Case Overview

When a 16-year-old girl suffered a traumatic brain injury in a T-bone collision in Commerce City, Colorado, we knew her life had changed forever. Chronic post-traumatic headaches and migraines now defined her reality. What began as a seemingly straightforward liability case evolved into a complex battle for fair compensation, and one we were determined to win. After years of strategic work and fierce advocacy, we secured a $7.6 million verdict for our deserving client. 

Case Background

On a clear Friday afternoon in November 2019, our client was driving home from school when another driver pulled out into the road directly in front of her, causing a T-bone collision.  The impact from that collision was so severe that our client’s airbag deployed, and her face went into the airbag upon impact.

Our client complained of head and face pain at the scene. When her symptoms worsened that evening, she went to urgent care complaining of a persistent headache and vomiting. She was diagnosed with a closed head injury. Unfortunately, her headache and migraine symptoms never resolved. 

Our client thereafter consistently pursued treatment. For the next few years, she underwent physical therapy, chiropractic care, massage, injections, and regular visits to her primary care physician. Our client had no history of migraines or chronic headaches before this crash. Within a year of the crash, she was referred to neurology at the Children’s Hospital. After she reached the age of majority, she transitioned to adult neurological care at the UC Health, Anchutz Medical Campus.

Neurologists diagnosed our client with a chronic headache condition comprised of both migraine headache and cervicogenic headache. The neurologists agreed she would have this chronic headache condition for the rest of her life. After years of trying numerous medications and therapies, she finally found relief through VYEPTI—a cutting-edge preventative infusion medication she receives every 12 weeks at an infusion clinic. Her treating neurologist recommends continuing these VYEPTI injections, as well as trigger point injections and other migraine preventative and rescue medications, for the foreseeable future. This combination of medications does not cure our client’s chronic headache condition, but taking these medications together gives her enough relief and predictability to live her life productively.

Our Initial Strategy and Pre-Litigation Efforts

We came on board in late 2022—nearly three years after the accident, but well before the statute of limitations was set to run. From our first meeting with our client, we saw the full picture: a young woman whose life had been derailed, facing a lifetime of expensive treatment she could not get without just compensation from the at-fault driver.  

We immediately developed a proactive strategy. Rather than rushing to file a lawsuit, we invested significant time building an ironclad foundation of medical evidence. Our goal: show the liability insurer exactly why it needed to pay the full policy limit, and give that insurance company no room to say no.

At that time, our client was being treated by Dr. Danielle Wilhour, one of only a handful of headache specialists in the United States. We secured a comprehensive report from Dr. Wilhour pre-litigation, documenting both the permanent nature of our client’s condition and the need for a lifetime of expensive treatment, including the VYEPTI infusions.

We presented the liability insurer with a fully supported demand for policy limits. We documented tens of thousands of dollars in past medical treatment, millions of dollars in future medical treatment, and millions of dollars in non-economic and permanent impairment damages. Stunningly, the carrier refused to pay policy limits. Because that refusal ran so counter to the weight of the evidence, we knew this claim had to be litigated and tried by a jury. 

Our Litigation Approach

Our co-founders, Melissa and Liz, recognized this case’s potential from that very first consultation. With extensive experience in post-traumatic headache and migraine cases (Liz alone has handled over 10 similar cases primarily affecting young women), we understood the unique challenges of proving causation and damages in a case like this where the injury isn’t objectively provable, but is premised mainly on subjective pain complaints. 

When the liability carrier refused to pay fair compensation for the at-fault driver’s negligence, we leveraged our dual expertise in personal injury and insurance bad faith. After filing the lawsuit in 2023, we simultaneously:

• Pursued the personal injury claim against the at-fault driver
• Retained all experts necessary to prove our damages case
• Provided the liability carrier another chance to settle the claim and avoid trial
• Told the at-fault driver and her liability carrier that the driver was facing a serious risk of an excess verdict (a verdict above the policy limit)
• Encouraged the at-fault driver to retain personal counsel to protect her from her own insurance company’s unreasonable refusal to settle the claim
• Prepared the case for trial

Preparing for Trial

Our team employed a dual-expert approach. We engaged our client’s treating neurologist, Dr. Wilhour, to testify about current treatment and future needs, as well as an independent medical examiner, Dr. Allen Bowling. Dr. Bowling often testifies on behalf of the defense and is typically skeptical of headache cases. But after examining our client and reviewing her medical records, Dr. Bowling was convinced that her condition was both real and permanent. He agreed with all of Dr. Wilhour’s opinions and was willing to testify for our client at trial. 

Understanding that we could not show the jury an image of our client’s injury, we knew some jurors might be hesitant to award a big verdict. To fully understand the potential financial limits of a headache case, we hired a research specialist to conduct comprehensive jury research focused specifically on damages. This research revealed critical insights:

• Jurors became skeptical when economic damages exceeded $11 million
• We needed to address anticipated defenses head-on throughout the trial
• Strategic decisions were needed about which damages categories to pursue

Based on this research, we made the strategic decision to limit our overall damages to $11 million, including an economic damages request of just $7.1 million. That economic request covered only the two most essential treatments for our client (VYEPTI infusions and trigger point injections), not the full spectrum of prescribed medications and therapies. This creative approach gave the jury clear, defensible, and predictably reasonable numbers to consider. We’re excited to say our strategy worked.

Trial Execution

The trial took place in Adams County before Judge Pugh, lasting just 48 hours from jury selection through verdict. During the trial, our team employed key strategies:

• Jury Selection: We directly addressed potential jurors’ discomfort with large verdicts, asking whether they could award $11 million against a defendant they might like for an injury they could not see. Those who couldn’t were successfully removed from the jury.
• Expert Witnesses: Our client’s treating neurologist proved to be the jury’s favorite witness. As one of only 70 headache specialists in the country, the only specialized expert who testified at trial, she provided unmatched credibility about the severity and permanence of our client’s condition, as well as the need for future treatment.
• Normalizing Treatment Costs: Both the treating neurologist and a medical cost expert carefully walked the jury through why modern migraine treatment regimens are so expensive. They helped the jurors understand that our client’s recommended treatment wasn’t a luxury or even atypical – it is the standard care for severe chronic migraines.
• Challenging Gender Bias: When the defense suggested our client’s headaches might be unrelated to the crash because “women are more susceptible” to migraines, we didn’t get spooked. We trusted that this dismissive, stereotypical argument would backfire with our jury, and it did. Our jury panel included several clear-eyed, strong women who recognized this outdated thinking and dismissed this theory out of hand.

We asked for:

• $7.1 million in economic damages (past and future medical treatment)
• $435,000 in non-economic damages
• $3.5 million in permanent impairment damages

This approach gave jurors multiple ways to compensate our client while allowing them to choose the category that felt most appropriate.

The Verdict

The jury awarded $7.1 million in economic damages and approximately $500,000 in non-economic damages—totaling $7.6 million against the defendant. We were honored to spend almost an hour with the jury after the verdict was rendered. They told us they felt so confident that the treatment regimen recommended by Dr. Wilhour was the right fit for our client that the permanent impairment damages seemed unnecessary. In short, they felt that if our client could get the medicine she needed to control her headaches and migraines, she would go on to lead a full and productive life.

For our client, this verdict means financial security and future well-being. It means she can afford the treatment that gives her a good quality of life. It means she won’t spend her twenties, thirties, and beyond worrying about how to pay for the medication that keeps her debilitating migraines at bay.

For us, this case and trial experience reinforced why we do this work: to fight for young women whose injuries are dismissed, to stand up to insurance companies that put profits over people, and to bring justice to Coloradans dealing with unexpected tragedy.