About James McCallion
In my 40 plus years in practice I have learned there is no greater praise than the gratitude of a client. I have been fortunate to have many clients express their appreciation one stands out. During her trial a settlement was reached for several million. As my client got in her car to go home she said “you are the best”. Those words mean a lot to me. I want everyone who I serve to feel the same way.
She had lost her husband in a tragic scaffolding collapse. When it happened she was two weeks pregnant with their second child. She was young, alone with a 5-year-old daughter and another on the way. She needed help. Another attorney asked me to take the case over because of my experience handling major injury and death cases. I knew a lot about construction and scaffolding accidents. I jumped in and took over the case.
There were over 5,000 images of the construction site. Many of these were still shots taken from the roof of a building next to it. These stills were taken every hour during the work day. The angle of these photos showed the side of the building where my client’s husband fell. There were many other photos taken by investigating agencies, my investigator and others. There was even a video taken the day after the fall showing the condition of the scaffold and the repairs made to it.
I took all these photos and the video to a production company. I worked with them and made a series of presentations that showed how the scaffold was being undermined by one of the trades on the job site. I learned so much about how the accident happened Cal OSHA consulted me when they were litigating against the general contractor over many violations and citations.
I have other honors such as being selected to attend the Trial Lawyers College in 2004 and serving on one of its boards. However, there is no greater honor than helping people who are in need which I have had the honor of doing thousands of times.
Proven verdicts and settlements at Trial Lawyers for Justice
These results are credited to Trial Lawyers for Justice. A result appears under an attorney's own name only when a published source names them as counsel on the case.
Carrie DeJongh, 40, of Hull, Iowa, died on June 9, 2015 after receiving iodinated contrast dye for a CT scan at Sioux Center Health, when the physician treating her gave her an antihistamine but did not immediately check her vital signs or give epinephrine. Her family sued Sioux Center Health and Dr. Roy T. Slice for negligence, and both defendants denied the allegations. A Sioux County jury in Orange City returned a $29.5 million verdict on June 13, 2018, covering DeJongh's pain and suffering before her death and loss of consortium for her husband and four children. No appeal, remittitur or reduction has turned up since.
In February 2017, a physician assistant at a UnityPoint urgent care clinic in Des Moines diagnosed Joseph Dudley with the flu despite a negative flu test, sent him home on Tamiflu, and never ordered a complete blood count. Two days later Dudley was hospitalized with bacterial meningitis caused by an undetected heart valve infection, spent eight days in a medically induced coma, and suffered a series of strokes that left him with permanent brain damage, hearing loss, vertigo and nerve damage. A Polk County jury tried the malpractice claim against physician assistant Melanie Choos and Central Iowa Hospital Corp, doing business as UnityPoint Clinic, over a week in November 2022 and returned a $27,000,000 verdict, all of it noneconomic damages. The defense moved for a new trial afterward and UnityPoint said it was weighing an appeal.
Richard J. Pellock, 80, had surgery to remove bladder cancer at UnityPoint Health Finley Hospital in Dubuque, Iowa in January 2015, and the operation succeeded. Days later he needed a second procedure for a post-surgical complication, and the nurse anesthetist handling that procedure induced anesthesia without first emptying his stomach despite signs he had a full one. Pellock aspirated, developed aspiration pneumonia and respiratory failure, and died. His widow and son sued the anesthesia group and a Dubuque County jury returned a $10 million verdict against it in September 2017, awarded entirely as loss-of-consortium damages. Defense lawyers were reported as saying they would challenge the verdict, but no Iowa appellate decision in the case has ever been published.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
