The Dirty Verdict · 2026-06-01 · 60 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
55 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Trey Barton, a Fort Bend County plaintiff's attorney, discusses his unconventional path into law - starting as a teacher in Houston ISD's special education program before attending South Texas College of Law at age 30. After clerking at the defense firm Johansson and Fairless and working with Mike McGee, Barton made the leap to solo practice in February 2020, opening his doors just before COVID-19 shutdowns. He describes the chaos of those early months: taking depositions from his upstairs bedroom while managing four kids at home, yelling at defense attorneys on Zoom calls, and losing internet bandwidth to his children's schooling. His firm has since grown to five attorneys total through referrals from other lawyers rather than marketing - primarily from attorneys at established defense firms. Barton credits his teaching background with patience that translates well to litigation, and his decision to go plaintiff-side came after observing strong defense work on both sides and realizing he could compete at that level. The episode offers insights into scaling a practice organically and the accidental timing of starting a solo firm during a pandemic.
Barton taught special education, math, science, and history at Victory Lakes Intermediate School in Clear Lake and later at Katy High School, where he also coached basketball and football. He worked as a teacher and coach for six years before entering law school at age 30.
Barton attended South Texas College of Law, graduating at age 33 after three years of study while working full-time as a law clerk - taking classes on Mondays and Wednesdays and working 40 hours a week.
Barton opened his solo practice on February 15, 2020, which proved disastrous timing as COVID-19 shutdowns began within weeks, forcing him to conduct depositions from his home's guest bedroom for several months.
Approximately 97% of Barton's referrals come directly from other attorneys, particularly from defense firms like Farah and Ball, rather than from SEO or marketing efforts.
Barton was inspired after Mike McGee lost a case to Kirk Kirksey and Jim Hart (a 12 million dollar verdict in August 2019 that was later overturned by the Supreme Court), which convinced him that strong plaintiff's work was achievable.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The first quarter of the episode is almost entirely social banter - LaGrange trivia, ZZ Top, the Chicken Ranch - before any substantive content emerges. When Trey does discuss cases, there are genuine tactical nuggets (per diem framing, door-opening on witness examination, managing subsequent accidents) but they are diluted heavily by tangential conversation and the signal-to-noise ratio for a B2B operator is low.
Did you bring the drugs for Bill and Pete?
I don't do my calculations based on hours or minutes. A lot of times it'll be seconds, because every second counts
The 'million dollar minutes' per diem framing is a genuinely distinctive way to personalize non-economic damages, and the admission of pre-existing conditions with a voluntary 50% reduction on that element shows real strategic creativity. However, most of the broader trial advice - build rapport with the jury, get witnesses to contradict prior depos, pick great clients - is standard plaintiff's attorney doctrine.
Some minutes are worth a million dollars, some minutes are worth a dollar... The minute when the police officer comes to your front door and knocks on the door and you melt into the porch, that's a million dollar minute by itself
I only going to ask you to award 50% of that amount because 50% of it is pre existing
Trey Barton is a genuine practitioner who opened a plaintiff's firm from scratch during COVID, grew it to five attorneys by referral, and tried cases to significant verdicts across multiple counties and fact patterns. He is not a thought-leader or career guest - he has actually done the work - but his profile is regional and his experience base, while solid, is not at the scale of a nationally recognised trial practitioner.
I went from, I guess from no cases to probably 50 in two months
Last year, six. Year before that, five
Verdict figures, policy limits, offer amounts, judge names, courtroom rules, and timeline specifics are all named concretely throughout the case discussions - $6.95M with $500K punitives, a $67,500 then $167K offer, a 1,000-lb lithotripsy machine, Judge Miller's 20-minute video deposition rule. The specificity is above average for a podcast interview, though it is concentrated only in the back half of the episode.
6,950,000... 500,000 was punitives... I asked for the 70 million in closing
They offered 67 5... Did a 167 offer
The hosts occasionally land a sharp functional question - asking how Trey argued pain and suffering to nearly $5M, pressing on the high-low structure, or probing growth strategy - but the episode is dominated by friendly banter and no claim Trey makes is ever challenged or stress-tested. The hosts frequently interrupt substantive answers with jokes, and there is no productive disagreement anywhere in the transcript.
How did you argue for the pain and suffering damages that got you almost 5 million bucks?
Was Fort Bend an intentional move? Like, I want to market to this group of people
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
In this episode of The Dirty Verdict , hosts Kyle Herbert, Peter Taaffe, and Bill Ogden sit down with trial attorney Trey Barton for a wide-ranging conversation about his path from teacher and coach to plaintiff's lawyer, opening his own firm right as COVID hit, and building a practice largely through attorney referrals. Trey walks through several recent verdicts, including a wrongful death/DWI case in Fayette County, a workplace foot-crush injury involving medical equipment, a commercial vehicle collision, and a bicycle injury case. Along the way, the group digs into trial strategy, jury selection, high-low agreements, damages arguments, corporate reps, deposition clips, and what makes a client's story
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Peter Taff: Lift off, take off.
Kyle: Let's do this.
Peter Taff: Welcome back to another edition of the Dirty Verdict podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Peter Taff, joined as always by caller.
Kyle: I love going first, baby. Let's do this.
Peter Taff: And Bill Ogden.
Bill Ogden: Hey, pleasure to be here. Pete and I are not on drugs this time yet.
Peter Taff: All right, well, we are joined by another great guest, a long time mediate mediation, uh, party of mine, Trey Barton. Thanks for coming, Trey. Thanks, Trey.
Kyle: Did you bring the drugs for Bill and Pete?
Trey Barton: No. Nope, I did not. No, they were already here when I got here.
Peter Taff: Kyle likes it. Yeah, that's right. Kyle likes to start things off on
Kyle: a. I just like to dive right in with both feet, you know, he
Bill Ogden: thinks everything's a roast.
Kyle: I'm here, I'm here to honor the veterans and I think we just go right up the beach. We're right after Memorial Day for those.
Peter Taff: That's right.
Kyle: Keeping score at.
Trey Barton: Huh.
Peter Taff: So Trey, uh, noted to me that we apparently don't bring Aggies on the show. And so we are, we're. We have a. We actually do one per year.
Trey Barton: One per year. I get to be the lucky one.
Kyle: Is that right? We do one a year.
Bill Ogden: M. I feel like we've had a few.
Kyle: I think we should do three a year to honor their points scored in the college playoff.
Bill Ogden: Ouch.
Peter Taff: Yeah, there you go.
Kyle: Hey, that is the kind of quick witted Aggie hate that you don't get with just any host. Yeah, like that's been stewing for a while.
Trey Barton: Yeah, no, I watched a couple of shows and everyone I watched was, uh, was a. A Longhorn. Yeah, I didn't get through the full years to be able to see the one per year.
Peter Taff: But you know, it's uh, meter, uh, 1, Busby, 2, 3 about it.
Bill Ogden: Buzby's been on twice.
Peter Taff: Yeah, that's right. Metzger's been on multiple times.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Trey Barton: And now we're in year four and I get to be number one.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, there you go.
Kyle: There are some other Aggies out there we could maybe have on. But it's to be fair, we've given the Baylor folks a fair shake. We've had a lot of Baylor folks. I don't you know how I feel about that.
Peter Taff: How about law school, Trey? Where'd you go?
Trey Barton: I went to South Texas. Yeah.
Peter Taff: Yeah, that's the dominant law school by far.
Kyle: That's a theme hands down for sure.
Peter Taff: Um, okay, well, Trey, you're originally from LaGrange, Texas.
Trey Barton: Banana LaGrange, Texas, born and raised.
Peter Taff: Which I think I Will highly commend lagrange. Um, I went. I saw Steve Warner with one of my oldest sons at the. Whatever county that is. What is it? County fair. Yeah, county fair. Yeah. And it was a very nice county fair. Everyone was very nice, and Steve Warner was great.
Kyle: I think the buffalo.
Trey Barton: No, Leopards.
Kyle: Gettings.
Trey Barton: Buffalo. Leopards. Yeah.
Kyle: Maybe, uh, the greatest ZZ Top song of all time.
Trey Barton: La Grange.
Kyle: Have you met those guys?
Trey Barton: Uh, actually, one of them lives down. I live out in Richmond and one lives down the street. Is it like.
Peter Taff: Not.
Trey Barton: Not down the street. Down the street.
Kyle: Is it Dusty Rhodes?
Trey Barton: No, it's a beard that doesn't have a beard.
Peter Taff: Oh, they drummer.
Kyle: Bummer.
Trey Barton: Yeah, I think.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Trey Barton: Well, yeah, Lagrange, the one named Beard, and he's the only one that doesn't have a beard.
Kyle: In any event, lagrange. Leopards.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Kyle: Solid stuff.
Peter Taff: Giddings.
Kyle: Buffalo.
Peter Taff: Yeah, There you go.
Kyle: I spent a night in Giddings, and I think Lagrange was the next town over.
Trey Barton: Yeah, it's about 20 minutes away. Yeah.
Peter Taff: Yeah. If you go 290 between Austin, Houston, you hit gettings. If you go 71. LaGrange.
Kyle: Oh, well, I was staying in Lagrange and on a pear farm.
Trey Barton: I think you'd have been 77.
Peter Taff: Yeah, 77 connection. There you go. Uh, it's a.
Kyle: Kind of a long story.
Bill Ogden: Wouldn't it be Orchard?
Peter Taff: You sure wasn't a Chicken Ranch.
Kyle: It was not. Was there slime in the ice machine?
Peter Taff: Yeah, uh, it could be.
Bill Ogden: Were there any small dogs do they make.
Kyle: Do they make lagrange jokes about the Chicken Ranch? If you grow up there, like, do you know, like, you grow up knowing that story?
Trey Barton: Oh, we know the story. Yeah. Yeah. It's a. It became a restaurant in Dallas. Like, they actually moved the building to Dallas.
Kyle: What?
Trey Barton: Yeah, that just.
Kyle: That just talks a lot about the heart and soul of Dallas, right? Corrupt.
Bill Ogden: What heart?
Kyle: Ugly. Corrupt.
Peter Taff: Was it?
Kyle: How far Contemptible humans.
Peter Taff: How far out of town was it
Trey Barton: if, you know, it was gone by the time I was born? I was born in 81, and it was. I think Zindler got rid of it in 76.
Kyle: Okay. Sorry, Yvette.
Bill Ogden: Thank God. Sorry, Mom. My mom watched.
Peter Taff: Kyle's got everything out of his system now.
Kyle: I'm out. I'm good.
Trey Barton: I'm okay. That's funny you say, because my mom's actually going to watch this episode.
Bill Ogden: 100%.
Kyle: What's your mom's name?
Trey Barton: Nani.
Kyle: Nani.
Trey Barton: Nani.
Kyle: Uh, that's a great Nani. We're looking Forward to, uh, interviewing your son. We'll be as gentle as we can be.
Bill Ogden: He's doing great. He's doing great.
Peter Taff: Now that Kyle's already dropped some offensive language. Yeah, did I. But all good. Okay.
Trey Barton: So.
Peter Taff: So Trey, um. So you moved to Lagrange at some point and then graduated from there and then went to A and M. Yeah,
Trey Barton: I was born in Lagrange, lived there in the same house my whole life, and then went to A and M and spent four years in a victory lap there.
Kyle: Nice.
Trey Barton: Moved to Houston, uh, to do student teaching. I taught at, ah, uh, Intermediate school in Clear Lake for a year and then I was at Katy High School.
Bill Ogden: Which intermediate school?
Trey Barton: Victory Lakes.
Kyle: Okay.
Trey Barton: Yeah. And then I was at Katy High School coaching basketball and teaching special ed for six years and then back to law school.
Kyle: What subject did you teach in middle school?
Trey Barton: Uh, it was, um, math, science and history on. I had sixth, seventh and eighth grade students that were on a second, third and fourth grade level.
Bill Ogden: Did you coach as well?
Trey Barton: I coach, yeah.
Bill Ogden: Because that's like the. Those are the classes that coaches usually do.
Trey Barton: Yeah. So I coached basketball and football in middle school and then just basketball.
Bill Ogden: Now I don't swat anyone with a paddle.
Trey Barton: I did not.
Bill Ogden: I was the last one in Deer park to get one.
Kyle: That doesn't surprise me even a little.
Bill Ogden: I was shout out to Coach McLaughlin. I learned a lot from it.
Kyle: So none of us here actually believe in science and we are, uh, find math contemptible. But history is a pretty cool topic.
Trey Barton: Yeah. Yeah, it was good. I mean, I had the. The ability to teach on a second, third and fourth grade level.
Kyle: That's. I mean that. That is really commendable work, to be honest. That, I mean, it really is pretty cool.
Peter Taff: So did you. So let's see. You're probably, what, by the time you start law school, you're about 28.
Trey Barton: I started at 30.
Peter Taff: Got, uh, it. Okay.
Trey Barton: I graduated at 33.
Kyle: Does. Did. Oh, sorry. Just say did. Educating people on a second or third grade level and like essentially a remedial rubric prepare you better to deal with judges and lawyers or law professors.
Trey Barton: It helps with my patience, for sure.
Kyle: I mean, I really do think that's got to be a pretty good lateral comparison.
Bill Ogden: I don't think that. I think all of the judges I've ever been in front of are amazing intellects.
Kyle: Yeah. Honest, smart and intelligent. But I mean, but you practice mostly in a different county, so I don't know if your experience is the same as mine. And bills there.
Peter Taff: It took Kyle like Five times. Asking a judge or telling a judge. Let me dumb it down for you. Finally, before he finally got the message. They don't know. That's not, that's not. You guys come up with another term.
Kyle: Judge. I'm not a smart man.
Peter Taff: Yeah. Uh, so what is there legal in your background, family background, or what made you decide to do it?
Trey Barton: So I was, uh, I was coaching and teaching and I was in year three and, um, I started calculating when I could retire. And I was like, it was age 52.
Bill Ogden: Oh, yeah, because it's like 80 years age plus.
Trey Barton: Yeah.
Bill Ogden: Years of service.
Trey Barton: Of service. And I was like, man, I don't want to spend the next 25 years counting down. And so I actually started taking MBA, uh, classes online while I was still coaching. And I realized I needed to go back and do it. And I was between getting my MBA or going to law school, and I actually chose going to law school planning to do real estate stuff. Then I got into law school and, uh.
Peter Taff: Like.
Kyle: Like real estate transactions?
Trey Barton: Yeah, real estate transactions.
Kyle: Do you have any back. Do you have any background in that or you just thought it'd be cool?
Bill Ogden: Yeah, I wanted to go into mergers and acquisitions. I didn't know what it was. It sounded cool.
Kyle: Yeah.
Bill Ogden: It turns out not cool.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Trey Barton: Yeah. But then I, I ended up doing. I ended up getting a. Clerking with a, uh, real estate firm and realized how boring it was. Then I clerked with a judge.
Kyle: What firm was it?
Trey Barton: I was at Varian Sewer.
Kyle: Interesting.
Trey Barton: A lot of evictions and stuff like that.
Kyle: Yeah.
Trey Barton: Okay. Um, then I clerked with Judge, uh, Elliott and Judge Shoemake and got to see some trials.
Kyle: Oh, cool.
Trey Barton: And I was like, yeah, that's what I want to do.
Bill Ogden: Judge Shoemake. Solid.
Peter Taff: Did you do, uh, my trial at something?
Trey Barton: I didn't. So I was, you know, got in at age 30. I was already married with two kids, so I was getting in. I got out in two and a half years.
Kyle: You couldn't spend every night up there practicing mock trial nonsense.
Bill Ogden: How's that conversation go with your wife? Like, hey, I don't think we're in enough debt and I don't really want to work for the next three years. Well, I'm going to work, but I'm not going to get paid for it.
Trey Barton: So I actually, uh, after I didn't work my first year, they wouldn't let us. But after my first year, I worked a full time job and took classes. I took classes on Monday and Wednesday, 18 hours of classes. And then worked 40 hours a week.
Bill Ogden: Well, if you want to unbox some of that trauma, now's the time.
Kyle: Well, welcome to our lazy conversation with Mr. Barton. Blah, blah, blah.
Peter Taff: So what were you working? A law firm. Those other.
Trey Barton: I worked at Varian Sewer for about a year and a half and then I got on at uh, Johansson and Fairless my last semester and clerked with them.
Kyle: So why do they only hire people from A and M and Texas Tech? Are they discriminating against the rest of the world?
Trey Barton: I mean, Johansson's, Baylor and. I don't know.
Bill Ogden: I uh, don't, uh.
Kyle: I'm just going to give a shout out to Chris Wolf. Yeah.
Trey Barton: Volvo, my favorite.
Kyle: Fearless. And Johansson Liar.
Bill Ogden: Is it Randy?
Trey Barton: Parallel Randy? Uh, yeah.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, I've had a case, a few, couple questions. Long time ago I haven't had. I haven't seen him in probably 10 years.
Kyle: I used to love calling Chris Wolf before he was a media. I say, chris, what's going on? He'd pick up the phone, he'd go ball. Hey, Chris, how you doing? What's up, Kyle?
Peter Taff: So funny. So, uh, yeah, so that was a good group. And it back at least when you started kind of Fort Bend, that was the defense insurance defense firm. Right. They had, you guys had most of the work in Fort Bend.
Trey Barton: Yeah, they had. I mean, I don't know that it was specific to Fort Bend. They had a bunch of big insurance companies. They still do. I mean they're still, they're still the same size now that they were when I was there.
Peter Taff: Mhm.
Trey Barton: I was there for five or six years.
Bill Ogden: As a lawyer or as a lawyer. Okay.
Kyle: Yeah. Do they make you buy the Bedazzle jeans before you start?
Bill Ogden: Yeah. Or can you m. Can you glue those on? Or you. How's that, how they go on?
Kyle: It sucks. You can't wear those to court anymore.
Trey Barton: Uh, anymore you're talking about.
Bill Ogden: I don't, I don't. But it's fun.
Kyle: Yeah. Well, I'm not going to say it.
Trey Barton: Yes, I was there. I was there for about five or six years. Then I went and worked for Mike McGee at Mahaffey Weber for about a year and a half and then I opened my firm in 2020.
Kyle: What made you decide to uh, go out on your own?
Trey Barton: That was always the plan. To be on the plaintiff side, open my own firm. I just wanted to learn some of the tricks before.
Bill Ogden: When did you get. When did you decide I want to be a plans attorney?
Trey Barton: Oh, I knew all along.
Bill Ogden: Even in law school or.
Trey Barton: No, in law school I was still thinking about real estate stuff until I made that change. And then being on A Funny Story, actually, I was clerking for Judge, uh, Elliott, and, uh, Johansson was there trying a plaintiff's case, and I thought he was a plaintiff's attorney. And so I started talking to Johansen. I'm like, hey, man, I'd like to come clerk at your firm. Is that. Oh, well, we're not taking on any clerks right now. And this was after. I guess this was after my first year. And, uh, so then I reached out to him again after my second year. I'm like, hey, you know, I live close. I'd like to come clerk. And, uh, he finally let me come out there, and then I realized it was a defense firm, and I was like, well, you know, give you a lot of good experience.
Kyle: Yeah, I mean, that's not a bad place to work.
Trey Barton: I took thousands of depots in the first few years, and, I mean, it was, you know, it was a good experience. A lot of good lawyers there. Got to learn a lot from.
Bill Ogden: Was there. Were there any lawyers there that you didn't like that you want to put on blast right now, but let's throw some names out.
Trey Barton: No, there's not.
Bill Ogden: All right, talk about it after.
Kyle: It's fine.
Peter Taff: Okay, so what made, you know, at the time, after the, uh, five or six years with Johansson, fearless, and then one and a half with Mike McGee.
Kyle: What.
Peter Taff: What was your mindset on? Okay, now I'm ready to go flip it over to open my own firm.
Trey Barton: You know, it was just. It just felt like the right time. You know, I, uh. I had seen a whole bunch of what I thought were really good defense attorneys, and really, one of the last. One of the last trials we had, and then McGee, which I look up to, McGee's really good attorney, uh, we got whacked by Kirker and. And Jim Hart.
Bill Ogden: Stable do that to you? Yeah.
Trey Barton: And, uh, now. And this was like August of 2019, and over the. Over Christmas verdict. Yeah. 12 million dollar verdict. It actually got overturned by the Supreme Court last year, though.
Peter Taff: Oh.
Bill Ogden: Shots fired. Steve.
Trey Barton: But was. Steve. Steve.
Bill Ogden: Steve was.
Trey Barton: It was. It was a, uh, a Williams.
Bill Ogden: Kirk, John A.
Trey Barton: He had already left, so I actually. I was talking to him, and I said, hey, that case is up on appeal.
Peter Taff: I thought.
Trey Barton: I guess it was after it got affirmed by the Court of Appeals. I said, I heard it got affirmed. He said, really? I didn't even know it was on appeal. Yeah. So. But, yeah, so I saw that. I mean, you know, I thought highly of Mike and I was like, well, if. If that can happen to Mike, I could do that to somebody. And so I, uh, decided over Christmas that year, talked to my wife. I was like, I think it's time. So I walked in into, uh, the office January 3rd. I said, hey, Mike, um, think I'm going to go open my own firm. He said, well, how long will you stay on? I said, well, you've been good to me. How long do you need me? And, uh, he's like, how about six weeks? I was like, sure. Gave me time to get everything set up.
Bill Ogden: That's short.
Trey Barton: And, uh, during six weeks, that six weeks is when the shit hit the fan with COVID Yeah.
Bill Ogden: I was going to say, oh, no, man.
Peter Taff: So what did you open the doors to?
Trey Barton: Trey Barton. Fifteenth.
Peter Taff: February 15th.
Kyle: So you missed it by a month.
Trey Barton: 2020.
Bill Ogden: Your poor wife. You're like, hey, you know how I'm kind of settled into a career, and we're just kind of living right now? I'm going to change it up a little bit. It's like when from high school, in
Kyle: a world where you can't meet with any defense lawyers.
Peter Taff: Right. Yeah.
Kyle: Right.
Peter Taff: So you, um. So you open the doors. Is it just you and just me?
Trey Barton: Just me. And I actually. I, uh, subleased a place, uh, from Barry and Seward. Uh, they gave me one office, and I was gonna pay rent. Rent to them. And then they had previously done some bankruptcy stuff, and they were like, uh, you know, this Covid stuff. We think bankruptcy is going to kick back up, so you can still use the office, but you can't have an office anymore. Like, you can have the conference room if you need it. I was like, okay, that's really all you need. Anyway, so I had it. I was working out of the guest room of my house, and you know where the kids are? Where the kids are at home because they can't go back to school. And I'm taking depositions up in an upstairs bedroom. They had this one contentious case. This was a little bit later. It's probably six months into it. I had a. Had a refinery, uh, case, and, you know, four defense attorneys. And I'm up there yelling at one of them on Zoom, and my kids are downstairs, and they're like, dad, what are you doing? Like, going crazy. And they're mad, too, because they.
Peter Taff: They had.
Trey Barton: Whenever I was on Zoom, they had to stay off the electronics because it was draining the Internet.
Bill Ogden: Oh, yeah. Pulling the broadband.
Peter Taff: Listen.
Trey Barton: Sitting just listening to me yell at somebody on Zoom. So I did that for, like, Six months. And then, uh, John Kovac reached out to me. He's got a place out in, uh, out in Richmond, and he had an open office. He was like, how you want to come?
Bill Ogden: John Kovac, younger guy. Yeah.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Trey Barton: So he.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, I went to law school with him. He married Courtney. Yeah, yeah, I know John. Good guy.
Trey Barton: Yeah. So he was. So he actually worked for McGee, the case that we tried against Kirker.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Trey Barton: It had been pending for seven years, and he actually worked it up.
Bill Ogden: Okay.
Trey Barton: He left and went to that firm. And then a few years later, I showed up, and it was still waiting to be tried. It had been sitting there. And then finally I started reviewing the depots, and I'm like. I look and I see it's Kovac. Like, Kovac.
Kyle: I've had, uh. I've had two cases against John Kovac as a defense lawyer.
Trey Barton: Okay.
Kyle: And I spoke to him, like, last week on the phone for the first time in, like, 10 years.
Trey Barton: Yeah.
Kyle: And he's like, I do, like, criminal work and plaintiff stuff now. And I was like, oh, really? I was like, how come we've had two cases together and you're always defending someone?
Trey Barton: Yeah, yeah, no, he doesn't do any.
Kyle: Well, he doesn't do that anymore.
Trey Barton: But a while ago, I think he
Kyle: was a Tucker, Taunton, Snyder and Slade for a long time, and I had a case against him.
Bill Ogden: There's so many firms I've never heard of. No offense to those guys.
Trey Barton: I don't.
Bill Ogden: I just never ran across him.
Kyle: That's where he did defense work.
Trey Barton: He was at Mahaffey Weber for a while.
Bill Ogden: What's he doing now?
Trey Barton: He does criminal work, and then he does. He has a plaintiff's docket, too.
Bill Ogden: Is he? Yeah. Okay.
Trey Barton: Yeah, he's one. He's one of the. I mean, he's well tied in from a criminal standpoint. He's.
Bill Ogden: Craig Priestmeyer is a good friend of mine. Judge Priestmeyer.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Trey Barton: If there's anybody that ever calls me with a criminal case in for Bend, I send them to him because I
Kyle: had the weirdest mediation of all time with John Kovac. I don't know if it's appropriate for the podcast, but it was extremely strange.
Bill Ogden: It's not.
Peter Taff: And Kyle thinks it's not appropriate for the podcast.
Bill Ogden: And if it's a mediation and it's not any questioning, then it's not.
Kyle: It had nothing to do with John. John was a prince of a human being and did a great job on the case, but he was working for a partner, and we had, like, an opening session and just, uh, to short circuit it, he. My client was, like, a former, like, Olympic swimmer who had been in a car wreck.
Bill Ogden: Humble brag.
Kyle: And I think the partner, he was pretty elderly, and he. I think he had developed, like, some strange feelings for the. For my client in the mediation.
Bill Ogden: And we had a homoerotic feeling.
Kyle: We had. No, I just want to clear it
Bill Ogden: up, because that's how you said it.
Kyle: My client was a FEMA former, like, Olympic swimmer.
Bill Ogden: Okay.
Kyle: And the partner showed up. We had a general session, and the partner was, like, saying lots of, like, very strange things, and, like. Like, I was like, okay, we're not going to do an opening session. We're just going to break this off. And Kovac was like, good call, good call. Let's. Let's split this up into different rooms. And I was like, what is going on? It was very strange.
Bill Ogden: So you live in Fort Bend county now?
Peter Taff: I do, yeah.
Bill Ogden: Uh, yeah. Nice.
Kyle: Yeah.
Peter Taff: So, Trey, how did you grow? Because now. How many lawyers do you have of,
Trey Barton: ah, me plus four.
Peter Taff: Oh, yeah. So how do you.
Trey Barton: I've got one that's, uh. I guess she just graduated, and she's studying for the bar right now. But if she passes the bar she's coming on to. Well, she's coming back on, and then she'll become a lawyer when she passes November 1st.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Kyle: Was Fort Bend an intentional move? Like, I want to market to this group of people. This is a good place for me to try cases. Or was it just where you lived?
Trey Barton: So I'm. I'm 97. Referral from other attorneys.
Kyle: Okay.
Trey Barton: I don't have a. I don't have a presence.
Bill Ogden: Who are these? I'd like to type them out. I'm always looking for sources.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Trey Barton: Yeah.
Kyle: So weirdly enough, they all come from Farah and Ball. I guess they don't trust their own associates to, uh, make any money.
Bill Ogden: That's what we do.
Trey Barton: That's what we do.
Peter Taff: Yeah. That's how you grew it. You just went around to the lawyers and said, I'm here if you.
Trey Barton: You know, the COVID thing, about five months into. Yeah, I say, I don't have it. I didn't do any real SEO for the first five months. I was doing SEO, trying to get cases in the door. And then about five months into it, I picked up a big referral source that started sending me a lot of volume, and I went, oh, switch from. I got to switch from acquisition to development, and I got a scale. Never going back to acquisition. Really, other than, you know, just a Little bit of SEO on a monthly basis. But, um. So, yeah, I mean, it went from, I guess from no cases to probably 50 in two months. I mean, from.
Peter Taff: From your.
Trey Barton: From month four to month six. Yeah, from zero to 50. And then after that, I was probably carrying about 120 cases by myself with a. With a paralegal for getting close to
Bill Ogden: malpractice for two years.
Trey Barton: Then I brought somebody on, and I brought another person on. Another person on. So now. Yeah, now we've got four. So it's, uh, it's been. I mean, it's been a smooth transition and growth. I've got some good people that work for me.
Peter Taff: Did you start kind of pitching to Houston lawyers like you're a four bend guy, or did you just say, I'll take whatever you got?
Trey Barton: No, I mean, I'm actually, you know, I've. I've got a Houston address, too. I'm. I'm Houston for Ben. We're all over.
Kyle: Where's your Houston address?
Trey Barton: We're out across. It was at, uh, 4151 Southwest Freeway, and then we just moved about a block now, so. So.
Kyle: So you're in my hood.
Trey Barton: I'm in your hood, but I don't take your people.
Kyle: Well, thanks for not stopping by and
Bill Ogden: saying next time you come into town, you need to check in.
Trey Barton: Yeah, I got you.
Peter Taff: You need.
Bill Ogden: You need to check in so that
Peter Taff: Kyle doesn't get your license.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, you got. Yeah, otherwise you got to pay taxes.
Kyle: I mean, I. I just don't understand. You seem like a reputable fellow, but I've never seen you at Graces or LTMPO or State of Grace or.
Bill Ogden: Well, hey, he's working. I. Well, I met him before this, and I forgotten, but I met him at the circle of Lone Star Circle. Lone Star Circle for ttla. So he.
Trey Barton: We had the, uh, legislative update.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, Kyle, he's bonafide.
Kyle: I was invited to that. I just couldn't. I'm. I am the current.
Bill Ogden: I don't think you get invited. I think you have to purchase that
Kyle: membership and somebody's about to get kicked out, Bill.
Bill Ogden: Oh, yeah, See, I'm talk. I'm calling Todd.
Trey Barton: You saw, I. I brought on three of my attorneys, like, months ago, and you're like, hey, next time I see. Next time you're at a TLA thing, look. Look me.
Kyle: Well, hey.
Trey Barton: Hey.
Bill Ogden: Here we are.
Kyle: It's a small world. Glad to have you.
Peter Taff: All right, so Trey, uh, has had some. At least four recent verdicts that, um, I'm aware of. Uh, I thought maybe you could share some.
Kyle: He's grinning. He's grinning so wide I can feel it in my ear.
Bill Ogden: Smells expensive one.
Peter Taff: So. Yeah, you don't always win everything, but
Kyle: for good ones, I want to hear about it.
Peter Taff: So Trey, which. Which order would you like to go? You had the one that was the. Was the death case that was in.
Kyle: Was it in Lagrange?
Trey Barton: Yeah, it was a fair county case. Happened in lagrange. Tried, uh, that one in December. I tried that one with, uh, Clint McGuire. So he was.
Bill Ogden: Why do I know that name? Clint McGuire.
Trey Barton: McGuire. Injury lawyer. Lawyers. He's uh, he's, um, would been without, uh, around Alton Todd a lot. He's out and.
Bill Ogden: Oh, that's. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's okay.
Trey Barton: Great trial attorney. So he was, ah, we. He had helped me out. We had another case down in, in, uh, Brazoria county where he, uh, was local counsel for me. And I was talking to him, I was like, hey, man, I've got this case coming up in, in Lagrange. Been dealing with it for, you know, three years. It's a wrongful death case. Dwi. Um, take a handle in a pro bono. Um, and the client, uh, super nice young lady, mid-30s, two young kids that are both autistic. 20, um, five year old kid crosses over the center stripe and kills her husband. She didn't get her day in court in the criminal case because he put out. Never got to, you know, look him in the eye or anything, which as it turned out, didn't that trial either because he didn't come. He was his, uh, attorney. Decided not to get a bench warrant and bring him there.
Bill Ogden: But can't you do that though?
Trey Barton: I could, uh, we played him by video.
Bill Ogden: I got you.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Bill Ogden: Oh, okay.
Trey Barton: Played him by video. Okay. So I. Crazy thing that, you know, the. Everything happens and he didn't go to prison until about a year and a half after the wreck, but about. He got sentenced a year after the wreck and they, and they gave him six more months because he had an unrelated, uh, knee injury that he had to have surgery for and they didn't. The, the state didn't want to pay for it. So he got to stay out of prison for six more months. But in any event, um, interesting situation being from Lagrange and trying to case in Lagrange. And um, was talking to the judge and I was like, you know, there have been any big verdicts come out of here. He's like, we haven't had a personal injury verdict in 20 years. Uh, there's not been a verdict, not been a case tried to a jury in Fayette county on a personal injury case in 20 years.
Bill Ogden: To be fair, I'm going out of my way to try and find a different m. Venue.
Kyle: That sounds like a real efficient administration of justice.
Bill Ogden: How many people? How many. So you were born and raised there. How many people during jury selection did you know?
Trey Barton: So, funny thing. So we're getting ready to try the case on Monday. The. The clerk sends us a list of 200 people that they've called for for, uh, Vordire and.
Bill Ogden: 200.
Trey Barton: 200. Yeah.
Kyle: And you had dated 198 of them and broke up with each one on Valentine's Day.
Trey Barton: There. There were some people on the panel that I knew, but. But, uh. And there were some people on the panel that I had to get rid of because they knew me, but.
Bill Ogden: So we get. Never had that problem.
Trey Barton: A list of 200. And it's crazy. You know, most. Most trials, you're sitting there doing vortire, and you say, does anybody know me? And nobody raises their hand. Nobody knows anybody.
Kyle: Does anybody here know me except for you? Bridget, calm down.
Trey Barton: So. So we get the list of 200 people, and, you know, I probably know 50 of them. And then come Monday, the ones that show up, it was like 105 showed up, and I was like, okay, 105 show. If he does his excuses first, gets rid of another 20, and we've got, like, 85 on the panel.
Kyle: Um, that's a big panel.
Trey Barton: It's a big panel. It's a big panel. But so I'm, um. You know, just right off the bat, you know, we're going through the who knows me, who knows my client, and you've got 30 people raising their hands. Yeah, I've got my middle school counselor on the panel at the Striker.
Peter Taff: That's.
Kyle: Yeah, I would say that's not good.
Trey Barton: Um, yeah, there was. I mean, people. I mean, my family's. My family's pretty well known there. They run. My family runs the newspaper in La Grange.
Bill Ogden: Oh.
Trey Barton: Yeah, we've been out in the community.
Kyle: Little yellow dog press to help me out.
Trey Barton: Yeah, so we, uh. We've been in the community. My. My grandfather bought it in 1976, the year after Zindler. Oh, really good time to buy to do with it.
Peter Taff: Sure.
Bill Ogden: Hey, whatever you say.
Kyle: Whose family did not shut down the chicken ranch needs your help.
Trey Barton: Right. So, um, yeah, so there's all kinds of people that know me and that know my client. We had it. We had A guy on the panel that was one of the first responders to the wreck.
Bill Ogden: No, there's a witness.
Trey Barton: Yeah. He said, he said, I, I would like to be excused from this trial because I can't live it again.
Peter Taff: It was like in front of.
Kyle: Did you say that louder for the rest of the panel?
Bill Ogden: Sorry, sir, can you hold your number up and say that again?
Trey Barton: Well, before we got into all that stuff, we started, we started with, uh, the non economic damages, mental anguish and could you allow damages for pain and suffering?
Kyle: Yeah.
Trey Barton: And, and not with them not knowing anything about the case. Not even knowing. Not even knowing if it's a fender bender or what. Not knowing the death case. And we had people on the panel flip, like they started off saying, no, we couldn't do that.
Kyle: Can do.
Bill Ogden: What's this dwi. And it's like, yeah, numbers go down.
Trey Barton: Yeah. And then, yeah, there was two, there was two jurors that they were, they raised. You know, at the end you're like, anybody have anything you want to tell us that you haven't told us yet? And they raise their hand. We want to change our answer. We, we can allow.
Bill Ogden: God, that's a tough spot for a defense attorney. You're like, I got green lights and red lights on the same people.
Trey Barton: Right.
Peter Taff: Would they find out more about the cases? Bordeaux was going on.
Trey Barton: Just a few issues.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Trey Barton: I mean, not, not anything specific, but, you know, we board iron. Because you allow, uh, could you allow someone to have a judgment against them if they've already served their time? You know, that's a good question. Punishment. Yeah, it's a good question. So we were getting all that out there, you know, if somebody had, had. And we had to talk, we talked about dwi. There was this one guy that, that said. When, uh, I was talking to him and you know, he's smiling as big as. You can tell me, you know, tell me how you feel about personal injury attorneys. He says, I just hate ambulance chasers.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Trey Barton: And that's. Well, thank you very much for sharing. Anybody else feel that way? And you get a few kids come up. Well, then we get into the DWI stuff and, uh, that same guy, he's over there, he's raising his hand, he's raising his tray, I recall. And he said, yes, sir. What do you, what would you like to say? He said, the only thing that I hate more than personal injury attorneys is drunk drivers.
Bill Ogden: Anybody feel the same?
Trey Barton: Anybody feel the same way? Or so.
Kyle: Uh, that's great.
Trey Barton: Yeah. So we, uh, I mean, we seated a good Jury. It was very diverse. Much, um, more diverse than we anticipated. Just both age, race, education level. It was good.
Bill Ogden: You have like a blown Stowers issue or you just wanted to give her her day in trial.
Trey Barton: So she wanted her day in trial.
Bill Ogden: Okay.
Trey Barton: Yeah. So.
Kyle: So no matter what they offered, she was going to trial.
Bill Ogden: They probably interplayed it into the.
Trey Barton: I mean, they had. They had tendered before I got involved.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, I knew that was.
Trey Barton: So it wasn't accepted. She didn't accept it, but it had been tendered. So there was a defense there. There was defense attorney just like it was live.
Bill Ogden: I've tried one of those. He's has the easiest job in the world. He's like, light me up. I'm good.
Trey Barton: So, yeah, so we, uh, you know, and we tried it as a celebration
Bill Ogden: of life, for sure.
Trey Barton: It was a, uh, you know, we're going to bring in all this great stuff about who this great. It was effectively their opportunity to get closure.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Trey Barton: And so at the end of the day, they got their closure. They got to feel good about people hearing their story and understanding their pain. And so it was, uh, it was probably one of the most fulfilling experiences I've had.
Kyle: So how big was the verdict?
Trey Barton: 6,950,000.
Kyle: Nice.
Peter Taff: What was it? Go ahead, sir.
Trey Barton: 500, I think it was. 500,000 was punitives, which we. So we asked for. I think I asked for. So I did Vordire, Clint did opening, and then we split up the witnesses. I did closing. Clint argued or asked for, told him we were going to ask for 70 million in opening, and then I asked for the 70 million in closing. And I think we asked for, uh, $33 for punitives because it was 33 minutes before he called 911 or something like that. And so, um. And so you gave us 500k for
Bill Ogden: punitives, but the AV is 6. 6.4.
Trey Barton: 50,000. Yeah.
Bill Ogden: So they. They still remind you we're still in Fayette county, right?
Peter Taff: Yeah, for sure. For sure. What was the defense like?
Bill Ogden: How do you defend that if your client's in prison?
Trey Barton: I mean, he's, uh, he's from the beginning, even in Bordeaux. You know, I'm, um. You know, I'm going to. I'm going to tell you it's our fault and, and, you know, we're sorry. And, you know, basically it was trying to minimize. Minimize here and there. It wasn't, you know, his argument. He was saying, you know, we couldn't do the per diem arguments and stuff to get the numbers like that. That was the argument to the judge, not to the jury. But. And ultimately he was, he was saying, we need a workable solution. This needs to be a workable solution. Something that he could pay off in his lifetime and the average person makes whatever and he's gonna have a felony and he's not gonna make that much money.
Bill Ogden: I think he argued kind of a good defense.
Trey Barton: He argued for like four or five hundred thousand dollars.
Bill Ogden: That's not, he's, who's a defense lawyer. That's a smart defense to say that and then still offer half a million.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Bill Ogden: You know, have millions, a lot of money, a lot of people.
Kyle: I mean, it sure sounds like he's making a improper argument with regard to asking you to be sympathetic based your, your verdict off of sympathy.
Bill Ogden: Agreed. But sounds. It's effective.
Peter Taff: It's also a good strategy because there's not going to be an appeal. Right, right. So, I mean, why not?
Kyle: Yeah, Well, I mean, it's all, I mean, how much was the policy?
Trey Barton: 50,000.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Trey Barton: So.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Kyle: So it's all monopoly, so just swing for the fences.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Kyle: Has Bill told you about his negligent, uh, discharge of a firearm case?
Bill Ogden: Yeah, it was a murder. It was a murder, but I planned as a negligent discharge of firearm within
Kyle: city limits into another person.
Bill Ogden: And I went, we lost on appeal. And they said, bill, that's bad law. And I said, that's fair, you know, and it's a real niche market. Um, I asked for 50 million, jury gave me 70 million. That was in Harris County.
Kyle: Okay, so in a situation like that, do they just give you the 50,000 bucks and you just leave the judge,
Bill Ogden: they plead into the court?
Trey Barton: No, no. So they, after the, after the, uh, verdict. Yeah, they issued the.
Bill Ogden: Usually their adjuster will be there appeal.
Trey Barton: But so the, the thing is, the attorney on the other side has to continue representing his client until he gets released by the insurance company. He's got to be able to give him notice that he's about to be released. So he actually filed motion for new trial and claiming he was going to file an appeal. Um, but then the money was paid and once it was kind of a delay too, because the check went directly to the client. And, uh, I was like, you need to cash the check so that he can get released from the defense. So file and appeal.
Kyle: Yeah.
Trey Barton: And so she finally got around to cash in the check. And so then, you know, a couple of weeks later, he withdrew.
Bill Ogden: And you took no fee on that?
Trey Barton: I took no fee.
Peter Taff: Good for you.
Trey Barton: Yeah, so.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Trey Barton: So both the. So she had 50, uh, K and U. I am, and 50 in the underlying. And both of those had been tendered before I got involved. And I actually. I took it on initially thinking it might be a germ shop case.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Trey Barton: And then turns out he was at a baby shower, and so it was social.
Kyle: I never get invited to cool baby showers.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, Kyle, I, uh, know why that's a purposeful non invite.
Kyle: Don't. We're. I mean, Bill Cosby.
Bill Ogden: I don't know. I thought there was gonna be. I thought there'd be more showering.
Kyle: When are we doing the gender review?
Bill Ogden: She hasn't even had a baby yet.
Kyle: You know what I'm talking about.
Bill Ogden: This is misleading.
Kyle: Gender reveal.
Peter Taff: Uh, okay, second one. Let's go with the, uh, one we're not mentioning names. Where you had a client who was run over in an operating, uh, room. Her foot was run over by a large piece of medical equipment by one of the techs.
Trey Barton: You're familiar with that case, right?
Peter Taff: I. Am. I familiar with that case.
Trey Barton: So, uh, yeah, so that was in 2024. So a client was a nurse. Nurse at the Houston, uh, Methodist out in Sugar Land. They were doing the morning huddle meeting where they had about 50 doctors, nurses, all in the. In the meeting in the morning, getting ready to get their assignments to go in the OR and do all their kind of stuff. And, uh, this yahoo from a third party has. Has this lithotripsy machine that he's got to push through. He's running late. He's.
Kyle: Bill just bought a house. He's got a lithotripsy machine in it.
Bill Ogden: I've got, like, five in there.
Kyle: Yeah, it's got a tanning bed.
Bill Ogden: What do you guys do on Memorial?
Kyle: Tanning bed. A dehumidifier and a lithotripsy machine in a dry.
Bill Ogden: In a dry stock sauna.
Peter Taff: That machine helps, like, um, radiate kidney stones.
Trey Barton: No, it has, like, a sonic wave. Yeah, I think it's like a sonic. But I thought it actually. Actually hits your.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, it's a percussion.
Trey Barton: Yeah, like a percussion to hit your kidneys to break up kidney stones.
Kyle: It sounds horrible.
Bill Ogden: Anyway, it's super painful.
Trey Barton: Yeah, he was supposed to be in there.
Bill Ogden: Based on my grandfather.
Kyle: Bill's making a face right now. Are you okay?
Bill Ogden: No, uh, it's just the drink that Amanda poured me.
Kyle: A kidney stone one. Sorry.
Bill Ogden: I'd rather have one than the giant gulp that I took to start this.
Peter Taff: The nurses are all doing prep that morning for in the or. For this whatever surgery or procedure.
Trey Barton: Yeah. So they're waiting to get their assignments. I mean, there's like 12 different operating rooms, and this guy was supposed to be in one already in there. Supposed to set up his lithotripsy machine because it takes like 45 minutes to warm up and everything. And he's like 15 minutes from the start of the procedure, and he's not even in there yet. So instead of waiting for the. And it's a hectic meeting. Everybody's talking, getting their assignments and stuff. And so she's looking at the board, and this guy comes pushing this big piece of equipment through and runs over a foot.
Bill Ogden: It's a big machine, though, right? Yeah, it's like a fridge. It's like not a fridge, but.
Trey Barton: Thousand pounds. Yeah.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Trey Barton: So it rolls over her foot. She goes down to the floor, ends, uh, up getting taken into the emergency room, has a crush injury on her foot.
Kyle: Um, fortuitous that she's that close to the.
Trey Barton: She was, yeah. Wheeled her in with a wheelchair. Didn't even have to get in the car.
Peter Taff: Not a deglow. Just a crush injury on her.
Trey Barton: Just a crush injury. There was. There was an open wound on the top that actually had to get. Um, she had to have treatment for that over the course of the next couple of months.
Bill Ogden: It's the worst place to have that because, like, the least amount of circulation. So your infection rate is going to skyrocket.
Trey Barton: Right. So she. She did that, um, treated for like two months through workers compensation, continue having ongoing nerve pain and issues, and went back to a couple. A couple of doctors visits. Um, it was probably. It was probably close to maybe a year after it happened before she called me up. So at that point, she had just gone to some workers comp treatment and, ah, she was out of work for maybe six weeks. And then they put her back on a sedentary position. She had to get moved to be a desk nurse. A charge, uh, nurse.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Trey Barton: So, um, then she's, you know, telling me, I'm still having these issues. I'm like, well, you need to go get checked out. So she goes to get the ekg, emg, EMG done, and, uh, EMG comes back and says, no, no dirt. Nerve damage in the major nerves. So we end up deposing the doctor who's the orthopedic surgeon at Houston Methodist. And he's like, well, what wheel?
Bill Ogden: Who was it? Do you know which one? Oh, Stewie's over there.
Peter Taff: He's a Retreating doctors. Like, not a litigation.
Bill Ogden: No, no, Stuart Wheel. Uh, he's like the one of the chiefs of. Of the extremity department. He's very good, very good doctor. But I have to pose him a couple times.
Peter Taff: Yeah, I was gonna say I see him in litigation.
Bill Ogden: He's. I'd let him cut on my spine and I don't say that about very many doctors.
Trey Barton: All right, sorry.
Bill Ogden: Go.
Peter Taff: Whoever this doctor was testify. What did he say?
Trey Barton: Testifies. He says you know more likely than not she has nerve damage in the smaller nerves in her feet, in her foot and the only thing she could do is take like a gabapentin for the rest of her life. However, I don't recommend that because of you know the side effects that could happen so and you know he testifies that it's more likely than not going to get worse over the course of her life and that a crush injury is worse than a broken bone. All these kind of things and so um. So we've got that testimony and clients excellent client.
Bill Ogden: Does she know that her treating doctor personally? Yeah. Okay.
Trey Barton: I make sure. So and then um. So we get to trial. You know they offered low balled it the whole time because I mean the economic damages were not very big.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Trey Barton: From a lost wage and a workers. I think the medical bills for workers comp. Were like 2,500 bucks. Um and so we get to trial. They've lowballed it. And how much did they offer? 67 5.
Kyle: 67,000American dollars.
Bill Ogden: 67.
Trey Barton: 567.
Peter Taff: Yeah they did a.
Trey Barton: They did a 167 offer are.
Kyle: Oh I like I love that now did that. Are you allowed to tell us who defended the case?
Trey Barton: Uh, I don't see why not if
Bill Ogden: I could Name of the firm. I assume it's a Serpy Jones case.
Trey Barton: No, it was out of uh. They were out of Dallas.
Bill Ogden: Really? I thought that. I thought that All Methodist.
Trey Barton: Let's see.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, it does make it worse just Dallas.
Peter Taff: Let's see. So curious. Do people go to do verdict search anymore? Remember those blue you guys probably too young but they used to be the
Bill Ogden: I don't do anymore because they come on law 360 like uh. Any of the significant ones already pop up in my mailbox.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Bill Ogden: Or might or somebody text me.
Peter Taff: It used to be you'd read the you know every week. Yeah.
Trey Barton: So we started off with the uh. With two of the nurses. So they had a. They had a motion in limited that none of the nurses were qualified to talk about medical treatment. Uh did they win it?
Kyle: Yeah.
Trey Barton: No until they. Until they opened the door on it.
Bill Ogden: Uh, okay. I was about to say tough cross of a nurse.
Trey Barton: Uh, well, no, they were fact witnesses. They were there in the. In the morning.
Bill Ogden: I got you.
Trey Barton: So they were there to see what happened. So first. First one comes and goes. She's on the stand, testifies what she saw. Um, and then no medical testimony. And she was probably a 5050 witness. I mean, halfway good for us, halfway good for them. Nothing great. Second witness comes on, and they get about all the way through my direct examination, no medical talk. And then she does her cross examination, and the very last question she asked was a medical question. And I said, well, here we go.
Kyle: Yeah.
Trey Barton: Because I knew that that nurse was actually this. The orthopedic surgeon's surgery nurse that knew about crush injuries. And I just opened the door and said, tell us about crush injuries and how they're. How. How they compare to broken bones. And she just.
Kyle: You remember what the question was that they asked?
Trey Barton: Oh, I forget. I'm not. I don't.
Bill Ogden: And why they would ask a dumb, dumb question like that.
Trey Barton: But I was like. I mean, once that. Once that question was asked, it was. Was go time.
Bill Ogden: Yeah. Every question you asked after that was crush, Right? Crush, crush, crush, crush.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Trey Barton: And so that went. That witness went great for us. And then the next witness was, um, the guy that was pushing the lithotripsy machine. And so in deposition, he had. He testified at the beginning of his deposition that he was not at fault at all. Then by the end of his deposition, he admitted he was somewhat at fault. He comes on the stand, and the first question I asked him, I said, are you at fault for this? And he said, 50. 50. And I said, because I was ready to get him whichever way he went, if he went, damn, that's a good answer. He went, 50, 50. I said, well, who's the other? Have you ever testified differently? He said, well, I don't remember. So then I, you know, play the. Play the depot of him saying not at fault, and then play the depot of him saying somewhat at fault. So I get all the way through his examination, and the last question I asked him, m. Is, are. Are you at fault for this? And he finally says yes in front of the jury. He knew he couldn't just hide from it anymore. He said, yes. So I sit down and who's your judge? Uh, we were in. In front of judge, uh, o' Neill Williams.
Bill Ogden: Oh, okay.
Trey Barton: So, um, I sit down. She does her direct examination of him. I don't even care what. What he said. Or what? And I stood up and I asked him four questions. The fifth one was objected to, but I didn't need an answer first one. Do you remember in your deposition when you said it wasn't your fault? Yes. Do you remember at the end of your deposition when you said it was somewhat your fault? Yes. Do you remember at the beginning of your testimony today when you said it was 50? 50? Yes. Do you remember at the end of your testimony today when you said it was finally your fault? Yes. How does it feel to finally tell the truth? Objection. Withdraw it. All sins it.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Trey Barton: And then the very next witness was the corporate rep who had already testified that the only basis of any of his opinions was the information that this guy had given him. That's a. It's the first question I ask him is, sir, now, you just listened to him testify that he was at fault for this. Do you, on behalf of the company, accept responsibility for his actions? No.
Bill Ogden: Oh, man.
Trey Barton: Like, all right, just look at the
Bill Ogden: jury quiet for, like, 10 long seconds.
Trey Barton: Yeah. So then, uh, I don't know if it was at. I think it was that actually before the corporate ref went on at the conclusion of his.
Kyle: Did you have, like, a big casting call for corporate villains that you had to plant inside the defense case?
Bill Ogden: Dude, they're all bad. All corporate reps are bad. And I think it's because m. Our topics are written in a certain way. But I've never seen a corporate witness where I'm like, that was really good job. Instead I was like, man, pretty fair. They should have picked someone else.
Peter Taff: Yeah. Okay, so, Trey, you've got 2500 or so in meds that were low because comp paid them. Did you submit those to the jury or.
Trey Barton: No, no, we did not put in any economics. It was, uh, past and future pain and suffering, past and future mental anguish, past and future impairment, and past and future disfigurement.
Peter Taff: And what was the award by the jury?
Trey Barton: 4,496,000 and some change.
Kyle: Was this verdict before the case?
Trey Barton: Yes.
Bill Ogden: Yeah.
Kyle: Uh, so how did you. How did you argue for the. The pain and suffering damages that got you almost 5 million bucks?
Trey Barton: It was the per diem. Um, we did the per diem. Usually. I don't want to give away too much.
Kyle: You could. You can tell us. Uh, almost no one listens to this.
Bill Ogden: We can order the transcript. It was all public record.
Peter Taff: Say, high level per diem. Lots of people.
Bill Ogden: No, I'm kidding. I'm just with.
Trey Barton: Yeah, I mean, it was so. And actually, I think m. It might have been after Chohan, because I think it was after Chohan, because I specifically remember asking the client, how many waking hours, how many hours do you sleep at night? And she said, uh, around eight. And so once she says eight hours, then I use a calculation based on a. 16 hour, 16 waking hours. And I did that in that case, so it must have been after Chilean. So, um, yes, but I don't do, I don't do my calculations based on hours or minutes. A lot of times it'll be seconds, because every second counts, you know, or if it's, you know, if there are a number of minutes, you know, not a minute goes by that you don't have pain. Every minute has value. Some minutes are worth a dollar, some minutes are worth a million dollars. Like in the, in the case in Lagrange, we had million dollar minutes. Like these minutes alone are worth a million dollars. The minute when the police officer comes to your front door and knocks on the door and you melt into the porch, that's a million dollar minute by itself. And so we talk about, can you do that still?
Bill Ogden: I'm trying because Gregory keeps changing and keeps confusing me even more. Can you still use that?
Peter Taff: Uh, they haven't said you can't that.
Bill Ogden: Well, they will eventually. I'm just trying to. That's a very, I've never heard of it phrased like that. That's a very good way of phrasing it.
Trey Barton: Yes. I mean, for that one, it was, you know, the pain and suffering of, uh, this minute. But, but I don't say because of this one minute, you need to give a million dollars.
Peter Taff: Sure.
Bill Ogden: You're right. Right.
Trey Barton: That to say, some minutes are worth a million dollars, some minutes are worth a dollar. Let's take a, a conservative estimate would be $3aminute.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Bill Ogden: And no, I, I, I like that. I just have, I've never heard a phrase like that. And it sounds, I like the way it sounds. As long as it's loud.
Trey Barton: We'll ask Laura.
Bill Ogden: She's coming. Laura Hollingsworth's next. She's our appellate counselor when we try cases.
Kyle: That's a good question, actually. We can ask her.
Peter Taff: So you can stick around. They, but that case is not being appealed because you had a high low.
Trey Barton: Yeah. So after the, uh, after the guy pushing the lithotripsy came off the stand, they approached me with a high low. And, uh.
Bill Ogden: Is it a confidential high low?
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Trey Barton: Yeah.
Kyle: Can you whisper it in my ear? That's, that's awesome.
Bill Ogden: Yeah. That's so much incredible.
Kyle: So that sounds like a high high, not a high low. Good job.
Peter Taff: So I, I don't know why more people don't do high lows. I mean, I think that I do good.
Bill Ogden: Well, because I know a really good attorney who entered into a high low real early into trial and lit up a big number that no one, he didn't think he was going to get. And he was stuck to a real low, real low, high number that he had agreed to.
Trey Barton: I won't agree to a high low unless it includes a waiver of appeal. And I think, I think once I
Bill Ogden: thought they all did. I've never seen one that didn't. Well, nobody's ever pitched one that didn't.
Trey Barton: Yeah, I mean, but once you, I mean, once you reach that agree, I mean, you still have revert.
Bill Ogden: You still have reversible errors, for sure.
Trey Barton: Um, but once, I mean, you do things a little different once it's. Once it's out there.
Bill Ogden: Once it's out there, you start shooting. You start shooting the big bullets.
Kyle: Yeah.
Peter Taff: I think Will Moyes came out when he was a defense lawyer. He would wait until close to the end.
Bill Ogden: I think he said he would wait till closing.
Trey Barton: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bill Ogden: Which is the right time to put one in. When the jury starts talking about it, it's like, hey, we should talk about it too.
Trey Barton: Right?
Peter Taff: Okay, so third, let's go with the most recent one. And that's the one I don't know as much about that. Was that, was that a commercial car wreck case?
Trey Barton: That was. Yeah, that was a commercial.
Peter Taff: And that was in the last, what, month?
Trey Barton: That was about a month ago. I actually got, uh, the notice of Super City as a bond today.
Peter Taff: Ah.
Kyle: Uh, son of a.
Bill Ogden: Was it a big enough verge where they had to sweat that bond?
Trey Barton: It was 2.7.
Kyle: Okay.
Bill Ogden: We're here in Houston or Fort Bend, Harris County. Okay.
Trey Barton: Yeah.
Peter Taff: So what was the high level nature of that case?
Trey Barton: So it was a, uh, it was a, uh, alcohol delivery van, um, beer distributor.
Bill Ogden: That's kind of ironic.
Trey Barton: The, uh, rear ended. My, My client was stopped at a, at uh, a red light and got plowed in the back of, uh. She had a bike rack on the back of her vehicle, uh, which they. Their claim was there's no damage to the vehicle because she hit the bike rack and their vans totaled. And they tried to defy the laws of physics and say it was, it was interesting that the defendant driver testified that it was a horrible wreck for him and it was a significant impact, but it wasn't bad for her. Okay.
Bill Ogden: Look at the gvwrs of each vehicle.
Kyle: Yeah, there's a case on that, actually. It's called in Ray Goose versus Gander.
Peter Taff: So, uh, do your client have surgery?
Trey Barton: She did not end up. She had a surgical recommendation. Um, she treated for almost three years. Um, had a bunch of physical therapy, had a bunch of injections, had a tbi, um, had, you know, brain fog, memory issues. Um, and she was a. She was a nurse as well. She actually worked at Memorial Herman, um, in one of the imaging facilities. And she. Treatment, uh, ended up stopping because she was involved in a subsequent. She had a subsequent wreck, um, in 20. This one happened in 2020. Two subsequent happened in 2025.
Bill Ogden: Bad subsequent.
Trey Barton: No, thank God she didn't. Well, I mean, they claimed it was bad, but, um, her first treatment after the subsequent was 20 days later. So she was a. She was a passenger in a work vehicle. And it was a minor thing.
Kyle: And it.
Trey Barton: We had. As the first time I've done that is I went to the. I went to the subsequent doctor and got his testimony as to what happened, what were the exacerbations or any new injuries. And he said, uh, you know, strain sprain, no new herniations, nothing changed. Got her back to baseline what she was before. And, um, you know, she's still got all these issues. And he testified, you know, we had the subsequent doctor testifying about the imaging from the first wreck and being able to say she's got some significant herniations and, um, given causation on that.
Bill Ogden: Did you represent both accidents?
Trey Barton: No. No. So there was no. There was no case in the same.
Bill Ogden: Because it was better.
Trey Barton: So it was. Oh, it was comp.
Kyle: And her.
Trey Barton: The. The driver of her vehicle was at fault. So her co worker.
Bill Ogden: Gotcha.
Trey Barton: So it was combar.
Peter Taff: But she.
Trey Barton: I mean, for that one, I think she had, uh, like two trigger point injections and a little bit like maybe six sessions of physical therapy. It wasn't much. Um, but yeah, no, there was no case related.
Bill Ogden: I had one where the subsequent accident was significantly worse than the first one. Yeah. And the first one was bad.
Trey Barton: And I was. It.
Bill Ogden: It's. It gets real complicated at that point.
Trey Barton: You, You.
Bill Ogden: You got to be a creative lawyer and be comfortable lying because otherwise it's not. I mean, because, I mean, it's hard to distinguish damage versus damage if they're. We have two very significant cases.
Kyle: So what. What were the interesting facts about this case that led to a big verdict?
Trey Barton: Um, I mean, I think same as the one that I had in Forben County Great client. I think, I think the client in lagrange was great too. I mean, it's. And when I say just pure, a pure client, that's not. They're not faking anything. They're not lying about anything.
Bill Ogden: The genuine.
Trey Barton: They're a genuine person. They can sit up there and they can speak from the heart and be able to tell their story and how it's impacted. And my client in this case, she had. She was an extremely active person. She would go on all these hiking trips and would go biking. Like she had a bike rack on the back of her vehicle. She would bike, you know, 20 miles a week in around Houston just for exercise and fun. And she would go on.
Peter Taff: She.
Trey Barton: We had all these. We had these videos of all these hiking trips and stuff where she's hiking through the canyons and there's like these significant incline where she's pulling up on these chains and stuff and super, super active person and nothing like that after. She couldn't do any of it after. And that was one of the biggest, from my standpoint, one of the biggest things that we were able to get across. And Clint tried this case, that case with me to Clem Maguire. Um, it was one of the things, one of the stories we were able to tell related to that as well is just the impact. And I told you we had some pre existing mental anguish issues. She had prior diagnoses of anxiety, a little bit of depression.
Bill Ogden: Uh, she's a nurse.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Trey Barton: And so we approached that in closing with, we want you to give. We want you to. This is what the amount of anxiety, the value of the anxiety would be. But I'm only going to ask you to award 50% of that amount because 50% of it is pre existing. So once, you know, once we present it to them and we tell them the impairment is going to be the biggest element of damage. And they ultimately, for the impairment, her inability to do all the things she was doing before. That's where, uh, the bigger numbers came in.
Bill Ogden: Tell us about number four.
Trey Barton: Number four verdict.
Kyle: What court were you in?
Trey Barton: That one was Judge Miller.
Peter Taff: Okay.
Bill Ogden: Big Bo. He just got a judge, ah, of the year, I think. Uh, yeah, he, a couple days ago,
Peter Taff: awarded by the Dirty Verdict podcast.
Bill Ogden: Ah. Also we do whatever the Houston Bar association or whichever one. Did we just do that?
Peter Taff: Yeah, Fourth. What was the fourth one?
Trey Barton: So that was the fourth one. The third one we skipped over, that was a auto bicyclist, uh, case that was in January.
Bill Ogden: Uh, was your client in the car or the bike?
Trey Barton: On the Bike. I thank God I was on the bike.
Bill Ogden: All right, Sympathetic.
Trey Barton: So, uh, and she, she was a tough client to prop up. Prop up. But, uh, we, I was able to do it. But um, so she's, I mean from a factual standpoint, she was fine, but just from presentation standpoint, she. We, uh, we tried to buy her dentures. Uh, yeah, she wouldn't wear them. Um, dentures are expensive. We bought, we didn't buy the expensive ones.
Kyle: Was she elderly or was there drug use or just bad. Bad dentation?
Trey Barton: Uh, yes, bad. Yeah, just bad dental hygiene. And smoker? There was one. One of the, the defense attorney in the trial uh, brought up one of her records, uh, that said she was a two pack a day smoker. And she, she looked him dead in the eye and said, no, that's way too much. I only smoke a pack and a half.
Bill Ogden: All right. 40 is a lot. 30s, much more reasonable one an hour.
Trey Barton: We bought her, we bought her some clothes to wear and she worked, she worked as a pizza cook at Pizza Hut. And she decided in the days leading up to the trial she was going to wear the clothes that we bought her to work at pizza. So they had pizza stains all over them. So the clothes that we had got for to wear, the dentures, she was going to wear, neither one were in play.
Bill Ogden: You guys didn't give me instructions here, right? You gave me stuff, I used this stuff. Now I'm in trouble.
Kyle: Pizza clothes. I gotta tell you, I got two teenage daughters and I have to.
Trey Barton: Girls.
Kyle: These are non pizza clothes.
Trey Barton: Non pizza clothes. These are the pizza clothes. These are the non pizza clothes.
Peter Taff: So that was a car hits a bike, usually that's a pro plaintiff kind of factual scenario. On liability, Was that what the jury found, liability on defense?
Trey Barton: Yeah, there was 100% liability. So. So the defense came into the case trying to claim that she should have been wearing a helmet. And had she been wearing a helmet, it wouldn't have caused the cheekbone fracture. But they didn't have an expert to testify as to that. And so we were able to keep out any causation testimony related to the helmet. The fact that she didn't have a helmet on was all throughout the records. Yeah, so we couldn't hide that. Um, but they weren't allowed to argue that had she been wearing a helmet, she would not have sustained the injury because.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, I have a lot of experts for that argument. I've done. So I've done one helmet case and there's. Yeah, like tire cases way more complicated than you think.
Kyle: So what was the verdict and where was it?
Trey Barton: That was in Harris County, 165th. Judge Bain.
Kyle: Yeah.
Trey Barton: Um, Bruce. 500, 000 on that one.
Bill Ogden: I've heard Lance attorneys say nothing but good things about Bruce.
Peter Taff: Both sides.
Bill Ogden: Yeah. I've never. I've heard any defense lawyers.
Kyle: And is that the one that the notice of appeal got filed on today, or is that the other.
Trey Barton: No, that was the other one.
Kyle: Nice.
Trey Barton: Yeah, no, that one. So that one got paid. That was.
Kyle: Was that a source situation? Did they have a lot of policy?
Trey Barton: No, they had 100 and they paid the 5.
Kyle: Nice.
Bill Ogden: So what's next on the horizon?
Trey Barton: Uh, we've got. I'm actually number three on two trial dockets right now in Harris County. But I mean, we've got. Just with our volume, we, we have, we have our, uh, bi weekly, every other week trial meeting tomorrow, uh, with the firm going through what we have coming up. But in the next 90 days, I'd say we have anywhere from, uh, 25 to 30 cases that are on the trial docket. Not all of them at the top, you know. Well, potentially only three or four of them get reached.
Bill Ogden: How many case you try a year, you think?
Trey Barton: Uh, last year, six. Year before that, five.
Kyle: Okay.
Trey Barton: There's a good number so far, too.
Kyle: One a quarter.
Trey Barton: Yeah.
Bill Ogden: How long. How long's your average trial?
Trey Barton: I try to keep it under three days.
Kyle: Yeah.
Bill Ogden: Really?
Trey Barton: Uh, yeah, I don't, I don't like to try a case more than three days.
Bill Ogden: I don't either. I just can't.
Trey Barton: Uh, the attention span of the jury. Yeah, the one we just tried in, in Harris county, the 2.7. That one, had I tried it how I was initially going to try it probably would have been a five day trial because we had a ton of video deposition that we were going to play. And then we get into Judge Miller's court, and he's got a rule that you can't play more than 20 minutes. Yep.
Bill Ogden: And I was like, garrison does too.
Trey Barton: So we. Yeah, so. So we're in there in pre trial. My first two witnesses are going to be the defendant driver and the corporate rep by video deposition. I've got like an hour on one, an hour 15 on the other. He says, um, you're going to have to cut that. And, and defense says, oh, well, they're here. I look at Clint, I say, we're gonna take them live.
Kyle: You get that one?
Trey Barton: I get this.
Peter Taff: Yeah, exactly.
Trey Barton: Today we hit 100 and.
Kyle: Great.
Trey Barton: And went right into it. And then we had to cut the Doctors down. We had three doc. I had a mental health provider, a, uh, treater for the wreck, and then a treater for the subsequent wreck. We had to cut all those down.
Bill Ogden: So I actually hated it when I found that out. But I think I better. I do too, because it's just.
Peter Taff: It's the.
Bill Ogden: It's the meat and potatoes of the depot.
Trey Barton: And I think it. I think it also takes away the. If you get just an opportunity to play whatever you want, as long as you want, then they can make their arguments all day long that, oh, there wasn't sufficient evidence to support this. When you have a judge that's telling you you only get 20 minutes and you. You hit the high points, it takes a lot of. It takes away a lot of their
Bill Ogden: arguments, especially if your high points are way higher than theirs. I agree.
Trey Barton: Right.
Kyle: I hate to cut you off early, but we have been going a little bit more than an hour and our next group of victims is waiting in the lobby.
Peter Taff: Yeah. So Trey, you are, ah, can be found at Trey T R E Y Barton law dot com.
Trey Barton: That's correct.
Peter Taff: All right. If any lawyers out there. Trey obviously tries a ton of cases. He had a great team of lawyers I've worked with, um, as a mediator. Uh, and obviously the results we've talked about speak for themselves.
Bill Ogden: Peter's just saying because Trey pays him a bunch of money.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Trey Barton: But anyhow.
Peter Taff: Yeah. If you all have a. If you got a case you want. And obviously, Trey, we've talked a lot of lawyers about venture coventuring cases with other lawyers you're friends with. It's a lot of fun.
Trey Barton: Definitely.
Peter Taff: Um, split up the work and, and all that. So give Trey a call. Otherwise. Thanks, Trey. This is very informative. This is kind of a blocking and tackling.
Trey Barton: Yeah, keep.
Bill Ogden: Keep hammering the verdicts. I like it.
Trey Barton: Thank you very much, guys.
Peter Taff: All right, well, thank you. And if you like this, like it. Follow us on Instagram, Tick Tock, Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple podcasts, Audible. Oh, Audible. Okay, that's new.
Bill Ogden: We're on Audible now.
Peter Taff: Yeah.
Trey Barton: What else did I say?
Peter Taff: Tick Tock.
Bill Ogden: You didn't say Facebook.
Peter Taff: Facebook.
Bill Ogden: There you go.
Peter Taff: Instagram.
Kyle: I've had enough.
Peter Taff: We're done.
Bill Ogden: YouTube.
Peter Taff: Good night.
Kyle: That was great to have you trade.
Bill Ogden: Yeah, man, I've had to appreciate it.
Trey Barton: Getting in the bathroom.
Kyle: I had that pee for like 20 minutes.
