A Cobb County jury awarded more than $4.6 million to a man who suffered a brain injury while playing "bubble soccer" as part of his high school soccer team's year-end celebration, a verdict that came after the defense rejected a $1 million settlement offer.

Salvador Reyes, now 21, was a senior at Campbell High School and a member of the varsity soccer team when the incident occurred a couple of weeks before graduation in 2016. 

"It was a year-end sports banquet for the soccer team, and they decided that instead of typical banquet, they'd like to do something fun, so they had a bubble soccer game," said attorney Brad Thomas.

In bubble soccer, players are outfitted with clear, inflated plastic bubbles covering their heads to below their waists.  

"They had four kids on one team and four more behind an inflatable goal, and they basically  just counted down '1, 2, 3' and they ran into each other," Thomas said.  

"We said they shouldn't have had them so far apart. He ran into another kid and was knocked unconscious," said Thomas, who tried the case with fellow Fried Rogers Goldberg partner Michael Goldberg and Bill Curtis of Smyrna's William H. Curtis Law Office.

Reyes sustained a fractured skull "and was home for a month while a prosthetic plate was being made, then he went back for another surgery to have it put in," Thomas said.

Reyes suffered an injury to his brain's frontal lobe, which left him with "impulsiveness issues and mood changes," Thomas said.

"He can't remember things like he used to, and he lost his sense of taste and smell," Thomas said. 

In an effort to taste his food, "Reyes douses everything with heavy spices to get a sense of heat off the peppers," Thomas said.    

Reyes, who still lives with his family, has accrued nearly $120,000 in medical bills so far, Thomas said. 

A few months after the accident, Reyes sued the event company that was hired to provide the bubble soccer equipment, Game Truck Georgia, in Cobb County State Court. Reyes claimed the company failed to warn him of the dangers posed by the game and failed to provide any supervision or physical parameters.

The "lack of any safety instructions provided Mr. Reyes with a false sense of security and protection," the complaint said. 

Game Truck attorney Craig White of Skedsvold & White did not respond to a request for comment, but the defense portion of the pretrial order said participants were instructed to keep the "bubble suit" straps on their shoulders and hold onto the handles and not to charge or "bull rush" other players.   

Reyes showed up late, it said, and missed the initial safety briefing but was instructed on safely wearing the suit.

Reyes "was injured when he charged at high speed toward another participant of the soccer match in which he was engaged," it said.

Reyes assumed the risk and was responsible, at least in part, for his own injuries, the defense account said.  

Thomas said there was a demand for the company's $1 million insurance policy limit last year, which was declined. Mediation was also unsuccessful. 

"Their highest offer was $355,000 a week before trial," Thomas said. 

During a trial that began Monday before Judge Carl Bowers, Thomas said the defense attempted to use Reyes' subsequent return to the job market—he has worked at the Smyrna Department of Sanitation, as a carpenter, attended barber school and now clerks at a convenience store—to show he has recovered from his injuries.

"That was the real issue," Thomas said. "The defense argument was, 'he's back functioning.' Our argument was, 'Yes, he's functioning, but his quality of life has suffered and will continue to suffer.'"

Thomas said the key plaintiff's expert was Brian Avery, a lecturer in entertainment risk management at the University of Florida in Gainesville. The defense called no expert witnesses. 

Thomas said that in closing, he asked jurors to award "right at $15 million, based on the fact that he was so young when this happened."

On Wednesday afternoon, the jury took just over two hours to award $5 million in damages but apportioned 7% of the liability to Reyes for a total award of $4.65 million.

The lawyers did not speak to jurors afterward, but Thomas said the verdict should be a wake-up call to insurers and defense lawyers. 

"Brain injury cases are often undervalued by insurance companies, but juries, even in conservative venues like Cobb County, understand how brain injuries change everything about a person," he said. 

He also praised the panel for not allowing his client's Mexican American heritage to sway their ruling. 

"Even though we always hear about how hard it is to get a verdict for a Hispanic client in a conservative venue, we were not worried about Salvador's ethnicity," he said. "We knew that Cobb County jurors could see past any bias if you just confronted it head-on in jury questioning."

Plus, he added, "a jury couldn't help but like a teenager who went to work and got a job just eight months after suffering such a horrific injury."