The Speer Boulevard and Elitch Circle intersection on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. (Justin Wingerter/BusinessDen)
Five years after a man was struck by a catering van while crossing Speer Boulevard, two injury law firms are bickering in court over how to divide a jury’s $1.5 million judgment.
Steven Doig was lost, intoxicated and on his cell phone while crossing Speer at Elitch Circle just before 9 p.m. on Aug. 23, 2019. That’s when Stewart Malcolm, who was driving for Blue Note Catering, hit Doig with the front driver’s side of his Ford, according to court documents.
“I go unconscious, wake back up in the middle of the street thinking that I’m dying, and I see a whole bunch of cars coming my way,” Doig would later recall during a sworn deposition, “and I’m like, I’m going to get ran over again. I remember trying to crawl and crying.”
Malcolm did not stop but continued south down Speer; his attorneys later argued that he was unaware he had hit something. He was charged with and pleaded guilty to reckless driving and leaving the scene of an accident, which is a low-level felony, court records show.
Represented by attorney Erin Hogan with what was then called the Sawaya Law Firm, Doig sued Malcolm and Blue Note Catering in 2022. The case went to trial the following summer. A jury found that Doig was 45 percent responsible for the incident and the defendants were 55 percent responsible. Denver jurors awarded Doig $1.5 million as a result.
A Wilhite Law Firm billboard in Denver. (Facebook)
The Sawaya firm, which later changed its name to the Wilhite Law Firm, had signed a contingent fee agreement entitling it to 40 percent of the judgment, a common arrangement in personal injury cases. But that $600,000 is still sitting in a trust account, now the subject of a new legal dispute.
After winning the Doig trial, Hogan left the Wilhite firm for Ramos Law, a competitor, and Doig went with her. Hogan and Ramos filed only a few briefs, successfully defending the jury’s verdict against attempts to overturn it, but have kept the entire $600,000, Wilhite said.
The Wilhite firm claims that it spent $130,000 investigating and trying the case over three years and has only been reimbursed $104,000. It also thinks it deserves 99 percent of that $600,000 fee, or $594,000. It sued Ramos Law on Oct. 7 in hopes of persuading a judge of that.
“In light of the overwhelming amount of work performed by the Wilhite law firm, the amount of costs incurred, and the risk of not prevailing that the firm accepted and carried through the jury verdict, the…amount due to the Wilhite law firm is 99 percent,” it explained.
Randal Manning, the managing partner at Ramos Law, said this is a dispute between the Wilhite firm and Doig. He declined to say whether Ramos owes Wilhite money.
“Our position is that Ramos Law did work on Mr. Doig’s case, that Erin Hogan did a fantastic job representing him, and our firm did a fantastic job representing him. To the extent that (Doig) owes money to the Wilhite firm — I don’t know who he owes money to,” he said.
Manning said that Hogan is one of six Wilhite employees who recently joined Ramos Law, which he sees as a testament to his firm’s superiority over a major competitor.
“In my opinion, we’ve already prevailed in this dispute based on the people that we have at our law firm now, who are absolutely fantastic,” he said. “ … They let a lot of really good people walk out of their firm and I think that, from a business perspective, is their bigger mistake.”
The Speer Boulevard and Elitch Circle intersection on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. (Justin Wingerter/BusinessDen)
Five years after a man was struck by a catering van while crossing Speer Boulevard, two injury law firms are bickering in court over how to divide a jury’s $1.5 million judgment.
Steven Doig was lost, intoxicated and on his cell phone while crossing Speer at Elitch Circle just before 9 p.m. on Aug. 23, 2019. That’s when Stewart Malcolm, who was driving for Blue Note Catering, hit Doig with the front driver’s side of his Ford, according to court documents.
“I go unconscious, wake back up in the middle of the street thinking that I’m dying, and I see a whole bunch of cars coming my way,” Doig would later recall during a sworn deposition, “and I’m like, I’m going to get ran over again. I remember trying to crawl and crying.”
Malcolm did not stop but continued south down Speer; his attorneys later argued that he was unaware he had hit something. He was charged with and pleaded guilty to reckless driving and leaving the scene of an accident, which is a low-level felony, court records show.
Represented by attorney Erin Hogan with what was then called the Sawaya Law Firm, Doig sued Malcolm and Blue Note Catering in 2022. The case went to trial the following summer. A jury found that Doig was 45 percent responsible for the incident and the defendants were 55 percent responsible. Denver jurors awarded Doig $1.5 million as a result.
A Wilhite Law Firm billboard in Denver. (Facebook)
The Sawaya firm, which later changed its name to the Wilhite Law Firm, had signed a contingent fee agreement entitling it to 40 percent of the judgment, a common arrangement in personal injury cases. But that $600,000 is still sitting in a trust account, now the subject of a new legal dispute.
After winning the Doig trial, Hogan left the Wilhite firm for Ramos Law, a competitor, and Doig went with her. Hogan and Ramos filed only a few briefs, successfully defending the jury’s verdict against attempts to overturn it, but have kept the entire $600,000, Wilhite said.
The Wilhite firm claims that it spent $130,000 investigating and trying the case over three years and has only been reimbursed $104,000. It also thinks it deserves 99 percent of that $600,000 fee, or $594,000. It sued Ramos Law on Oct. 7 in hopes of persuading a judge of that.
“In light of the overwhelming amount of work performed by the Wilhite law firm, the amount of costs incurred, and the risk of not prevailing that the firm accepted and carried through the jury verdict, the…amount due to the Wilhite law firm is 99 percent,” it explained.
Randal Manning, the managing partner at Ramos Law, said this is a dispute between the Wilhite firm and Doig. He declined to say whether Ramos owes Wilhite money.
“Our position is that Ramos Law did work on Mr. Doig’s case, that Erin Hogan did a fantastic job representing him, and our firm did a fantastic job representing him. To the extent that (Doig) owes money to the Wilhite firm — I don’t know who he owes money to,” he said.
Manning said that Hogan is one of six Wilhite employees who recently joined Ramos Law, which he sees as a testament to his firm’s superiority over a major competitor.
“In my opinion, we’ve already prevailed in this dispute based on the people that we have at our law firm now, who are absolutely fantastic,” he said. “ … They let a lot of really good people walk out of their firm and I think that, from a business perspective, is their bigger mistake.”
