Plaintiff Steven Brown sued Estenson Logistics, LLC following his fall from a parked trailer while unloading merchandise at his job in Home Depot’s freight department. Brown claimed that Estenson’s driver had negligently parked the trailer he had delivered to Home Depot, leaving a one-foot gap between Home Depot’s freight dock and the back of the parked trailer. After an 11-day trial, the jury returned a verdict finding that Estenson had not been negligent.
Estenson retained Horvitz & Levy to defend the jury’s verdict. The Court of Appeal affirmed, rejecting Brown’s substantial-evidence challenge to the verdict. The court noted that Brown’s appeal had failed to set forth a full and complete accounting of the trial record, which contained abundant evidence from which the jury could have concluded that Estenson reasonably parked the trailer. To the extent Brown complained that the jury failed to credit the sole testifying expert’s view of the standard of care, the court explained that the jury was free to reject that evidence since no expert testimony was necessary to decide the case. Laypersons could readily understand Brown’s central theory of negligence.
Brown v. Estenson Logistics, LLC 
