$43 Million Verdict for Miami Attorneys' Clients: 'Even the Jury Was in Tears'

Jul 21, 2023

OUTCOME: $43 Million Verdict

A trio of Miami attorneys secured a $43 million jury verdict for clients Thursday, after closing arguments seemed to have left not a dry eye in a Broward County courtroom. “I was choked up. Even my ... eyes were watery,” Amanda Demanda said about the moments she addressed the five-woman, one-man jury during closing arguments. ”The jury was connected with me. They were all crying. It was very emotional.” The one-day trial was fast-tracked in Broward Circuit court. The attorneys argued that their clients were nearly killed by a drunken driver, 18-year-old John Henry Roberson III, at the onset of COVID-19. The crash occurred in Lauderhill a few days before Christmas 2019. Steadman Haase was airlifted to the hospital, where he remained in a coma for several months. His wife, Eileen, was also hospitalized and in a coma for a shorter time, but attorneys explained to the jurors that when the couple was expeditiously released from hospital due to COVID-19 concerns, Eileen Haase had to take care of her husband at home, while still suffering from her injuries. “Both of her hands were crushed in the accident. She didn’t even have the use of her hands,” attorney Michael David Redondo said. Redondo and co-counsel Andres “Andy” Alonso are solo practitioners. Demanda’s firm has a team of four lawyers. They said the jury got emotional listening to Demanda explain how the catastrophic injuries affected their clients. They felt it was that emotion that led the jury to agree to everything the attorneys requested. “It was the little things like, how do you wipe yourself after going to the bathroom? Well, he couldn’t. How does he shower himself? Well, he couldn’t. All of those things fell on his wife who herself was dealing with hands that were crushed,” Redondo said. Asking Way Too Much? Redondo said even some colleagues remarked that asking for more than $40 million was a gamble. He credits the team’s confidence in the system and the jury, but also for not listening to those questioning the damages figure. “The jury’s going to think you’re being greedy or something like that … maybe you’re being a little too aggressive” was the feedback Redondo said he was getting. “I don’t think we asked for one penny less than we should have.” The gamble worked. Because the defendant was served but chose not appear at trial, Redondo said the team strategy was to make sure the jurors understood that while the case was only before them for one day, and there was no defendant present, they didn’t want either of those issues to diminish the seriousness of this case. “The clients themselves were the conduit that brought everything through,” Redondo said. “There’s no one better than your own client in my opinion; doctors are great about doing their doctor thing, and you can get an economist up there and we can do life care plans, but when it comes to pain and suffering, which is typically the biggest part of every case anyway, particularly in a case like this with catastrophic injuries … I think just having the clients tell their story in their own words in a detailed manner, and prepping the jury for that kind of efficient presentation, is really what helped us get that result.” The attorneys said they know there may not be a recovery but it’s validation for what they’ve been through, “not for me as their attorney, but from a jury of their peers,” Redondo said. The team will now engage in postjudgment discovery and track down any assets they can recover from the defendant. Redondo said, “We plan on executing on the judgment to the extent that there are any recoverable assets because again, this was a drunk driver who very easily could have killed both my clients.”