really timely stuff. We usually try to make this a little bit of a lighter episode recording, but I think we’re going to take a turn more to the serious end because of what the topic is today. The topic is Darrell Brooks Jr., because the trial is happening. It’s in Waukesha County. Judge Dorow and Ryan … Well, here, let me go back. I’m jumping right in here. I apologize. Let me go back. We have Mitch Raasch, Attorney and Ryan Harrington, Attorney, who are our special guests today, always our special guests.
Jon Groth:
What we’re talking about is the Waukesha jury trial that’s happening right now as we speak. It’s literally going on. They’re at lunch break right now, I’m guessing, or some kind of break right now. But this recording probably will get edited and then sent over and probably updated early next week, so it’s not going to be as timely as it could be. But it’s just interesting to talk about and how this relates to our world, which is the civil world. I don’t know. Mitch, do you know which judge it’s in front of?
Mitch Raasch:
I don’t. No.
Jon Groth:
Judge Dorow. Ever hear before, Judge Dorow?
Mitch Raasch:
I have not. No.
Jon Groth:
Waukesha County judge. Ryan, what other roles does Judge Dorow have?
Ryan Harrington:
Well, she’s the chief judge for Waukesha County as well as the district. I used to have an office for about 15 years, five minutes from the Waukesha County Courthouse, so I know Jennifer Dorow well. She’s an excellent jurist. She’s highly respected. She runs an efficient courtroom, and as you can see, she’s trying to keep this trial on schedule as much as she can, which is extremely difficult when you have a defendant like Mr. Brooks, who is just hellbent at every turn to delay the proceedings and just run this case off the rails if he can.
Jon Groth:
And that’s the news today. We were just looking up on our phones, today is shirtless day in the courthouse. I mean, he comes and he has his orange jumpsuit on, then takes his shirt off and he’s literally shirtless. It’s not like he has a T-shirt. It’s just shocking to even say these out loud. He’s in a trial for his life.
Ryan Harrington:
I don’t know why he showed up in an orange jumpsuit. Up until today, he’s been showing up in a suit, which is what you would expect. You don’t want to present that image to a jury of someone in an orange jumpsuit, certainly. It just seems like he doesn’t care about shooting himself in the foot in every chance he can get.
Jon Groth:
That’s a good point. Mitch, in trial prep, do you have conversations with your clients about how to present themselves, what to wear?
Mitch Raasch:
Oh, certainly. Yeah.
Jon Groth:
Yeah. Would you recommend coming shirtless?
Mitch Raasch:
Yes, of course. It’s perfectly fine to show up with no shirt at court.
Ryan Harrington:
Maybe paint your chest? Show up with face paint, even? Yeah.
Jon Groth:
Not guilty, or for our world, pay us the limits. I don’t know what you’d say in.
Ryan Harrington:
Show up painted in green with dollar signs.
Jon Groth:
Dollar sign. Oh my gosh.
Mitch Raasch:
Definitely show up looking good, as well as you can, dress up. Sometimes, we might tell a client not to dress up too nice, depending on the jurisdiction. But yeah, definitely come looking like you belong there.
Jon Groth:
That’s a good point. You just reminded me, years ago, this has to be 15, not 20 years ago, but close, between 15 and 20 years ago, I had a client who we talked about what this client should wear, and this client was a male. This was a long time ago, so I’m not even sure if the client’s still alive. But this particular person, we talked about coming to the courthouse and wearing pants, not shorts, not jeans, slacks. Go to Kohl’s and get some dockers or whatever you can, but don’t wear jeans. Don’t have holes in them. Wear a nice shirt, a button-down, all that kind of stuff. And what’s that kind of tie? It’s a bolo?
Ryan Harrington:
Oh, yeah. Bolo tie? Yeah.
Jon Groth:
A bolo tie? B-O-L-O or something. Do you know what a bolo tie is? It’s like the cord.
Ryan Harrington:
People wear it out west a lot.
Jon Groth:
Yeah, yeah. It’s just the rope around your neck with a…
Ryan Harrington:
Rhinestone or something.
Jon Groth:
A rhinestone, yeah. Or maybe a head of a cattle or something, or whatever. He wanted approval to wear that and I said, “That’s fine. I think that that should be okay.” And then we talked about jewelry and I said, “Well, I would not wear a lot of jewelry, because you don’t want to look like you’re this big player or someone who was”…
Ryan Harrington:
No Rolexes.
Jon Groth:
Exactly. “Not a lot of money, because we’re asking for money. Well, also, the claim was you were out of work, so how can you have all this money? People might just start assuming that you’re doing things illegally or whatever, so let’s not even put that in the equation. Let’s keep that out of the equation. This is what you should wear.” So first day of trial, client comes. He’s wearing the pants, the shirt, fine, except he must have had five carat diamond studs in each of his ears. They were fake, but they were the biggest diamonds that I’ve ever seen a guy, or even maybe a woman, other than Kim Kardashian, or I don’t know who’d wear those…
Ryan Harrington:
Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Jon Groth:
Zsa Zsa Gabor. Well…
Ryan Harrington:
Dating ourselves.
Jon Groth:
Oh my gosh.
Mitch Raasch:
I didn’t know who they are.
Ryan Harrington:
Mitch has no idea who that is.
Jon Groth:
Do you know who Zsa Zsa Gabor is?
Mitch Raasch:
Over my head. Over my head on that one.
Jon Groth:
I don’t know if the person who’s editing this is going to even know how to spell Zsa Zsa Gabor. But yeah, I was like, “Hey, I don’t understand.” He’s like, “Well, I wore my sensible ones because they weren’t dangly,” or some excuse. I’m like, “Are you serious?”
Mitch Raasch:
Sensible diamonds, yeah.
Jon Groth:
Sensible…
Mitch Raasch:
It’s a contradiction in terms.
Jon Groth:
… diamond studs. Unbelievable. So that’s the other extreme, that you have a shirtless guy on your one side and then the guy wearing diamonds on the other side. Anyway.
Ryan Harrington:
One of Dorow’s colleagues in Waukesha County, Ralph Ramirez, I’ve seen him actually remove or have defendants removed from the courtroom or litigants removed when they show up wearing shorts or any sort of attire that he considers inappropriate for the court. If you show up in a T-shirt, he’ll ask you to leave and go home and change and come back. I’ve seen him do it. He’s very particular about appearance in his courtroom.
Jon Groth:
Years, and this goes back 20-plus years ago when I did some small claims stuff in Milwaukee, there was a guy who would come with a hat and a T-shirt. He was an attorney, but he was the king of the small claims court. And he would walk up…
Ryan Harrington:
A T-shirt?
Jon Groth:
A really fashionable T-shirt, like one of those really cool ones. I don’t know. I don’t own any cool T-shirts, but it didn’t have any letters. It was just whatever, and he had a Kangol hat, one of those, just a cool hat. I mean, he looked really, really good.
Ryan Harrington:
It’s like a fedora?
Jon Groth:
Not like the Eisenberg fedora, but a Kangol, like the British-looking hats.
Ryan Harrington:
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. The Peaky Blinders?
Jon Groth:
Kind of. Yes, yes. Do you know that?
Mitch Raasch:
I know that one.
Jon Groth:
There we go.
Mitch Raasch:
That one, I get.
Jon Groth:
So he was wearing that and…
Ryan Harrington:
No razors in the mix.
Jon Groth:
Well, I don’t know what was going on, but the judge or commissioner, maybe Liska or one of those guys, Green, one of the old timers came up and finally… This was happening, going on for months. Finally, somebody came and said, “Okay, you’re breaking the rules. You got to wear a tie, and you can have your sport coat on and then take it off, but you got to at least have a sport coat.” Anyway.
Ryan Harrington:
Yeah, those were pretty informal proceedings, especially back then.
Jon Groth:
Very informal. Yeah, yeah. But you can’t wear a T-shirt, for goodness sakes.
Ryan Harrington:
Right.
Jon Groth:
And a hat. Again, going back, now we’re beating a dead horse, but it’s preposterous that somebody would come to court and be shirtless. That’s unbelievable. I don’t know how many weeks is this set for trial, like five?
Ryan Harrington:
I think at least four.
Jon Groth:
At least four weeks at trial?
Ryan Harrington:
Yeah, that’s what it was set for. But I can’t imagine it’s going to wrap up on schedule with the way things are going so far.
Jon Groth:
Yeah, with the distractions of now this, where whether the guy’s wearing the proper attire. Now, he was removed from the courtroom into a separate room to watch while the prosecution makes their case because he’s defending himself, right?
Ryan Harrington:
Yeah. I understand that Judge Dorow will usually mute him when he is in that other courtroom. I think he’s been holding up signs indicating objection when he has an issue, which is pretty much every five minutes.
Jon Groth:
Oh my gosh. There was a trial that our office had last year down at the federal courthouse, and you were involved in that, where only some people could be in the courtroom and then others had to be in this, it was maybe a library or something. I don’t recall exactly what it was, but they had a TV. There was a camera. I can see how certainly with COVID, they have all this set up, so it’s somewhat easy with all the TVs that are in courtrooms in the beginning, or just to begin with. The jury can probably see him, because with COVID, things changed, that you can be virtual and be wherever you need and still handle a trial. Interesting.
Jon Groth:
Anyway, now I’m not quite sure where we’re going with that story, but we talked about shirtless and diamonds and whatever else, Peaky Blinders. But the point is, where this starts with is the Waukesha parade. The Waukesha parade was last year. This Darrell Brooks Jr. is driving his SUV, I’ll call it.
Ryan Harrington:
I think it was longer than that.
Jon Groth:
Was it…
Ryan Harrington:
I think it was the Christmas before, I thought. No, no.
Jon Groth:
No.
Ryan Harrington:
No, no. Okay. Maybe…
Jon Groth:
COVID messes up everything.
Ryan Harrington:
Yeah, yeah.
Jon Groth:
November 20…
Ryan Harrington:
I’ve lost all concept of time.
Mitch Raasch:
November 21st, 2021.
Ryan Harrington:
Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Right.
Jon Groth:
So less than a year. Holy smokes.
Ryan Harrington:
Yeah.
Jon Groth:
Really?
Ryan Harrington:
Yeah. Wow.
Jon Groth:
That doesn’t seem like it was even that soon. It’s not even been a year yet.
Ryan Harrington:
Yeah, I think I remember. I think I thought that it was longer than a year, because a lot of the Christmas parades were canceled, and that was an early Christmas parade in November. Yeah. I live in Whitefish Bay. I think every Christmas parade in the community was canceled because of that, so I thought…
Jon Groth:
Yeah, just with the fear. Yeah, yeah. So he comes through, and do we know, did he have car insurance?
Ryan Harrington:
I don’t know.
Mitch Raasch:
Yeah, I don’t know either.
Jon Groth:
I believe that he did not have car insurance, and I know that for reasons that I’m not going to say publicly, but I know that he did not. Then what happened, all these people, horrible situation. People have been killed, people have been injured, and then you have the spectators. How does that work in our world with personal injury attorneys? Is there any way for those victims to get compensation from somebody, some entity? Mitch, what do you think?
Mitch Raasch:
Yeah, if they have insurance. If you’re a pedestrian and you have your own insurance, you can go through your uninsured motorist coverage if somebody hits you with a vehicle and they don’t have insurance.
Jon Groth:
So then if you’re a pedestrian and somebody hits you, they don’t have any insurance, your insurance then stands in the shoes of the at-fault person. They’ll, in essence, pretend like they’re the insurance for Darrell Brooks Jr. And then after they pay out, what happens? Do you know what happens?
Mitch Raasch:
After uninsured motorist coverage pays out?
Jon Groth:
Correct. What does that insurance company do after they pay out?
Mitch Raasch:
Go after the at-fault party.
Jon Groth:
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So then, I think that’s the next saga here. That’s the next part of the story, is we’re going to have all these insurance companies that are paying out these claims for the victims of Darrell Brooks. There’s probably, and this you might know, Ryan, victim’s assistance, the restitution aspect that probably hasn’t even been handled yet.
Ryan Harrington:
Right. Yeah. Since you didn’t have insurance, well, the Victim Witness Program is a branch of the DA’s office, and they deal with victims in criminal cases. They’re sort of the conduit between the DA’s office and the victim, and they’re the ones that will coordinate with the victims how to get repaid. Because it’s a criminal case, they’re not entitled to get pain and suffering. It’s just strictly out-of-pocket expenses. There’ll be a lot of claims made, but frankly, realistically, they’re not going to get paid. Mr. Brooks is not ever going to be seeing the light of day, so it’s really a sad situation for all the victims’ families.
Jon Groth:
Yeah, hopefully not. Hopefully he doesn’t see the light of day. And then, I used to know what a prisoner can make while in prison. It’s only…
Ryan Harrington:
Yeah, it’s ridiculous.
Jon Groth:
It’s not minimum wage, that’s for sure. It’s like dollars, just a couple dollars an hour-ish.
Ryan Harrington:
Right. It’s very, very little.
Jon Groth:
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, trying to garnish that wage or whatever is going to be…
Ryan Harrington:
Probably costs more for the garnishment than…
Jon Groth:
Exactly.
Ryan Harrington:
You’re not going to get anything out of it to cover your expenses.
Jon Groth:
Yeah, yeah. So the uninsured motorists then would stand in the shoes of Darrell Brooks Jr., would pay out for those injured victims, for the kids and the families.
Ryan Harrington:
And if the victims didn’t have a car, let’s say that it’s a 19-year-old kid who doesn’t have a car and he doesn’t have car insurance, then he would certainly, I would think, be able to file under his homeowner’s insurance or perhaps his parents’ homeowner’s insurance if he’s a resident there.
Jon Groth:
I don’t know. I think if he’s a 19-year-old kid with no car insurance…
Ryan Harrington:
Or any age, I guess.
Jon Groth:
Yeah, any person.
Ryan Harrington:
If they don’t have a car, they use public transportation, they don’t have car insurance.
Jon Groth:
So then the only way that you’re going to have compensation for injuries because of a car crash is if there’s car insurance, and the only way to get into the homeowner’s insurance would be if there’s an umbrella policy that’s tied into the car insurance. If some person who was walking the street and hit by Darrell Brooks Jr., and Darrell Brooks Jr. has no insurance, the at-fault has, or sorry, as the at-fault, he has no insurance and the victim has no insurance, there’s no compensation. Except you could go through the state’s Victim Compensation Program, but I think that’s limited. I’m not going to say the exact amount, but it’s not very much money that you can get, and that also has certain restrictions as to what you can get compensation for.
Ryan Harrington:
Yeah. If you have insurance, that comes first, so you’re not going to get paid until that insurance is paid out. So it would be…
Jon Groth:
It would exhaust all your remedies.
Ryan Harrington:
Yeah. Right.
Jon Groth:
Yeah. Interesting. Then the last thing is, what if there’s… Well, I guess the reality behind this, for people who don’t know this, is there were a lot of kids who are marching in the parade. And those kids who are marching, their parents are sitting there watching them. I just can’t imagine that you’re sitting there watching your kid and you don’t have the time, you don’t have the ability to go get them and pull them out of the way, and you see this guy run them over.
Mitch Raasch:
It’s horrific.
Jon Groth:
It’s horrific. Well, and then to see the aerial footage we have and all the businesses with the footage to show what happened, it’s shocking. But with that, what kind of claim would the parents have for witnessing this, if any?
Ryan Harrington:
That’s going to be negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Jon Groth:
I just happen to have this. Mitch?
Mitch Raasch:
Yeah.
Jon Groth:
The jury instruction. Why is that important? Why is it important to have the jury instruction?
Mitch Raasch:
Because that is what a jury would see.
Jon Groth:
That’s the law.
Mitch Raasch:
That’s what they’d be instructed upon if it went to trial.
Jon Groth:
Yeah.
Mitch Raasch:
It’s your roadmap, yeah.
Jon Groth:
The roadmap.
Mitch Raasch:
As far as what you need to show.
Jon Groth:
I’ll just cut to the chase here. It’s jury instruction 1511. Says, “Therefore, there are three things that the plaintiff, the victim must prove by the greater weight of the credible evidence to a reasonable certainty. Number one, that the defendant was negligent with respect to the accident involved in the case.” Now, this Darrell Brooks certainly was negligent. “Number two, the accident was a cause of the victim’s emotional distress.” Well, if you’re a parent and you see your kid get run over, I think that’s pretty clear. “And the emotional distress is severe.” And that’s, I guess, subjective, what’s severe. But gosh, I can’t imagine.
Mitch Raasch:
Yeah, nothing more severe, I don’t think, than seeing your child in that situation.
Ryan Harrington:
Now, is there going to be any issue with, number one, UEP coverage, because it was an intentional act? Or could they argue some kind of exclusion because it was intentional, or would this be an intentional infliction of emotional distress?
Mitch Raasch:
It’s a great question.
Ryan Harrington:
Because…
Jon Groth:
I think it’s a great question. I think the intent might be, his intent was to injure people, but is there a specific intent to injure a specific person, number one? Or did he have the requisite intent because he’s… Some psychological evaluation, and I don’t know what that would be called. You know?
Ryan Harrington:
I mean, he’s been found competent to proceed. I know that he was trying, or at least his former counsel was trying to pursue an NGI plea, which is not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, and that was abandoned by him. But by all accounts, you read the articles in the paper and Sue Opper talks about monitoring his phone calls, and according to Sue Opper, he’s been very lucid during these phone calls and has made his intentions known in his phone calls to his mother, that he wants to delay these proceedings. Yeah, I think he’s lucid. I think he’s competent and I think he knew what he was doing, and I think he still knows what he is doing.
Jon Groth:
Yeah, yeah. So then, was the intent to injure a certain person, this person or that person, or was the intent to drive through without the specific intent of injuring any particular person? I guess this goes back to war stories. Years ago, I had a case where somebody intended to shoot a turkey. It just so happened that there was a hunter that was also there, and they intended to shoot the turkey. They shot what they thought was a turkey, but they shot the hunter, and this young kid had his leg that was just destroyed by this shotgun. And there was the concern right away that, well, this is intentional, because he intended to shoot. But he intended to shoot the turkey, not to shoot the person. That’s one thing.
Ryan Harrington:
And in the criminal realm, there’s different phases or different grades of homicide. There’s intentional homicide, there’s reckless homicide, and there’s negligent homicide. Certainly, if it’s intentional homicide, I think you’re going to have a hard time prevailing on a claim with the insurance company because it’s an intentional act. But reckless homicide, you’re not intending to harm, but you’re acting with the knowledge that it’s substantially likely that harm may ensue. And for negligence, you’re acting with the understanding that harm may occur.
Jon Groth:
Yeah, duty breach caused harm. Yeah. Interesting. All right. Well, we have gone way over our time. This is actually a pretty good one.
Ryan Harrington:
I think so. Yeah.
Jon Groth:
I like this recording. Going from diamonds to shirtlessness to actually real, serious law.
Ryan Harrington:
Zsa Zsa Gabor?
Jon Groth:
Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Mitch Raasch:
I’m so looking him up. Look her up.
Ryan Harrington:
Her up.
Jon Groth:
Thank you, Mitch.
Ryan Harrington:
Better yet, just watch an episode of Green Acres.
Jon Groth:
Yeah.
Mitch Raasch:
Okay.
Jon Groth:
Have you seen the Green Acres?
Mitch Raasch:
What year is that from?
Jon Groth:
Do you know the song?
Ryan Harrington:
Green Acres is the place to be.
Jon Groth:
Green Acres is the place to be.
Mitch Raasch:
Well, we were doing well for a while. Now we started singings.
Ryan Harrington:
Now we started show tunes.
Jon Groth:
Green Acres, Zsa Zsa Gabor. How do you think you spell Zsa Zsa?
Mitch Raasch:
J-A-J-A.
Jon Groth:
No, like Jean Moran?
Mitch Raasch:
Zsa Zsa. Yeah.
Ryan Harrington:
Z-S-A.
Jon Groth:
Is it Z-S-A?
Ryan Harrington:
Z-S-A. Yeah.
Jon Groth:
I was going to say it’s C.
Ryan Harrington:
No. I’m fairly confident.
Jon Groth:
Okay.
Ryan Harrington:
Being a fan of Green Acres and Eddie Arnold, or Eddie Albert.
Jon Groth:
So it’s Z-S-A?
Ryan Harrington:
Yep.
Mitch Raasch:
Z-S-A Z-S-A, or just…
Jon Groth:
Oh my gosh. You’re right. How are you right with this? Zsa Zsa Gabor. That’s right. Z-S-A Z-S-A.
Mitch Raasch:
Okay. Yeah. Z-S-A Z-S-A.
Ryan Harrington:
I know my old television.
Jon Groth:
Good job. That’s impressive. Yeah. Anyway, Zsa Zsa Gabor. All right. Thanks, guys. Talk to you soon. See you.
Ryan Harrington:
Thank you.
Mitch Raasch:
Bye.