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In this episode of Trial Lawyer Talk, John Naizby discusses the case of “Mary” who lost her two children and her fiancé during a tractor-trailer accident. He explains, “she was almost paralyzed with how she could interact, and she couldn’t move past where she was with respect to the pain that she was in.” He was impressed with the “dignity and grace that she was able to meet each day.”
Through reenactments, John got to know Mary and all her family members. He also got to know the truck driver and the trucking company. He tried the case by telling the story through the eyes of the deceased as well as the survivors.
About John Naizby
John Naizby of Naizby Law, https://naizbylaw.com/, is based in Connecticut. The firm has a proven track record and has achieved numerous, multi-million dollar verdicts. Naizby Law selects a small number of the most deserving cases and works with those who have experienced serious injuries or families who have lost a loved one and helps get to the truth of what happened and ensure accountability.
John Naizby’s Cancer Diagnosis and Insights
During this case, John was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. He said, “I was able to really reflect and appreciate, you know, how precious life is and I was so thankful at that time that I was going to have the opportunity to make sure everybody in my life that I cared about would truly know how I felt in the event that I was going to die.”
In terms of how he deals with fear, John said, “there’s a comfort in helping others and there’s a sense of purpose and I love what I do. I love helping people. I love speaking for people. I love making sure that they’re treated fair for what’s happened to them and I’m thankful to be able to keep doing that.”
John said the case made him “appreciate how precious time is. It’s made me really appreciate how fortunate I am both professionally and personally in that I’ve got a lovely family and I get to come home to them every day. And I get to do what I do and with respect to Mary and her situation. I feel really at peace with the fact that we were able to provide her with the type of financial resources that she will never have to worry about anything getting as good as she can get and getting to where she needs to be so she can carry on in life. And that to me is really one of the greatest gifts and one of the things that’s really touched me deeply with respect to the practice of law.”
Unfortunately, we lost an incredible person on July 15, 2020, when John passed away.
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Transcript of Episode 32, with John Naizby
Scott Glovsky:
Welcome to Trial Lawyer Talk. I’m Scott Glovsky and I’m your host for this podcast where we speak with some of the best trial lawyers in the United States. This is a storytelling podcast so we have great lawyers tell great stories from cases that had a profound impact on them. So let’s get started.
I’m very happy to be here today sitting across the table from a phenomenal lawyer, phenomenal human being and a dear, dear friend, John Naizby from Connecticut. John is a phenomenal trial lawyer who tries cases all over the country and has taught lawyers for many, many years and it’s my honor to be sitting with you John. Thanks for joining us.
John Naizby:
Scott, thanks so much for having me. It’s my pleasure to be here with you today.
Scott Glovsky:
John, can you share with us the story of a case that’s had a profound impact on you?
John Naizby:
Sure. Over the past 12 to 18 months, I’ve had the privilege of representing a young woman who was involved in a tractor-trailer crash where she lost her son, who was nine years old, and her daughter who was three, as well as her fiance. And she was left with a lot of challenges in life both emotionally and physically as a result of the wreck herself.
And she’s just such a remarkable human being who has literally had to pick up the pieces of her life and try to put some semblance of a life back together and I have so much respect for her and what she’s gone through and what she continues to go through on a daily basis.
Scott Glovsky:
How did you go about discovering the story of the case?
John Naizby:
Well, we were very fortunate. Early on the attorney that was representing, and we’ll use the name “Mary,” because I don’t know if she’d want people to know … She’s a very private person. We’ll use “Mary” as her name. And we got to meet Mary and we went to her apartment and we got to see where the children slept, the dirty clothes from her fiance that hadn’t been moved.
She was almost paralyzed with how she could interact and she couldn’t move past where she was with respect to the pain that she was in and you know the thing that I remember the most is that in the bathtub as you walked in, you could look into the tub and you could see all the toys of her three-year-old son, David, that were still in the tub and little potty-training seat that was there and the salamanders behind the refrigerator that belonged to her daughter, Samantha.
And just the struggle and what such dignity and grace that she was able to meet each day and we had the opportunity through her to meet her family and to learn who they were and what that relationship was for them as a family.
Scott Glovsky:
How did you go about doing that?
John Naizby:
We used what’s known as a reenactment, as I know you’re well aware, Scott. And we set some scenes of what their life was like together as a family and one scene that comes to mind that was so powerful for us to see was what their morning was like the day before they left. It was a typical Saturday morning at the Leary house and they were playing music and Mary, as she typically does, was in the kitchen making pancakes for the children and her fiancé, David, and she was cooking and you could smell the grits cooking in the kitchen and you could smell fresh bacon as it wafted through the living room and David was in bed still watching T.V. and their son was cuddled in with them and her daughter was also in the same bed getting ready to start the day.
They were gonna go apple picking and then they came out into the kitchen and they were eating breakfast and her favorite song by Bruno Mars came on the radio and she’s dancing with her fiancé and their little boy gets in between the two of them and dances cause he’s … “I wanna dance with mommy. I wanna dance with mommy.” And just to sit there and see the relationships that they had and how special that was to them was really helpful to understand at least a little bit of what her loss is.
Scott Glovsky:
And what is your connection to this story? How did you get connected?
John Naizby:
You know it’s hard not when you see somebody go through such a tragic, life-changing experience not to visualize your own family and how precious the time is. And she would always say to me, “You know, no matter what your kids do or say, cherish that time because you never know when it could be gone.” And it was very appropriate for her to share that with me because, during the course of my representation of her, I came down with cancer and it was … I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and through the process, I was able to really reflect and appreciate, you know, how precious life is and I was so thankful at that time that I was gonna have the opportunity to make sure everybody in my life that I cared about would truly know how I felt in the event that I was gonna die and I couldn’t help, but my heart breaks for her that she never had that opportunity with her children, although I know that they know and I know that they know everything that she did for them.
Scott Glovsky:
And as I look at you I can see your pain and your fear.
John Naizby:
Yeah. No, it’s a real fear. I mean the good news for me is, you know, I’m in remission and I’m on the other side of the cancer. It’s in the rear view mirror at this point but in reflection, you know, that was a real gift for me to have that experience because it allows me to know and really relate on a very small level of what that thought process is for somebody. Obviously, I’ll never, hopefully will never know what it’s like to experience the loss that she suffered and I’m certain I wouldn’t have the dignity and the grace to carry on and to make the differences that she’s made.
You know, for example, Scott, she’s the type of person who, on her daughter’s birthday, she asks her friends and associates and us, her legal team, to pay it forward, to just go out and do a random act of kindness for somebody else, maybe that’s buying somebody a coffee who’s behind you at Dunkin’ Donuts. Maybe that’s doing something extra nice for somebody that you work with on a daily basis, but those are the things that she wanted to do to honor the memory of her daughter.
Scott Glovsky:
John, how have you dealt with your fear? I mean obviously you faced death head on and how do you keep on with your practice, keep on giving so much to other people? How did you … How do you deal with that?
John Naizby:
You know there’s a comfort in helping others and there’s a sense of purpose and I love what I do. I love helping people. I love speaking for people. I love making sure that they’re treated fair for what’s happened to ’em and I’m thankful to be able to keep doing that.
Scott Glovsky:
John, how has this case impacted you?
John Naizby:
You know it’s touched me on a lot of different levels, Scott. It’s made me appreciate how precious time is and that how, due to no fault of our own or for unforeseen circumstances, all those things can change in a moment’s notice. It’s made me really appreciate how fortunate I am both professionally and personally in that I’ve got a lovely family and I get to come home to them every day and I get to do what I do and with respect to Mary and her situation, I feel really at peace with the fact that we were able to provide her with the type of financial resources that she will never have to worry about anything getting as good as she can get and getting to where she needs to be so she can carry on in life. And that to me is really one of the greatest gifts and one of the things that’s really touched me deeply with respect to the practice of law.
Scott Glovsky:
What do you want it to say on your tombstone?
John Naizby:
He cared.
Scott Glovsky:
What are the three most important things to you in life?
John Naizby:
To be of service, hope and compassion.
Scott Glovsky:
What are three things about you that you hide from other people?
John Naizby:
You know, I don’t know if I can really put my finger on three things that I hide from other people. I think I don’t like to be in the spotlight. I think I tease the people that I’m the closest with cause I care about ’em the most and that’s just my way. But I really don’t have anything else that comes to mind.
Scott Glovsky:
So when you approached Mary’s story, how were you preparing to tell the story?
John Naizby:
You know Scott it was really interesting and we spent a lot of time discovering what Mary’s story was and whose eyes we wanted to tell the story through and the different people that we wanted to tell it through. We wanted to tell it, you know, through the eyes of her three-year-old, through the eyes of her seven-year-old, through her eyes. We wanted to tell it through the eyes of the tractor-trailer driver who happened to be listening to a football game on a new satellite radio that he had installed in his truck and was distracted, was caught up in the emotion of the football game and never stepped on his brakes before he obliterated the car that they were in.
And in order for us to do that, we spent a lot of time learning who each of those people were and how profound the impact of the events that happened that day were on all of these people, even the company that employed the truck driver and the truck driver himself. And, you know, this was a life-altering experience, you know, nobody to the extent to what poor Mary is gonna live with for the rest of her life, but the other people have a lot of stuff that they’re gonna have to carry around for the rest of their life, too. And we wanted to understand that because we felt that it was really important to allow us to put the truth to Mary’s story through those people and through their eyes.
Scott Glovsky:
How else has this case affected you?
John Naizby:
I’ve heeded Mary’s advice and, you know, I try not to take my kids for granted. I try not to take my wife for granted. I try to be very thankful for all that I have and how fortunate I am to have the friends that I have, to know good people like you and what a privilege it is to be affiliated and work with lawyers like yourself and other lawyers who really care about what they’re doing and are willing to make sacrifices in order to really, really understand what their clients are going through and being able to be a conduit to tell that story so they can get onto a better place.
Scott Glovsky:
You’re a star trial lawyer and successful and, you know, you must not have any struggles or challenges or problems.
John Naizby:
And, as I know you know, we all struggle every day and I think when you stop struggling, you’ve really stopped living. I think part of being real and being a human being is … You know, everybody has their own struggles, often self-inflicted but if you can be in the moment and appreciate and feel everything that’s around you, I think you can be a better person. I think you can be a better lawyer, and I think you can be of better service to others and to yourself.
Scott Glovsky:
Do you think this concept of a struggle has to do with the trial of a lawsuit?
John Naizby:
Yeah, I think the trial of a lawsuit is a struggle. It’s the internal struggle of what the client has been through, what they continue to go through and how we can best provide them with some form of closure or self reflection that allows them to move forward. Obviously we don’t have the power to change what’s happened or to give them what they’ve lost. We can never give that back, but we can provide them with resources to move forward and to me the biggest gift is after, either it’s a trial, a mediation, an arbitration or a successful settlement that resolves the financial conflict, which is all that we can ask. We can’t ask for juries to give our clients back what they’ve lost. Their physical health. Their mental health … Is to see in the eyes of the client the sense of validation and relief that somebody listened, felt and understood what they lost.
Scott Glovsky:
John, I often get emails from young lawyers asking for advice on what they can do to grow as a lawyer and learn. What advice do you have for young lawyers out there?
John Naizby:
I think it’s really important as a young lawyer to take the time to explore who you are and to get in contact with a group of people who can help you accomplish that. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a certain set of lawyers because to some degree a certain set of lawyers could probably make you worse than you are before you started down the path to be a lawyer.
But you need to be again amongst like-minded people that are willing to go through the struggle to discover their story and to know who they are and to use that as the jumping off point so you can truly understand and appreciate who the people are that you’re gonna serve and why you’re serving those, your clients. And that’s truly the look that you’ll get in return from the clients. What you see in their face or the tears in their eyes, or the hug that you’ll get is the biggest reward that you’ll get and if you get that, you’ll be ahead of 75 to 80 percent of the other lawyers who practice law in the United States of America. And if there’s a few places you can go to do that, you can seek out lawyers like Scott. You know there’s a place called the Trial Lawyer’s College, which provides a learning experience on how to get there. And just be engaged in and never give up. Never quit. Never quit.
Scott Glovsky:
John, I wanna thank you for being with us today. I wanna thank you for being the friend that when I’m going through struggles, always seems to be there. There was always a text or call from you out of the blue when I need it and that is … I’m so grateful for that and to have friends like you who are real, who are there and who are loving and supportive and get you. I’m very, very appreciative and I’m so glad to be sitting here with you, looking at you happy and healthy and strong and listening to your wisdom and knowing that you’re continuing to do all the phenomenal things that you do for your clients, for your students, for your family, for your friends. So thank you so much for all of that, for being with us today.
John Naizby:
Thank you, Scott, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.
Scott Glovsky: Thank you.
Thank you for joining us today for Trial Lawyer Talk. If you like the show, I’d really appreciate if you could give us a good review iTunes and I’d love to get your feedback. You can reach me at www.scottglovsky.com That’s s-c-o-t-t-g-l-o-v-s-k-y dot com and I’d love to hear your feedback. You can also check out the book that I published called “Fighting Health Insurance Denials: A Primer for Lawyers,” that’s on Amazon. I put the book together based on 20 years of suing health insurance companies for denying medical care to people and it provides a general outline of how to fight health insurance denials. Have a great week and we’ll talk to you in the next episode.
