Juan Murillo v. WPM, Inc

On November 19, 2017, Juan Murillo suffered a mild traumatic brain injury and an eye injury when he was knocked unconscious during an assault and battery that occurred at a commercial office complex in Santa Ana, California. Two of the three people who assaulted Mr. Murillo were subsequently convicted in criminal court of assault with means likely to produce great bodily injury.

When we filed the civil lawsuit, we named as defendants the property owner, the property management company, the owner of the property management company, and the individuals who physically attacked Mr. Murillo. All of them steadfastly denied liability.

In denying liability, the defendants hired a number of “experts” to argue that Mr. Murillo will not have any long-term effects from his concussion and that his eye injury was pre-existing. Essentially, the defendants admitted that Mr. Murillo suffered a concussion during the assault but claimed that he was now fine. The property management company also denied liability by pointing the finger at the two defendants who attacked Mr. Murillo, claiming that they were independent contractors not employees, that their actions were not on behalf of the company, and that the company did not do anything wrong.

In order to demonstrate that Mr. Murillo’s brain injury was long-lasting, we obtained follow-up imaging showing evidence of his brain injury more than 2 years post-accident. Additionally, we obtained sophisticated imaging of his right eye showing that he continued to suffer from a tonic pupil years after the incident. We retained experts who reviewed the imaging and the medical evidence and were able to convincingly demonstrate that Mr. Murillo was suffering from a brain injury and an eye injury and that those lifelong injuries were not pre-existing. We also gathered evidence showing that the owner of the property management company was present during the assault, that he confronted Mr. Murillo with the other defendants, and that he stood by and refused to stop the attack even after multiple people asked him to stop it while telling him that Mr. Murillo would be killed if he did not intervene.

After more than three years of litigation, the case went to trial and the jury handed down a verdict of $1.9 million.