Mr. Kerrigan and Mr. Ryan were enrolled as appellate counsel for a major insurance company after a Louisiana Court of Appeal overturned a jury's determination of $0 loss of future earning capacity and increased that award to $1.1 million. The defendants' sole option was to seek a writ of certiorari from the Louisiana Supreme Court. Mr. Kerrigan and Mr. Ryan successfully argued that the jury's determination of the amount, if any, of lost earning capacity is an issue of fact subject to the manifest error standard of review, and they showed that the jury's determination was supported by the evidence. The Louisiana Supreme Court agreed and found that the Court of Appeal inappropriately substituted its own judgment for the judgment of the trial court. The jury's verdict of "zero" was reinstated.
Marcus Ryan v. Custom Ecology, 988 So.2d 214 (La.2008).