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ESTATE OF SHANE WOLFENDEN V. HUBERT, HILDERHOFF & G3 ENTERPRISES
Late on July night, G3 employee Hubert was having a party at his place some 25 miles distant from his employer. Hubert had driven home the company’s large gravel truck and pup trailer and parked it in front of his apartment. It was common for G3 employees to stay on the company premises after work and have several beers. After that, Todd Hubert would head home driving the large gravel truck and trailer and part it in front of his home. On the night in question, a party was held at Hubert’s apartment. Before the party was over, Shane’s life would end as a result of several poor decisions made by Hubert and Hubert’s Ted Hilderhoff.
The verdict in this case was substantial but was much less than others shown on our site. This case is noteworthy because of the legal difficulties it presented The Robert Pahlke Law Group—and that the team overcame them and made Shayne’s family as nearly whole as the law could muster.
The Facts
On that July night, Hubert and several of his friends are drinking through the night and into the following morning out in front of his apartment and adjacent to the parked company truck and trailer. At about 2:45 a.m., employee Hubert allowed Hilderhoff to drive the truck. Hilderhoff was unlicenced, unqualified, and impaired if not drunk. The truck, per company policy and common practice, was left with the keys in it.
When Hilderhoff started the truck, his claimed intention was to drive it around the block. As he pulled out of the lot, Hubert thought better of the permission previously granted Hilderhoff and jumped on the tongue of the pup-trailer and into the box of the trailer. Shane, almost instantly followed suit, for what had been represented to be a short trip around the block. Shortly thereafter Hilderhoff took a right on highway 97, crossed the railroad tracks. At the railroad crossing Shane was half in and half out of the trailer with Hubert holding on. Hubert let Shane go and Shane fell. Screams were heard 140 feet away, however, driver Hilderhoff and the guy standing on his running board heard nothing. Hilderhoff continued to Highway 2, took a right, and proceeded west. Shane fell but managed to hang onto the trailer until it had drug him to his death 1.3 miles down the highway.
The Legal Difficulties: Comparative Negligence and Assumption of Risk
When Shayne’s family brought the lawsuit, giving them justice in court was difficult because of two problems: comparative negligence and assumption of risk. With comparative negligence, if the plaintiff is partially at fault, he can only recover from the defendants for the amount of damage that they caused and none for the damage he caused. In our case, Shayne had been drinking, suggesting that his actions that night may have been partially negligent.
Assumption of risk is a legal doctrine that says if you knowingly decide to do a dangerous thing and you get injured doing it, your decision to do the activity waives your right to recover when you’re injured. For Shayne, he did decide to get on the trailer, a decision that the defense argued was an assumption of the risk of injury or death.
Dealing with the Comparative Negligence Argument: An Excerpt from Mr. Pahlke’s Closing Argument
Let’s take a look at Shayne. It’s [the defense’s] job to blame Shayne. It’s their job and they will. And I’m here to tell you I think he should be blamed too, to a degree.
| Bob’s Thoughts: Tell the truth. Only one thing has the ring of truth – the truth. Juries recognize when being told the truth and when they’re not. My client was partially at fault, and I knew we had to own up to the responsibility. The jury knew they heard the truth on that day and responded accordingly. |
In retrospect he shouldn’t have done it, but under the circumstances, what he knew was it was just around the block. It wasn’t some hell-bent-for-election trip to Whitman or whatever it was going to be…
It was a split second decision, he had no time to weigh the pros and cons of this. Defendant Hubert admits there was not enough time to decide if it was safe or not safe.
Dealing with the Assumption of Risk Argument: Another Excerpt
If the defense is going to argue assumption of the risk, which is really their asking for immunity for their actions, if the attorneys ask for that, I think you have to ask yourself in your heart and soul whether or not the actual defendants would even ask for that atrocious, harsh, unfair, unjustified remedy.
The driver said, “Just around the block, boys.” Shayne cannot know that this is a false statement. You cannot assume the risk of what you don’t know: 1.3 miles down Highway 2. This is unknown to Shayne. He did not know and he could not know. You can’t assume the risk that you don’t know about.
The Verdict
This case presented special difficulties for the plaintiff. In fact, the pre-trial polling research showed that the plaintiff was unlikely to win. Even still, when it counted, before a jury, Mr. Pahlke made the most of the Wolfenden family’s day in court. The jury returned a verdict $1.105M before reduction for contributory negligence. Afterwards, Shayne’s father signed the jury form and wrote, “When Bob Pahlke speaks, the jury listens!”
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