A Gwinnett County case sidelined mid-trial by the coronavirus will not be back before jurors when the courthouse reopens because a confidential settlement resolved the claims of a trucker paralyzed when his rig rolled over in 2015. 

State Court Judge Emily Brantley initially refused to stay the case or declare a mistrial after Chief Justice Harold Melton proclaimed a statewide judicial emergency on March 14, a Saturday. That following Monday, the plaintiff's lawyers concluded their case in chief.

That evening, the defense team of Weinberg Wheeler Hudgins Gunn & Dial lawyers filed an emergency petition with the Georgia Supreme Court seeking to stay the proceedings. On March 17, before the justices could hear the case, Brantley stayed the trial for the duration of the emergency.

Brantley's staff attorney, David Abercrombie, told the Daily Report that the judge believed she retained the discretion to keep trying the case and that the jurors all agreed to carry on. Even so, Brantley decided to suspend the trial after researching the virus.

On March 25, the defense filed a motion seeking Brantley's recusal, pointing to comments she made to the lawyers and jury as evidence that she was biased toward the plaintiff, Josh Hill, and harbored an animus against Weinberg Wheeler, where she practiced when the firm was known as Long, Weinberg, Ansley & Wheeler.

The case settled the same day, mooting the motion. 

Hill is represented by Cale Conley, Davis Popper and Scott Farrow of Conley Griggs Partin and Noah Abrams of Raleigh, North Carolina's Abrams & Abrams.  

Conley praised Brantley's handling of the case, saying she was faced with a tough choice in halting a complex trial after seven days of evidence.

"I thought Judge Brantley really thoughtfully wrestled with the very difficult and complex factors at play," said Conley. "Everyone will have their memories of what that weekend was like; mine will be of how difficult it was balancing all those factors. I did think suspending it was the right decision."

The defendants were the related companies, Commercial Vehicle Group and CVG National Seating Co., which provided the seat and seat belt Hill was wearing when his truck tipped over. 

The Weinberg team included partners Frederick Sager, Jr., Christopher Byrd and Gary Toman, and associate Benjamin Ralston. They did not respond to requests for comment. 

As detailed in court filings, Hill was driving a Kenworth in Virginia when the truck left the roadway and tipped over. He would later testify that he thought he felt the truck's load of paper rolls shift prior to the wreck. 

Hill's head hit the cab's roof, injuring his spine and rendering him quadriplegic.  

Hill initially sued several entities, including Kenworth and the company that manufactured the truck, PACCAR, as well as Indiana Mills & Manufacturing, which made the seat belt system.

The other defendants settled out over the course of the litigation. A mediation before Rex Smith with Miles Mediation & Arbitration failed to resolve the case last fall, but Smith remained involved and "was very helpful" in its settlement, Conley said.  

Jury selection started March 9.

After Melton announced a statewide emergency, the defense began trying to reach Brantley but was unable to do so, according to the recusal motion. 

They filed an emergency motion that Sunday to stay or suspend the trial and for a mistrial, attaching affidavits from Byrd and Toman stating that they have immediate family members at high risk from COVID-19. Another was Weinberg managing partner David Dial expressing concern about the danger to the firm's staff and their families.  

On Monday, March 16, Brantley declined the motion. During argument on it that afternoon, she reportedly told Byrd: "I understand your concern about your child. I used to work for your firm—I guess everybody here knows that—for a long time. And the entire time I worked for what was Long Weinberg Ansley & Wheeler, I was a single mother of a little girl who spent her life in a wheelchair with compromised immune system. Do you think anybody gave me a break on trials or deposition or out-of-town travel? I did it anyway."

The recusal motion said that, while the defendants and their lawyers sympathized with the health issues faced by Brantley's child, her comments "have nothing to do with the present situation and reflect an unfortunate animus regarding her previous employment.

"The coronavirus is a global pandemic where exposure of high-risk family members is dangerous and potentially fatal," it said. "Mr. Byrd was not seeking a 'break'; he was describing the real danger created by the continuation of the trial despite the Chief Justice's Emergency Order. 

The defense filed their emergency mandamus petition with the Georgia Supreme Court that evening, and the next day Brantley announced she would grant the stay. Then she reportedly stepped off the bench to stand before the jury.

"I'm going to have to ask you to come back," she is quoted as saying. "I hate to ask y'all that, but I am. To get a fair trial for Josh, I need y'all to come back."

Brantley told the panel she knew "it's a lot to ask to come back, and you can't talk about it, but I need you to do it for me, and I'm very appreciative. OK?" 

The recusal motion said Brantley "did not tell the jury that they needed to be impartial or keep an open mind until defendants had the opportunity to put on their case and all the evidence was closed."

"Her statements communicated to the jury and to any objective observer that Judge Brantley's personal attitudes are skewed in favor of doing justice for plaintiff," the motion said. 

Conley said the recusal motion had nothing to do with the settlement, which the parties had continued to discuss.  

"We very much wanted to go back and try the case before Judge Brantley and the jury we selected," he said. "In the end, we did what we thought was in the best interests of our client."