Aldous\Walker Trial Win in Dallas Makes National Top Verdicts List
The Aldous\Walker law firm has earned a place on The National Law Journal’s 2018 list of Top 100 Verdicts for securing a $25 million verdict against a former Dallas Cowboys player and the nightclub that over-served him, leading to a fatal DWI crash.
The firm represented Stacey Jackson, mother of former Cowboys practice squad player Jerry Brown, who died in the 2012 crash. Brown was a passenger in the car driven by former star defensive lineman Josh Brent. Both had visited Privae Lounge in Dallas the night of the accident, and tests showed Brent’s blood-alcohol content was twice the legal limit at the time of the crash, according to a release from the law firm.
The Aldous\Walker team successfully argued that the club shared responsibility for continuing to serve alcohol to Brent after he was intoxicated. The jury found Privae Lounge’s owners and Brent were equally liable for Brown’s death.
The verdict is among the largest in Texas for this kind of case. The full list of the NLJ Top 100 Verdicts for 2018 appears in the publication’s June issue.
“This is a very tragic case. But I was pleased we were able to bring Ms. Jackson the justice she deserved,” said Aldous\Walker co-founder Charla Aldous, who along with Brent Walker, represented Ms. Jackson at trial. “The owners of that club did everything they could – including filing for bankruptcy – to avoid their responsibility. But we stuck with it because we knew we were right.”
The win was the first of three courtroom verdicts the firm earned on behalf of its clients in less than three months, including:
- Sarah Milburn, who was left quadriplegic in a collision involving a Honda Odyssey van. In February 2019, Aldous and Walker won a $37.6 million verdict on her behalf after a jury found Honda’s design of a third-row seat belt defective.
- Isabella Fletcher, who was sexually assaulted by former Hebron High School football players when she was 14. A Denton County jury awarded her $32 million, just weeks after the Milburn victory.
The firm’s release said the courtroom wins represent just the latest high-profile legal successes for Aldous and Walker, both of whom also represented nurse Nina Pham, who contracted Ebola in 2014 while working at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. And in 2011, they won a $9.3 million verdict on behalf of a female student who was sexually assaulted by a teacher at the Episcopal School of Dallas.
