Real life court drama worthy of a script writer

If I saw this story portrayed on one those television legal dramas such as “The Good Wife,” I’m not sure I’d find it plausible. But in a case that has Daley Center insiders buzzing, Cook County Judge Daniel Lynch is scheduled to hold a hearing Thursday into whether a lawyer for a man injured in a boat accident hoodwinked an insurance company out of a $25 million settlement using inside information that a jury was about to rule against him.

Lawyers for the Brunswick Corporation and Brunswick Boat Group say they never learned of a note from the jury thatwould have alerted them theywere likely to win their case until after the settlement had been reached.

But they say Mark McNabola, a lawyer for plaintiffs Scot and Patricia Vandenberg of New Lenox, learned the contents of the note through a court clerk.

They contend McNabola instructed her to “hold off” on notifying the defense lawyers because the parties were completing a settlement, then called the claims adjuster for insurance giant AIG to take him up on a previously extended $25million settlement offer.

The defense lawyers say they didn’t learn about the jury note until about a half hour later, and by then, McNabola and the insurance company had already struck their deal.

McNabola never informed the claims adjuster about the jury note either, they say, arguing that amounts to “deliberate concealment” that should entitle them to throw out the settlement.

When they learned of the contents of the jury note, defense lawyers say they asked Judge Elizabeth Budzinski to allow the jury to continue to deliberate, which she did.

Five minutes after resuming deliberations, they say, the jury returned a verdict in their favor.

The Vandenbergs’ lawyers chalk up thematter to sour grapes on the part of Brunswick.

They argue the jurors never returned a real verdict, only informally indicated their intention to rule in Brunswick’s favor after the judge interrupted their deliberations to tell them a settlement had been reached.

In their own pleadings, lawyers for the Vandenbergs say Brunswick’s lawyers are trying to “renege” on a settlement to which they agreed on the record in open court knowing all the facts.

The case stems from an accident on Sept. 1, 2009, during a charter boat outing sponsored by Scot Vandenburg’s employer, Trace Ambulance, in which he suffered serious injuries when he fell from the yacht’s top deck to the stern.

The jury note in question is a little difficult to decipher for those of us unfamiliar with all the evidence, but here it is: “CAN WE FIND FAULT WITH RQM, WITHOUT FINDING FAULT WITH BRUNSWICK.”

But Winston & Strawn lawyers Dan K. Webb and Jared Hasten say it’s meaning is obvious.

“The jury’s question would lead any attorney familiar with the facts of this case to realize that the jury was inclined to attribute all responsibility for Scot Vandenberg’s accident to the ‘empty chair’ defendant, RQM LLC, not Brunswick,” they said, referring to another defendant not represented at trial.

Not so fast, argues C. Barry Montgomery, who is now representing the Vandenbergs.

He argued it is “pure speculation” for Brunswick’s lawyers to say the AIG representative would have negotiated differently if he had known the content of the note.

“Experienced trial lawyers certainly know not to read too much into notes from juries. The notes can mean anything or nothing,” Montgomery wrote.

Perhaps, but that never stops experienced trial lawyers from dissecting such notes at length in the never-ending effort to read the tea leaves on where a jury is headed.

The Vandenbergs’ lawyers sought to block the evidentiary hearing that Lynch will conduct after Budzinski recused herself, saying it “would only provide a forum for the defense to develop evidence based on bald speculation and hindsight.”

They say it’s undisputed that AIG offered the $25million settlement soon after jury deliberations began, an offer that was more than double the last offer made two days earlier.

“One can assume that the reason for this offer was fear that the jury might award the plaintiffs substantially more,” they say.

About an hour after receiving the offer, they say McNabola called AIG and accepted.

The hearing is slated to extend into Friday. On TV, they could wrap it up in under an hour.