Episode 67
December 23, 2025
How We Won $7.5M in an Unwinnable Case, with Greg Unatin and Brendan Lupetin
Episode Summary
An unwitnessed fall, a client with prior back problems, 10 years of unemployment, and over $5 million in disability benefits already paid – this case had every reason to fail. Yet trial partners Brendan Lupetin and Greg Unatin secured a record-setting $7.25 million verdict for the former chief of pain management at UPMC Hamot. In this case breakdown, Brendan and Greg reveal the strategies that shaped their victory: exposing UPMC’s betrayal of their client through a series of emails, levering focus group insights to develop their winning liability theory, and highlighting their client’s loss of his passion in life: being a doctor.
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- Their client fell on snow-covered ice while exiting a UPMC surgery center through a required after-hours door, suffering severe back and shoulder injuries that ended his career as chief of pain management at UPMC Hamot.
- The team strategically navigated the issue of their client’s prior back problems by explaining to the jury that he’d recovered from a spine surgery; the issue at trial was his shoulder injury: “I think that that ultimately played just fine, and we really made it all about the shoulder,” Brendan says.
- The attorneys dropped their theory about a code violation relating to a defective step after focus groups showed that jurors cared more about the snow and ice issue.
- Their winning liability theory became simple: When UPMC directed staff to exit a specific door, they had a duty to ensure that door was safely maintained.
- A trail of emails revealed UPMC’s corporate betrayal: praising their client as their “golden boy” when he was profitable, then ghosting him after his injuries when he desperately sought ways to return to work.
- The decision to bring in their client’s disability benefits ($22,000 monthly for a decade) actually helped the case by showing that he was legitimately disabled.
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