Deposition of Defense Pathologist: was there conscious pain and suffering

This deposition is from our March 2024 wrongful death trial in Atlanta, Georgia. Our client, "Kisha," was in bed asleep inside an apartment. Outside the apartment there was a shooting, and a stray bullet flew into the apartment and hit and killed Kisha. The shooting had nothing to do with Kisha or the people inside the apartment.

We filed a lawsuit on behalf of Kisha's family against the apartment complex--this is referred to as a negligent security case. We had to prove (1) there was dangerous activity in the past that would have made it foreseeable to the apartment complex that Kisha's shooting would happen (essentially, there was so much crime in the past, it was likely to happen again) and (2) the apartment complex could have prevented Kisha's death if it would have taken reasonable steps to prevent and deter crime, given what it knew about in the past.

One very important issue in the case was whether Kisha suffered conscious pain and suffering between when the bullet hit her and when she passed away. The County Medical Examiner who performed an autopsy on Kisha testified that she did not suffer conscious pain and suffering. You can find his trial testimony on our channel, and in it Mike Rafi showed the Medical Examiner's testimony was not reliable on this point.

This deposition is of expert pathologist Dr. Bennett Omalu. Dr. Omalu is a world-renowned pathologist and is portrayed in the movie Concussion by Will Smith. Dr. Omalu was hired by the apartment complex in this case--in other words, he was the defense's expert witness. In this video, Alex Brown from Rafi Law Firm questioned Dr. Omalu, and he admitted that Kisha suffered up to 3-5 minutes of conscious pain and suffering. He also is questioned about her life expectancy, which is an important part of a wrongful death case. The second part is the apartment complex's lawyer asking questions.

After this deposition, the defense "withdrew" Dr. Omalu as their expert. So, at trial, we played the jury this testimony in our case to prove Kisha suffered. We were not permitted to tell the jury that Dr. Omalu was hired by the defense.

The jury determined that Kisha did experience conscious pain and suffering and awarded $1 million ($200k for 5 minutes). The jury's total award in the case was $3.8 million.