Case type: Catastrophic personal injury — traumatic below the knee amputation
Production type: Day in the Life Video
Jurisdiction: State court, South
The client was a physically active man in his late thirties who had worked in manufacturing his entire adult life. A machinery malfunction resulted in a traumatic below the knee amputation of his dominant leg. By the time his attorney retained Colton Legal Media, the client had been fitted with a prosthetic limb and had made significant progress in rehabilitation. On paper, he appeared to be recovering well. That framing was the problem.
Defense counsel had characterized the case as one of successful adaptation. The client could walk. He could drive. The file suggested a man who had largely moved on. Andrew Colton spent a full production day documenting what moving on actually looked like — the hour-long process of fitting and adjusting the prosthetic each morning, the skin breakdown and pain that no medical record had adequately described, the moment the client stood at the edge of his backyard where he used to play with his children and simply could not participate the way he once had. His wife described what the first year looked like. His teenage son described what his father used to be able to do.
The Day in the Life video reframed the entire case. What defense had characterized as adaptation, the video documented as permanent, daily, exhausting management of a loss that never goes away. The case resolved at mediation for a figure significantly above the defense’s pre-video position.
What this production type is designed to do: Counter the narrative that an amputee who is ambulatory has “recovered.” Recovery and loss are not mutually exclusive. A Day in the Life video documents both — and forces defense decision-makers to confront what they have been choosing not to see.
To discuss a case confidentially, call 877-484-4611 or contact Andrew Colton here. Sample productions are available upon request to retained counsel.