After a 6 week Lewis County jury trial and 45 witnesses later, David Poore of Preg O’Donnell & Gillett, teaming with Bud Fallon of Fallon & McKinley, received a defense verdict in favor of the firms’ timber landowner client. The 17 plaintiffs alleged the firms’ client was negligent in the way it harvested its property on the mountainside above the plaintiffs’ properties and was responsible for the damage that occurred during a January 2009 storm. The jury of 12 deliberated for about 2 hours then returned a unanimous verdict finding the timber landowner client was not negligent in the way it harvested its property many years earlier. The case is a considerable victory for the countless timber landowners in Lewis County.
This is the third defense verdict of 2012 and the firm has its fourth case currently in trial. Lawyers at Preg O’Donnell & Gillett also tried seven cases to verdict in 2011 with six defense verdicts, and a total of 21 cases to verdict in the last three and a half years in five different venues with damages claimed as much as $25 million dollars.
The firm congratulates David, along with trial support from John Butler, paralegal Ray Cooper, and assistant Andrea Anthony, for achieving an excellent result!