Ted Wacker – Litigation Is a Civil War. Here’s How I Win

Voice Over (: 00:00:00

The most dangerous place you can be as a trial lawyer is to think you've got it figured out.

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I'm still trying to get better. I still have the passion for it. I believe in it. Everyone can learn to do what I do.

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And yet there's a group here that continues to get extraordinary verdicts. Trial Lawyers University is revolutionizing, educating lawyers to be better trial lawyers. It's been invaluable to me.

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Trail Lawyers University, where the Titans come to train. Produced and powered by LawPods.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:00:30

All right. So today we got Ted B. Wacker from the OC joining us today. So thanks for making the trip up to Hermosa, but let's get into it.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:00:39

Thank you for having me up at your beach

Dan Ambrose (: 00:00:41

House here in

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Hermosa. Yes.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:00:43

Love to do

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It.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:00:44

Well, I'm glad you're here. And so you are originally from Seattle. And so tell us though, when did you first get the inklings in this world to become a lawyer/trial lawyer?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:00:57

Yeah, so that's a little bit an interesting story. I grew up in Seattle, born and raised there. My dad was an attorney. He was from New York, went to Columbia, Ivy League, went to University of Washington Law School. He was an attorney back in the 50s and 60s before he became a judge. And I got to say, when I grew up, I really didn't think ... Some kids, when they see their dad as an attorney or judge, they want to do what he did. Initially, I didn't think that because I thought, wow, that's way too much schooling, way too much. The big books I could see behind his desk, his chambers, they were too thick and too big. I said, no, I don't want to do that. But as time went on and I went through undergrad and started thinking about really what I wanted to do, then all of those thoughts of his background and his life and how he helped people really made an impression on me that that's what I wanted to do.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:01:58

And your dad was a judge. And so how did that influence you? How old were you became a judge?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:02:08

I was about seven or eight. I think he ran for judge in 1973. I was born in 65, so about eight years old. And he had just settled as a plaintiff's attorney. They did a little bit of everything, family law and trust and estate and business and criminal defense. And he handled a personal injury case with this lady that got her leg blown off in the first ever Seattle Bastille's Day Parade. And so he represented her. At that time in 1971 or two, it was the largest personal injury settlement in the history of the city. So it was a whopping 500,000, which is nothing for these days. But it made a difference in this lady's life. And I remember going to her house as a young seven or eight-year-old kid on one of the islands, Bashin Island, I think, and having her after the settlement, host a dinner to thank my dad for representing her and giving a toast in with a glass of wine and saying, thank you for helping me and for now giving me the opportunity to get prosthetics that I can use to help my life.

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And I remembered that. I kind of forgot about it all those years until I got to law school when I started thinking about what I wanted to do in my career, and that memory came back for me.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:03:37

And so from Seattle, let's talk about college because you were a college athlete and soccer particularly. And how do you think the participation in college sports plays into the trial lawyering?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:03:56

Well, I think sports in general, it doesn't matter what sport it is, but sports in general give you a lot of foundation for a lot of things in your life. It's about teamwork, it's about camaraderie, it's about fighting for a common goal, and it's literally about a lot of discipline and hard work.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:04:16

And practice.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:04:17

And practice. And those are the things ... It's the times during sports, because I made it to a pretty high level. So I went on to be on the state championship team in Washington and the all- state team, and got a couple tryouts with a couple pro Teams right out of high school, Seattle and San Jose. And then I ended up going to San Diego State, which at that time when I went there, was ranked number two in the nation. And they had more players drafted professionally out of San Diego State than any other university in the country. And they were ranked number two in the nation. And my last year in 87, we were ranked number two, finished number two in the nation. So it was a great program, but it required a lot of, like you said, practice, hard work, discipline. There were many times along the way where you felt like quitting.

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And this is one thing my dad really taught me is about persistence, always sticking to it, don't give up. Kind of that Jim Valvano line, never give up. And so I kind of carried that with me and I never quit and I made it to the highest level of soccer. And a lot of those same kind of attributes that you learn playing sports kind of carry over into practicing law. And especially when it comes to litigation and doing personal injury, it's a war. It's a little civil war you're involved in in every case. And you got to know how to stick in there, never give up and keep fighting.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:05:55

And be strategic too. This is a war. You can't just hit your head against the wall. That's

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:05:59

True. And soccer like that, there's a lot of, in different sports, a lot of strategy about where you go and where you move and where you play the ball and who's going to be on your team and all these things that go into developing your team. I mean, San Diego State, I brought down the best players from my club team in Seattle to lead us to the number two in the nation team. And a lot of those same strategies apply now to opening up my own firm where you want to build a team and have some of the best players on your team to really fight these battles. So you have to be smart about it.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:06:43

Then after you get out of San Diego State, you decide to stay in San Diego for law school. And so in law school, did you participate in any moot court, mock trial, trial, ad program, stuff like that that maybe helps give you a little headstart in this trial lawyering world?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:07:03

Yeah. So when I was at San Diego State, I was a business major and I was a political science minor and my political science professor offered me the position to be the head TA as a junior in college. That was a big deal. And at that time when I was the head TA, he asked me what I wanted to do and I was still trying to field out, figure out what I wanted to do. And he said, "Have you ever thought about going to law school?" And it was really the first time in my life that somebody asked me that because he didn't know my family. I'm in San Diego. And I told him, "Well, I mean, professor, my dad was a judge. So I mean, I hadn't really thought about it, but it makes sense." So he's the one that looked at me like, "Are you crazy?

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Why haven't you thought about? You should be going to law school. This kind of fits your personality." So it was really my junior year of college that I thought maybe this is what I will do. And took the LSAT, stayed in San Diego for law school. Of course, my mom wanted me to come back to Seattle and go to University of Washington, but I kind of fell in love with San Diego and- Easy

Dan Ambrose (: 00:08:13

Place to fall in love with. Every time I go down there, I

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:08:16

Fall in love with it. How could you not? And so I decided, no, I'm going to stay in San Diego and kind of carve my own path. That was the other thing. I'm a very independent-minded person. I like to do my own thing and I didn't really want to go back to Seattle under my dad's ... He had made a name for himself as a judge, and so I kind of wanted to carve my own path. So I'm going to go to San Diego. And then in law school, I had to pay my own way. So my dad became a judge at a pretty young age when I was eight or nine. And so his income went down as judges do, and he was a judge for 30 years. And so when I went to law school, I had to pay my own way. So even after my first semester of law school, I started clerking for a small business litigation attorney.

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And then I was bartending first two nights a week and then three nights a week. And then I did do a mock trial and got a lot of accolades from the attorney who was acting as the judge and said that I had a lot of natural ability, natural talent, but that I needed to put more time and effort into it and more practice and more preparation. But then some strange circumstances then led me into a big plaintiff's firm, Casey Gary, which is the oldest, biggest plaintiff's firm in San Diego. And really, I was just looking to get a little bit more per hour. And I saw that they had a job posting on the USD job board for a law clerk for $14 an hour, and that was $2 more an hour than I was making. So I put my name in, sent my resume, and then their chief operating officer called me and said, "Hey, how would you like to come down and interview?

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Are you Ted Wacker?" And I said-

Dan Ambrose (: 00:10:11

That's the first thing I said to you when I first called you. I said, "Are you the Ted Wacker?" So this is not the first time, but you tell him you are the Ted Wacker.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:10:19

That's not the first time. But yeah, this office manager calls me and says, "Are you Ted Wacker?" And I said, "Yes." And he says, "Are you the Ted Wacker?" I said, "I think I'm the only one, as far as I know in the world, maybe there's a couple over in Germany or Austria, wherever history's from." And he said, "I'm your uncle." And I said, "I didn't even know I had an uncle." And he said, "Yeah, I'm your dad's stepbrother's wife's brother." And I said, "Wow, I didn't know. " And he said, "I've been following your soccer career in San Diego. And so I heard you were in law school. And when I got your resume come across my desk, I was shocked." So he invited me for an interview. And the first guy I interviewed there at that firm, their main trial attorney was the same guy that saw me in mock trial.

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He was our judge. And so that's what led to that first law clerk position at Casey Gary.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:11:13

And how long did you stay at Casey Gary for?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:11:16

So I was there starting my second semester of my first year of law school, which is a little bit unheard of that a lot of people don't even start clerking until after their second or even into their third year. But I started right away and I clerked for the different partners, but one of them was Mr. Gary. He was approaching age of retirement, but he was still practicing. And the first case that I worked on as a clerk was the Exxon Valdez oil spill case. So that was tVioxx he Exxon Valdez that, if you remember, was the case where the Exxon Valdez captain was maybe drunk

Voice Over (: 00:11:58

At

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:11:58

The helm and ran into an iceberg and basically 50 million gallons of oil spilled throughout the bay and ruined the livelihood of 30,000 fishermen that depended on that bay for their livelihood. And so it ruined their lives. And so Mr. Gary took on that case along with others, but that case went to trial in 1994 and resulted in a $5 billion verdict. And that was really one of the first cases I worked on as a young law clerk. And it kind of exposed me to what you can do as a plaintiff's attorney to help people. And that's really what I wanted to do.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:12:39

April 21st through 25th in Hermosa Beach, California, we're hosting a bootcamp where you will train in the fundamental skills of trial, witness prep and direct, cross-examination, performance skills, which are opening statement and closing argument and jury selection or voir dire, depending on where you live. We're going to focus on eye contact, voice control, emotional state control, hand and body movement, glance control, creating space amongst other skills. And then once you learn these skills, we're going to apply them to your case. So at the end of the day, it's an investment and a case expense. This program will fundamentally change your life. So when you get out of law school, where do you get your first job at? Is that Casey Gary?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:13:28

So I graduated from law school in 91. I wanted to work at Casey Gary as an attorney. And I got into my third year and they said, "Yeah, we don't really hire right out of law school. So why don't you go get your feet wet, you're green behind the ears, go get your feet wet, get some experience, get some trials under your belt, and then come and talk to us." So after I took the bar exam, I put my resume out there to get my feet wet and I started out doing defense work and I didn't want to do that. Insurance defense wasn't my cup of tea, wasn't my love, but I needed to get experience somehow. And you got bills to pay. And so I got bills to pay. So I moved up to Orange County to Newport Beach and I worked for a defense firm.

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And I guess the best part about that is that one thing defense firms offers, they have great training for young lawyers because it's kind of a pyramid. You have a hundred attorneys and you get a lot of training from a lot of different seasoned partners and they teach you how to do depositions really in a very formal way. And so I got, I think some of the best training for depositions, trials. I got probably in my first, I think three years there, I had maybe five trials, which at that age at that time was really unheard of to get that many trials under your belt. And then I transitioned to do medical malpractice defense, and I did that for a while at Carol Kelly & Trotter, which is one of the big medical malpractice defense firms here in-

Dan Ambrose (: 00:15:07

Dickie Carroll.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:15:08

Dicky Carroll. And so I worked with Mike Trotter and worked there for a number of years, but wasn't loving it. And I was always waiting for my right opportunity to do plaintiff's work. By this time, I've been in Orange County. I'm now married. My kids are just in diapers and I wanted to transition to a plaintiff's firm, but I didn't want to just go to anyone. And a friend of mine was working for an attorney who's kind of a legend in Orange County named Mark Robinson. And Mark was famous at an early age for trying the very first Ford Pinto exploding gas tank case, the Grimshaw case that we all learned about in product liability and law school. And I had actually met Mark when I was a law clerk at Casey Gary because he became of counsel down there. And so we talked and he asked me, "Do you want to come and do plaintiff's work?" I said, "Yeah, absolutely." Well, that was in 1998.

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And it took him about two years to make the decision to pull the trigger to hire me. So finally he called and hired me in 2000. I just jumped at the chance.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:16:26

And so you started out with Mark and how many years did spend with Mark Robinson?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:16:30

Yeah, I was with Mark for 12 years, became partner there. I started out because I'd come from a medical malpractice defense background. And so he kind of saw

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The translation there into doing a lot of the mass torts, the pharmaceutical litigation cases. I mean, a lot of those cases are very scientific, highly expert intensive, which is what I had done on the defense side. So I jumped in to lead up the firm's cases on the Reslin litigation that was a drug that was for diabetics that caused liver failure, and then eventually into the Vioxx litigation, which was a COX-2 inhibitor drug, a pain medication, but it was causing people heart attacks and strokes. And so in 2006, the FDA pulled that drug off the market, and then there ends up being like 40,000 people that were impacted by that drug. And we, Mark Robinson and the trial team that I was a part of tried really one of the first bellwether biocs trials in the multi-district litigation that was venued in New Orleans with Judge Eldon Fallen.

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And so we tried that in the summer of 2007 and got a $51 million verdict.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:17:58

And how was that experience though for you because it was down in New Orleans and you were a young father did it make it challenging?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:18:05

Yeah, no, it was extremely challenging in my personal life. Our client was from South Carolina. He is a retired FBI agent. So I spent a lot of time doing depositions and meeting with him and his wife and family and taking depositions of treating doctors and pharmaceutical sales reps for about six months in South Carolina. And then the trial was a month long in New Orleans. All great experience, incredible experience, to be honest. I mean, we did, I think, five or six focus groups on that trial alone, testing out different themes and different closing arguments. And then because I came from the scientific side, the medical malpractice, I was basically in charge of the trial team to handle the depositions of the defense cardiologist. So they had retained two cardiologists, both out of Texas. One was at Baylor University, the other one was at Austin, and that was my job to depose them and then cross-examine them at trial.

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And the first cardiologist that Merck retained out of Baylor, just on his background, I caught enough misrepresentations in his CV that they withdrew him after four hours of deposition. Then the second cardiologist that I deposed, I got him to admit that our client's chances before he took Biocs of having a heart attack was like 1%. So here's a guy that had a 1% chance of having a heart attack, goes on the drug for two years and has two heart attacks. So what are the odds of that? Now he went from a 1% chance to now we know he had two heart attacks, a hundred percent chance in two years. It had to be the drug. That was kind of the theme in that. And at the end, Merck, I was ready to cross-examine a trial and Bill Beck, their famous defense attorney that represented President George Bush in the hanging Chad lawsuit, tapped me on the shoulder and said, "We're not calling them." And so that was kind of my biggest kudos to myself was getting both of their cardiologists knocked out.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:20:22

The mass torch world, but being gone for seven months, did it make it difficult with having young kids?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:20:29

Yeah, no, it was extremely difficult. I still have a picture on my phone to this day that my wife sent me, which was a picture of my kids saying, "We miss you, " because they hadn't seen me for five, six months. And I printed that and posted it up in our war room in our hotel in New Orleans. But then after the big victory and the celebration, and once the party was over and I got back to Orange County, I told Mark that I think it was time that I sort of transitioned out of the mass tort world because that involves a lot of traveling all over the country. And it's not very healthy to be a dad and coach your kids sports when you're traveling a lot. So I transitioned to do more of the individual trials. And in 2006, I also joined OCTLA and I was working my way up that organization to become president of OCTLA, Orange County Trial Lawyers Association in 2015.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:21:32

It's a lot of years of service to ... I'm always so impressed with people that spend all this time in service because I know how much time it takes and how busy we are making a living and the rest of life and then to put another five hours a week into a charitable organization is a lot.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:21:50

It's a lot of time, 10 years of your life, a lot of committees. I enjoyed it. I mean, there's a lot of good that OCTLA and other organizations, CALA and COC do for plaintiff's attorneys and for the community. So I did enjoy it. It was a lot of time and to become president took a lot of time away from the kids. But by this time in 2007 after that trial, then I could focus more on the individual trials, the catastrophic injury cases where I have more of a chance to try those as myself. So got a couple big verdicts under my belt in 2010, an elder abuse case involving a morphine overdose where this lady suffered an anoxic brain injury and then we got a punitive damage finding. So on a case that the judge wanted us to accept 1.5 million to settle, we ended up getting it closer to 10 million after our verdict.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:22:56

Join me and my mentor, David Clark, May 27th through June 2nd in Huntington Beach, California for a dark arts bootcamp. This program will change your life. Dave will teach you about neural linguistic programming, conversational hypnosis, embedding stories in the unconscious mind. He changed my life and he'll change yours, and I'll coach you on your witness prep and direct, cross-examination, performance skills for opening statement and closing argument and voir dire. These days will change your life. Come for the bootcamp, stay for TLU Beach, the greatest conference ever. But before the verdict, before the trial, your team was going to accept the 1.5 million, but the defense wouldn't take it.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:23:44

Yeah. Well, in these elder abuse cases, one of the things that you have is if there's an elder abuse finding, even without punitive damage, you can bring a motion for attorney's fees. And it's the judge that has a lot of discretion whether to award those attorney's fees. And so we knew if the judge wanted us to take 1.5 million, we better at least demand it because otherwise our motion for attorney's fees might not be as successful. So we demanded the 1.5. A couple of the defendants paid 600,000. We just needed the other two defendants to pay the other 600,000 or whatever it was, 900,000, and they wouldn't do it. They said, no, we're going to try the case. So it was a two-month-long trial. They pulled out all the stops, claiming all these preexisting conditions of our client. She was bipolar. She was chronic fatigue.

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She was fibromyalgia. They tried to blame everything on her path.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:24:44

No way.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:24:45

Can

Dan Ambrose (: 00:24:46

You believe

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:24:46

That?

Dan Ambrose (: 00:24:46

No way.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:24:47

Can you believe

Dan Ambrose (: 00:24:48

That? Wow. Those are novel defense attorneys.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:24:50

A defense attorney that blames ... It wasn't what we did that caused the injury, but it was all her past.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:24:55

Everything else.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:24:57

So yeah, the verdict was 3.1 million, but it was a punitive damage finding and an elder abuse finding. So we had a motion for attorney's fees and then we settled it right before that hearing, before that next phase.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:25:11

And that one needs to be another real significant case.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:25:13

And then literally another month later, went to trial in a case where a prior attorney had demanded policy. It was only 25,000 our policy. State Farm didn't pay it because they were said that the driver was not insured or not listed under the policy, not realizing, I guess, that she was driving her parents' vehicle and the parents gave her permission, so she's a permissive user. Anyway, they didn't pay it. So it was an open policy and we tried that in Compton, Dan Robinson and I tried that one. It's Mark's son and got a $14.6 million verdict on a $25,000 policy that we settled after a bad faith lawsuit was filed. So yeah, with those two verdicts back to back, then it kind of made a little bit of a name for myself.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:26:04

It helps in this game. It's business have a little bit of a name. And then you eventually transition out of Mark Robinson and get an opportunity with Mike Alder.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:26:14

Yeah. So I had met Mike Alder, who I didn't know who Mike was, to be honest. He was up in LA. I was in Orange County, but- Right,

Dan Ambrose (: 00:26:23

Because you guys are almost the same age because I think him and I are the same age. I was just out of his vocation a few months ago out in New Orleans. And so that was a-

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:26:31

Yeah, Mike and our similar age, I have to say his career took off. He started his own firm at a young age after, I think, leaving Dave Harney's office maybe. But in the event, he had done really well, became president of Cala at a young age. And so other attorneys within OCLA introduced us and he wanted to open up an Orange County office in Newport. I kind of had, in a way, hit my head on the ceiling there at Robinson's office. And so there was a number of partners ahead of me, so I thought this was going to be a great opportunity to open up this Orange County office with Mike Alder and I did and it went for about a year and then it didn't for a number of reasons, I guess. But Mike decided to close up the Orange County office and retreat and move everything back to LA.

(: 00:27:24

And my kids were down in Orange County. They were going to Modern Day High School. I wasn't going to move to LA. So I decided at that point, what am I going to do?

Dan Ambrose (: 00:27:35

And anything you should do? Start your own firm.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:27:37

Maybe this is the time that I should start my own firm. So that's exactly what I did. I was scared out of my wits. I mean, I had a wife. I had three kids that were all going to Catholic school at umpteen thousand dollars a year. And so I thought, how in the heck am I going to do this? But thankfully, the firm that was referring my cases said they were going to refer them to me. And one thing led to another. But I started out in August of 2014. I like to tell the story. I started out with three cases and none of them were that great, and I just literally started in Mike Aldo's old copy room, just myself, one phone, one desktop and one printer and one scanner. And I remember starting out my firm and I remember doing a deposition and the attorney asked me, "Could I get a copy of this?

(: 00:28:34

" Whatever it was, he wanted to get a copy. And I looked around, I said, "I have no copy machine." I didn't tell him that. So I got creative. I went and I scanned the one document into my scanner, made it a PDF, and I went to the printer and I pushed print and I printed it as a PDF. And I said, "Here, here's your Xerox copy of that document you were looking for. " Never telling him that I really didn't have a Xerox copy. And

Dan Ambrose (: 00:29:00

Then eventually at your practice, your little brother, Doug Wacker, who I know pretty well because he did my bootcamp, the dark arts bootcamp a couple years ago out in Las Vegas. And so how does he end up just, because he was a criminal guy like I used to be, but then he transitioned obviously to civil.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:29:22

Yeah. So my younger brother, Doug, 14 years younger, he ended up going to UCLA. So he kind of followed me from Seattle down to Southern California, much smarter than I am, graduated UCLA in three years, honors English. He was a Marine Reserves, he became a Marine officer, and then he also decides to follow also my footsteps and goes to University of San Diego Law School. But then after law school, he moved back to Seattle where our dad had been a judge and became a criminal defense attorney up there after about seven, eight years, he and I were talking and he wanted to learn the personal injury practice and was asking me for maybe connections about other personal injury attorneys up in Seattle that I might know. And then that's when I said, "Well, rather than go work for somebody else, why don't we just open up an office and you can be the managing partner of our Seattle firm?" And so we did that and that was in about 2000 or 2021.

(: 00:30:31

So it's been five or six years.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:30:34

TLU Huntington Beach is going to be the greatest event of 2026. There's going to be four lecture tracks, eight workshop tracks with the top trial lawyers in the country. On Tuesday, June 2nd, there's going to be a golf outing and also a pickleball outing. That night we're going to have a dinner at the Lorea. We're going to buy it out so everybody gets a chance to meet each other beforehand. And then during the conference, of course, we do a full breakfast, full lunch and theme parties every night. This year we're going to be utilizing the pool area and the restaurant for more of the parties. And we're going to have an adult swim right one night, a Sacha Oliver party on Friday night. And the last theme party's going to be a 80s run DMC Adida jumpsuit. It's going to be the greatest. And last year we had over 800 people.

(: 00:31:20

This year it's going to be over a thousand. So if you want to be part of it all and you want to stay at the Pusello Hotel, don't delay because it sells out fast and then you're going to be in the overflow. Can't wait to see you there. TLU Beach.

(: 00:31:34

And Doug has really been focusing on Uber litigation because it's something that you're going to be teaching with your brother at TLU Beach June, 3rd through 6th. That's where also we're going to have the Ted be the first annual, see annual. I'm already committing you for next year.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:31:53

The TBW law firm, the

Dan Ambrose (: 00:31:54

Golf course. The Ted B. Wacker golf training. Very excited. But tell us about the Uber case that Doug's working on and because he's been working on it for how many years now? This one case?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:32:09

It's been going on for four years at least, maybe even, I think at least four.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:32:16

That's amazing, Tina. I mean, that's a short period. It's not that long a period of time for a civil case, but still, I mean, to be kind of like probably what, 30, 40, 50% of his time working this one case. Every time I talk to him, he's working on that case.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:32:29

Well, it's a monster job, first of all. Doug has been the primary attorney. It's really been a full-time job for the last four years. It's amazing when you go up against Uber, who's a company worth $195 billion. And then we also have a case against the background check company called Checker that's a huge company into its own right. And you're suing both of them. They each have two or three major defense law firms representing them. Then we represent the driver, Andrew Berger. He has three law firms representing him. So when you add it up, the defense side has about seven or eight defense law firms all doing everything they can to delay, defend, deny, everything.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:33:24

Defendants are ... Did Uber's doing that too?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:33:28

Can you believe it?

Dan Ambrose (: 00:33:28

What a playbook. We must have learned from others. So what happened in this Uber case that makes it different than others?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:33:36

Yeah. Well, I'll just share with you an interesting story about the beginning of it because the beginning of it was that the case was referred to us primarily because it wasn't known immediately that the driver or that the defendant driver worked for Uber. That wasn't known immediately. And initially, there was communications with his insurance company where they said he's only got a $50,000 policy. It's a wrongful death case. So he was driving double the legal limit, blew a one-six blood alcohol. He was also on Wipits, which are the little canisters of nitrous oxide that were found throughout his car.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:34:21

You didn't need to explain that to me, but go ahead.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:34:23

Yeah. Well, I didn't know what they were.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:34:26

I've been in college. Okay, go ahead.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:34:27

I didn't know what they were, so I had to look it up. But yeah, so he eventually pled guilty to double felony murder.

(: 00:34:35

But what came out in that was ... And initially the thought was, "Well, maybe his parents led him his car. Maybe there's a negligent entrustment case against his parents. Maybe we can get their $500,000 policy." And then as time went on, we realized, no, this guy was driving for Uber for Uber Eats and he was doing it in the course and scope for Uber Eats. There was no question. In his plea agreement, he signed a plea agreement where he admitted he was driving the courts and scope for Uber. He admitted that he was double the legal limit on Wipits and pled guilty to double felony murder.

(: 00:35:17

The sort of kicker in the case is that he had two prior DUIs on his record. So here's a guy with two prior DUIs that all you had to do was look up his DNB record, look up his criminal background check that any other company in the world would do before you hire somebody to be a driver, whether it's a taxi company, a trucking company, a FedEx driver, you're going to look at somebody's DMV record. Uber didn't do that. They never saw or never knew allegedly that he had two prior DUIs on his record. And so that's the case. Why would Uber Eats, who hires people to drive for them, hire somebody with two prior DUIs, knowing that the recidivism rate for somebody to have another DUI goes up exponentially. So why would you put the public at risk and hire somebody like that? And so they did, and that's a big part of our case is the two prior DUIs.

(: 00:36:23

And because they hired somebody with two prior DUIs, we have a claim for punitive damages because that's reckless disregard for the conscious and safety of others, which is the punitive standard. And we believe they violated that. And on top of that, well, they hired him. And then Uber outlines their typical defense in these cases, which is that Uber is just a rideshare app. They're just a technology company. They're not really in the business of travel and of delivering a rideshare service. They just claim that they're just a technology app and they say, "We don't even hire the drivers. They're independent contractors." And they went and passed a law. And California voters passed Proposition 22, which does say that the drivers are independent contractors, but the context of that Props 22 was they were independent contractors solely as it relates to whether Uber had to pay them overtime and work comp benefits.

(: 00:37:35

So really, Uber wanted to pass Prop 22 so they didn't have to pay overtime. So they didn't have to pay work comp benefits. They didn't have to pay health insurance. They could avoid all those laws that normal employers have. So it was really a benefit for them. And now they're trying to bootstrap that proposition to say, "In addition, we can't be held vicariously liable for the driver's negligence." Well, that wasn't part of Prop 22 law at all. On top of that, the law for vicarious liability is a lot broader. So vicarious liability means that the employer can be responsible for its employee or its independent contractor's negligence. And in addition to whether they're an independent contractor or employee, the courts also look at whether the employer controls what the employee does. And they totally, completely control what their drivers do because they're the ones that provide them the app.

(: 00:38:37

They're the ones that provide them where to go, who to pick up, when to be there, what food they're going to deliver. They control everything about that process. So to try to claim that they don't control the driver is frankly ludicrous. And how some judges have been hoodwinked by that. And Uber's won those summary judgments or Lyft is a mystery to me. But in our case, they filed the Prop 22 motion for summary judgment. We opposed it. Doug worked on that for three years. We also brought in Sharon Arken, who's a CAOC past president and writes a lot of the amicus briefs for CAOC and we opposed it. And after our opposition, when we got their reply brief, they withdrew it. They threw in the white flag and say we give up. So we're not even going to try to win that. And

Dan Ambrose (: 00:39:30

When's that case scheduled for trial?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:39:32

So the case, it's not currently set for trial. What happened was about three years ago, we brought a motion for preferential trial setting, which you can do in California. If you have a plaintiff under 14, which we did, or a plaintiff over 70, which we did, I still do. Or under this code provision, CCP37 says if any one of the defendants in the course of the accident is guilty of a felony, then you can get a preferential trial motion on that basis. Since Andrew Berger, the driver, pled guilty to a double felony murder, a felony, we get an automatic preferential trial. So we brought that three years ago. We had a trial date, but then Uber did what they do, delay, deny. They tried to quash any discovery that we wanted to do. They wouldn't produce a document. They wouldn't produce a witness for deposition.

(: 00:40:29

So we had to file motions on all these. Well, they knew that with our preferential trial date in four months, we wouldn't possibly be able to get all these motions heard in time. So they were basically just trying to run out the clock. That's what they tried to do. So we didn't have a choice.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:40:45

That's what they did.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:40:46

That's what they did.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:40:47

For that trial date.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:40:48

For that trial date. So then we had to pull that motion for preference for trial date, withdraw it just so we could get our discovery done. The court granted our withdrawal. Uber asked, "Do that with prejudice." We said, "No, Your Honor. We have the right to refile this. " The judge said, "No, you absolutely have the right to refile this after they play their discovery games," which they've been doing for the last three years. We've had, I don't even know, 20 or 30 discovery motions, protective orders, motions to seal. We have a discovery referee appointed.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:41:22

But the great news is that they've made you and Doug and your firm experts on Uber and prosecuting cases against them.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:41:29

I think we as a firm, and Doug in particular, has done more discovery of documents, of depositions, of PMK witnesses, of fighting their protective order, fighting their motion to seal than anybody else in the state or the country. I don't think there's anybody else that's done more than we have. And we're the only firm that's beat Uber on their Prop 22 motion where they've actually withdrawn it. So we've been contacted by a number of firms around the state to ask us for help with that. And we have helped many firms and we are helping. The one semi-glitch that we have in that process is that everything that we got served in discovery was

Voice Over (: 00:42:19

Under

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:42:19

A protective order. And they had to bring a motion to seal that, otherwise the judge was going to release all that information to the public. We won that. So now we're like, "Okay, now we can publish this to the world." They just filed an appeal, so now we're stuck again in this.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:42:40

Even with the limited stuff you could talk about, you and Doug are going to do a one-hour presentation, lecture-based presentation on Uber. So what is that going to encompass?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:42:51

Well, the vision for that, for the one-hour lecture, because we've been contacted by literally so many hundreds of firms about how do we get around this issue of the driver being an independent contractor? How in California do we get around Proposition 22? How in other states can we show that Uber is vicariously liable? And the important point of that is because on the cases in California around the country where there's significant injuries that are arguably more than their underlying million dollar policy and get into their coverage that goes into the hundreds of millions. And the only way to do that is to show that Uber is vicariously liable. Well, I wouldn't say that's the only way. That's the main way that you can do that. Primary way.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:43:46

Join us April 15th and 16th in Hermosa Beach, California at the TLU Beach House. We are doing a two-day witness prep and direct examination workshop. The witness prep will teach you not only how to get your clients to remember their stories, but to relive them, and then the direct examination so the jury just doesn't hear the story, but they experience it, they witness it. And this is right before Nick Raeley's Trial by Human in West Hollywood, April 17th through 19th. So come for the witness prep, stay for trial by human. We'll see you there. You and Doug are going to do a three-hour workshop that's going to be a little bit more interactive.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:44:30

Yeah. Then we're going to do a workshop that's going to be interactive. It's going to be getting people up to practice, and it's going to be a lot involving preparation for the deposition of the drivers, preparation for the witnesses, the Uber PMK depositions. We've taken all of them many times. We have a lot of them in our now inventory of depositions and also the preparation for cases where the driver that Uber hired, or it could be Lyft or any other rideshare company that they hire, they always use this company called Checker. And Checker is the primary background check company. We've done more depositions of Checker than anybody else in the country. So we will be able to share with all of the attorneys the roadmap of how to get through their protective orders, how to get through their discovery roadblocks, to get to the documents, to get to the key deponents, the key deposition questions that you have to ask in each case in order to survive summary judgment, in order to get to a trial.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:45:45

Because Uber started out seemed like a real great company, but it's kind of an evil company because they're trying to destroy our civil justice system here in California with their "victim bill of rights horseshit" that they're trying to pull over on the public here, but it's really put us in a position that we really have to come together and work together to defeat this thing. And we just did a bootcamp out in Big Sky at Nick Riley's place and we raised about $54,000 for the cause. And I know you and so many people have contributed a lot of money because it takes a lot of money to beat a billion dollar company. And the bootcamps I have going on for the rest of the year, people that come to them want their money, the tuition to go to the fight against Uber, then that's something we're going to do to help defeat that, help defeat that.

(: 00:46:38

And let me ask you about TLU Beach because you've been to TAU Beach before and you've been to a lot of conferences and I know you have because I see you at a lot of conferences around the country. And so in your experience, what makes TLU Beach different than other conferences you've attended?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:46:57

I think primarily the biggest difference at TLU offers more than any other conference really is the workshops, the interactive nature of TLU. So if you're practicing and you're just learning this area of personal injury or consumer rights, it's really helpful to get the practice. And what TLU offers with its workshops and even in the lecture series, it's very interactive. There's a lot of interaction between the ... And I've lectured there with Hate them on our verdict and it was very interactive, a lot of questions and answers. And I think that's different than most conferences that you attend where basically you go there, attend and you just sit there and take notes and listen to the speakers present, which is all extremely helpful. There's nothing wrong with that. It's all very helpful. But there's nothing like actually doing some of the hands-on work yourself. And that's what TLU offers more than any other conference really in the country that is that interactive workshop.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:48:11

And it'd be the only conference of the home country now hosting the first annual TBW golf tournament. And where's that going to be held at?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:48:21

So the TBW Golf Tournament is-

Dan Ambrose (: 00:48:24

Wednesday, June 3rd. So there's still room in it. So if you want to participate in that, you should get registered pretty soon.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:48:31

So yeah, the first annual TBW Law golf tournament will be at Monarch Beach down there in beautiful Dana Point, right in between Laguna Beach and San Clemente-

Dan Ambrose (: 00:48:45

On the ocean.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:48:46

... right on the ocean, maybe 20, 30 minute drive from the Huntington Beach conference location for TLU. So it's just a shuttle down, play some golf, get out there in the sun. It's going to be June, it's going to be beautiful weather, and you're going to be playing right on the ocean course. And I live down in Laguna. It's my home course. So one of the reasons I picked it is because it's right there and I know those guys and they're going to offer some great ... For the golfers and the players, it's going to be a lot of fun.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:49:27

I bet it's going to be.

(: 00:49:28

We're starting off the summer right, May 8th and 9th in Hermosa Beach, California at the TLU Beach House. We're doing a two-day witness prep and direct examination workshop. You will learn how to prepare your clients so they just don't remember their stories, but they relive them. And then we transition that to direct examination so the jury just doesn't hear the story, but they relive them, they experience them, they witness them. We'll see you there. Now, and also besides that though, at TLU on Tuesday night, June 2nd, we're doing a dinner party that's hosted by Voraj Bindra and Finch. And then the next day on the third, other than the golf tournament, we have workshops all day with fantastic trial lawyers like Ben Rabinowitz and Mike Kelly teaching expert cross and Philip Miller, Ed teaching advanced depositions. And then we also do a full breakfast and a full lunch for everybody with fantastic food for the entire time they're there.

(: 00:50:30

And don't forget, we have theme parties every night that are super fun with live music, food, food trucks and cocktails. And so those are other things that make a difference. Five lecture tracks, seven workshop tracks, best trial lawyers from all over the country coming and sharing are some of the other things that you felt ... I said what's the best? So if I said just generally not the best, you probably would've mentioned all those things and more.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:50:55

Well, I can say, yeah, TLU and Dan, what you've created here in terms of not just the educational benefits, the seminar, but the workshops, but look, this job that we all do is very hard. We all know it's stressful enough as it is. So sometimes it's kind of nice to be able to cut loose a little bit, and that is the nice thing about TLU and what Dan's created. He's not afraid to push the envelope and create these themes of parties that many other conferences that are a little bit more buttoned up and a little tight around the caller wouldn't do. So I like that about Dan and his conference that you like to have a little bit of fun too.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:51:44

Absolutely. Absolutely. And also, we also have a big law student initiative because I think it's really important because I think if somebody would've brought me to someplace like TLU when I was in law school, how different my life would've been because I was a criminal defense guy like your brother, but till I was 45 years old and Nick Raleigh, thank God, happened to me my roommate at the Trial Lawyers College. And that started this different journey, but that was back in 2005, but it wasn't until 2012 that I moved out to LA to pursue this new path, pursue this new path. But we're giving 20 law students scholarships. So if there's anybody that's a law student that's listening to this, because we just had an initial meeting today with some of the law students and some of them were like, "Ah, listen to your podcast." And so I was like, "That's great." But anybody that's coming to the conference, if you know a lawsuit in your area that's interested in becoming a plaintiff's lawyer, have them apply.

(: 00:52:42

And there's a strong likelihood that they'll come and they can be part of it and they get to do the workshops and meet all the lawyers. And it's so great when I hear people getting internships from this conference and just getting inspired too. So that's exciting stuff.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:52:59

Well, yeah. And we as a firm, we are very involved with the Orange County Trial Association I was president of. And I'll see also OC ABOTA, both of those organizations, Chapman Law School in Orange County. But through those two organizations, OCTLA and OCABOTA, our firm is one of the mentor firms for law students to come through our firm and other firms to learn about the plaintiff's side of the practice so they get exposure for that. I mean, these are opportunities that I didn't really have in that way. I mean, I got the exposure for getting a job there as a law clerk, but to have just be a law student and actually get a free mentorship like that and then be able to get exposure at a big conference like TLU and Huntington Beach, I think it's a great opportunity for any law student that's looking to get into the plaintiff's practice.

(: 00:53:59

I can't imagine where you would get better exposure from some of the best trial attorneys really around the country in one place over a few days in Huntington Beach and really get that exposure, really learn and see if this is an area of practice that you want to get involved in. So yeah, I would highly recommend that for any lawsuit.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:54:23

Great. And Ted, you're in the process of getting ready for trial. You started trial, what, Monday and where you started the trial at?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:54:30

So yeah, we have a trial that's set for Monday up in San Francisco. We represent our cases, Kanal versus Enterprise Rent-A-Car. We represent a young man who was 38 years old who immigrated here from Nepal due to some political asylum issues involving his country over there and came to the United States, as many immigrants do to pursue the American dream. He was helping support his family in Nepal, his wife and two kids that were 13 and 16 at the time. And he was working for, ironically, Uber Eats and he was driving a motor scooter. And when a manager for Enterprise Rent-A-Car made an illegal left turn right into him, threw him off his motorcycle, hit his head, suffered a brain injury, suffered internal bleeding to the point where he ended up suffering five brain strokes where the blood clots from the internal bleeding traveled to his brain and caused strokes.

(: 00:55:36

So it's like he went from being age 38 to 88 overnight and he just doesn't have cognitive function. He can't drive, he can't work, he can't think straight because he'll never work and never support his family. And so yeah, we're set for trial in that case. I mean, it's a massive case. They're fighting us on everything as defendants do, surprise, surprise. We have 24 experts in that case of various different expertise involving brain injuries and other orthopedic injuries. Accident reconstructions, we've got close to $2 million invest in that case. So it's a big-

Dan Ambrose (: 00:56:15

In cost? ...

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:56:16

Case, just in costs alone.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:56:18

That's amazing how much these things take to litigate.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:56:21

We've done five focus groups. We have probably $250,000 in just animations alone, accident reconstruction and injury animations. And the case is estimated to take between four to eight weeks. So we're starting on Monday up in San Francisco, hoping we get out. This case was set for trial a year ago, so this is about our third or fourth time we're answering ready. So hopefully it goes this time.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:56:47

Hopefully the odds are getting out increased a little bit with every time they put it off.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:56:51

But they keep on trying to sweeten the offer to hope that we take it and settle. So they've gone from a million to five million, and they were stuck at about 10 million for a while. Now they just came up to 15.75 million and we've-

Dan Ambrose (: 00:57:08

And where are you at?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:57:10

We're at 45 million.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:57:12

All right. We got a little bit of what ... We call that a chasm. Yes. Or a chasm. I can't read it out of the presentation. It's a separation though.

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:57:20

Potato, potato.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:57:22

Whatever. And so ...

Voice Over (: 00:57:24

I'm Orlando De Castroverde. I've been a subscriber to TLU You On Demand ever since the start. Anytime I listen to a particular episode that's relevant to a case that I'm working on right away, I'm sharing it with my team saying, "Hey, you got to listen to this. " If you want to be the best trial lawyer that you can be, sign up for TLU On Demand today.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:57:46

All right. Well, by the time we get to TLU Beach though, that case will be done. It will be done. Hopefully. So we could talk about that a little bit there too. And then let me ask you, you've been doing this for what, 30 years, more than that now?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:58:00

Yeah, 35 years,

Dan Ambrose (: 00:58:02

Something like that. So as you look back upon your career and all the things you've done, what would you say maybe what accomplishment are you most proud of?

Ted B. Wacker (: 00:58:14

Yeah, I feel like that's a question that people ask athletes or celebrities or something. But yeah, so kind of along the same lines, it's hard to answer that specifically because there are a lot of things that I've done in my career that I am proud of. But I would say at least the case that stands out the most in my mind is when I represented a young kid, Renee Hernandez. And Renee was a 23-year-old college student. He was also a soccer player like me. So we connected in that way, both being college soccer players. And he was involved in a horrible accident where he was hit his vehicle that was disabled on the 605 freeway was hit by a big rig. And the police report came out and put it all on his fault because they said he was speeding, going 125 miles per hour, hit a center divider.

(: 00:59:17

I was able to unwind all of that bad evidence against us and show that that wasn't true or that the defense couldn't prove that that was true. And that case meant a lot to me because here's a young kid that basically when he got to LA County USC, they told his family, "Just donate his organs, he's not going to make it. " And they had a decision to make. Do we just donate his organs and take them off life support or do we try to keep him alive? And they wanted to try. And sadly, ironically, his wife was delivering their second child in the same hospital where he was And so when you have all of that going on in one case, it just touches your heart more than you can even imagine. So you want to do everything you can for that family. And well, not only did the family fight for him, his life, they kept him on life support that he got off and eventually six months later he woke up out of the coma and he's alive to this day.

(: 01:00:24

And his family went around to, I think the mom said around 19 different law firms to represent them and nobody was willing to take the case because of the negative police report. And I took a chance after meeting him and after three or four years of litigation and proving things that the police reports said were true, that were not true, we ended up settling the case for just shy of $15 million. So it was life changing for him. We're still friends to this day. I still take him to soccer games. He loves Mexico. He loves Chiva soccer. So I give him tickets. I've taken to see Mexico at the Rose Bowl. I'm still friends with his family. I still keep in contact with him every year, so it's pretty amazing.

Dan Ambrose (: 01:01:19

It is great. So the connection you build with some of the folks that we represent, because it's back in Michigan, it's just criminal law, but still some cases that were like a murder case or a false

Voice Over (: 01:01:34

Accusation

Dan Ambrose (: 01:01:35

Of a sexual assault takes a year or two and the person's just so beyond themselves and you just live there. I mean, you live it with them, their fears and they just talk to you. And it's like you have to be so empathetic to understand in order to advocate for them.

Ted B. Wacker (: 01:01:53

I have to say just on that note, I mean doing what we do, it's very rewarding profession satisfying that you can help people really make a difference and change their lives. And he is certainly one example of that. I wanted to share also a story with my dad because I think I'd mentioned early on that he represented a lady that had her leg blown off in a parade and she toasted him and

(: 01:02:30

She would call my dad every year for 40 years and basically just tell him thank you. And literally the day he died, the day he died, she called. Now, I was eight years old. I didn't know her story. I didn't know she called, but she called the day my dad. She didn't know my dad died. It was just one of those coincidences in life. She called to tell my dad, thank you. And I answered the phone at my parents' house. And I just knew her as Ms. Shelly, because that was her first name, Shelly. It was Shelly's legal case.

Dan Ambrose (: 01:03:09

How old were you at this time?

Ted B. Wacker (: 01:03:10

This was 2003, so I don't know, 45 or something, 50. And so she calls and I thought she must have known my dad. She didn't know. And I had to tell her my dad passed away. And so she told me she was Ms. Shelley. She was calling from Florida and just wanted to thank my dad. And I told her that my dad had just passed that day. And anyway, she was in tears. But when you think about what we do that you can make a difference and change somebody's life like my dad had done for Ms. Shelley, and then I was able to do for Renee Hernandez. Yeah, it doesn't get any better.

Dan Ambrose (: 01:03:55

Where people that ... There's a lot of law students and younger lawyers. Everybody has this question like somebody says to you comes to my nephew, Harrison's two year lawyer. Or one of these law students that says, "Hey, Mr. Wacker, you've been pretty successful and pretty good at trial too. So I want to be a trial lawyer, but I don't really know how to go about doing it. " So what advice would you give to somebody listening to this that really wants to be a trial lawyer?

Ted B. Wacker (: 01:04:28

I think the number one piece of advice that I could give any young attorney that wants to be a trial attorney is to find a mentor, to find a place where you can actually get the practice. That means trying cases. So sometimes that means giving up a little bit in terms of maybe pay or maybe that means giving up a little bit in terms of time in your life. But the more cases that you can get trial in trial and practice your craft as a trial attorney, the better it's going to be in the long run. You're just going to be that much better. And there's no better teacher than actually practicing in the courtroom and getting that trial experience. You can go to conferences and learn a lot, but there's no better place to learn than actually getting the reps in trial.

Dan Ambrose (: 01:05:23

Well, Ted, that's a wrap. And I will see you in about 75 days or so. I don't think I've been pretty close to that in Huntington Beach, if not before, because I'll probably be down there in a little bit, in and out a little bit. So who knows?

Ted B. Wacker (: 01:05:39

Dan, thank you very much. Looking forward to TLU and Huntington Beach and the first annual TBW golf tournament.

Dan Ambrose (: 01:05:46

Be there. And if not, don't be a loser. Just be there.

Voice Over (: 01:05:51

Ready to train with the Titans and set records with your verdicts? Register for our live conferences and bootcamps at triallawyersuniversity.com. Start getting your reps in before the big event by going to tluondemand.com to gain instant access to live lectures, case analysis, and skills training videos from the trial lawyer champions you love and respect, as well as pleadings, transcripts, PowerPoints, and notes for a roadmap to victory. Join the group that continues to get extraordinary results. Trial Lawyers University, produced and powered by LawPods.