[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_4″ last=”no” spacing=”yes” center_content=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” hover_type=”none” link=”” border_position=”all” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_imageframe lightbox=”no” lightbox_image=”” style_type=”none” hover_type=”none” bordercolor=”” bordersize=”0px” borderradius=”0″ stylecolor=”” align=”none” link=”” linktarget=”_self” animation_type=”0″ animation_direction=”down” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” hide_on_mobile=”no” class=”” id=””] 
[/fusion_imageframe][/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”3_4″ last=”yes” spacing=”yes” center_content=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” hover_type=”none” link=”” border_position=”all” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_text]By Mark Curriden
(Jan. 23) – Frank Branson and T. John Ward were young lawyers battling in court. Branson represented the victim of medical malpractice, and Ward defended the hospital.
The trial was a heated, take-no-prisoners battle. The attorneys aggressively advocated for their clients. They almost came to fisticuffs several times.
At the end of the trial, Ward approached Branson.
“Do you drink whiskey?” Ward asked.
“I do with friends, but I will make an exception,” Branson replied.
“We went to the Cherokee Club, and I found out that he wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought he was,” Branson said at a CLE program at SMU Dedman Law School in 2016. “The first five or six lawsuits Jim Cowles and I had against each other, one of us asked the other to fight. It was part of the routine, but we were both smart enough that someone else was there to keep us apart.
“Lawyers should be able to fight vigorously for their clients in court, but still be civil to each other. I think that is missing from today’s legal profession.”
While Ward became a federal judge, Branson became one of the most successful trial lawyers in Texas history. Today, they are close friends.
A 1969 graduate of the SMU Dedman School of Law, Branson has tried more than 100 cases to a verdict. His clients are ordinary people who have been horribly injured and business leaders who have been screwed over by unscrupulous partners. Nearly 20 of his trials resulted in multimillion-dollar jury verdicts.
But it didn’t start out that way.
Branson’s first jury trial was in 1970 in Fort Worth. The trial lasted more than three weeks. His client, however, was less than likable. The young lawyer represented one of the defendants in a bizarre murder case that included some strange facts.
Branson’s client dated a woman whose sister’s boyfriend was a homicidal maniac. The defendant got drunk with two girls and passed out in the back of a truck. The sister’s boyfriend woke him up and forced him to steal $12 from a service station attendant, who was a student working his way through college. Then, they stabbed the victim 37 times. But the case, as lawyers involved will tell you, was a lot more complicated than that.
The state sought the death penalty against both men. The morning of the trial, the co-defendant pleaded guilty to nine life-in-prison sentences to be served consecutively. Branson went into the trial with one goal: save his client’s life.
“I was told that I was going to court for a routine docket call, where I would watch and learn from an older lawyer,” he says. “I showed up and the lawyer said to me, ‘Son, it’s time for you to try a case.’
“I ended up putting on most of the witnesses and arguing the case,” Branson says. “I do not recommend trial by fire for your first trial, especially if it is a capital murder case.”
Branson’s defense was simple: His client stabbed the woman under physical threat from the co-defendant. And he picked away at the prosecution’s case whenever he could.
“I got the medical examiner to admit on the witness stand that the victim was stabbed at a right angle,” Branson says. “My client was left handed. It wasn’t much of a defense, but it was all we had.”
The jury deliberated for more than two days before issuing a compromise verdict: his client was found guilty, but received life in prison, not death.
A few more criminal cases came Branson’s way, but he decided to focus on civil litigation. During the early days in his career, he tried scores small-dollar cases. The early jury verdicts were $1,000 to $15,000 for a car wreck injury or a worker’s compensation case.
“Every case is important to our clients,” he says. “The cases we handle today are literally life-changing for many of our clients. They just want justice.”
Branson is the plain-talking son of a Fort Worth football coach. After college at Texas Christian University, he worked as a waiter at Steak & Ale and a claims adjuster to help pay his way through SMU Dedman School of Law, where he received his doctor of jurisprudence in 1969. Four years later, he went back and earned his LL.M. degree in legal medicine.
“As a first-year lawyer, I was sent to county court wearing a brand new poplin suit and I was standing near the probate judge when he spit tobacco all over my suit,” Branson recalls. “He said, ‘Son, let that be a lesson to you. Never get between a judge and his spittoon.’”
His biggest success, he said, was convincing the daughter of an Arkansas Supreme Court justice to marry him.
“Besides being the love of my life, Debbie is my best friend, the mother of my children and the best lawyer and jury consultant I’ve ever worked with. She keeps me focused on what’s important.”
All those courtroom victories are the reason Branson is widely recognized as one of the great plaintiff’s lawyers in the U.S. The Texas Lawbook estimates that the combined jury verdicts and settlements achieved by Branson for his clients approach $1 billion.
“I got my competitive spirit from my father,” he says. “If my dad said it once, he said it 1,000 times, ‘If you are going to do it, do it right.’ As long as I think I can make a difference, I will keep going.”
One of his first big wins came in 1982 when he represented the victims of a truck crash in federal court in Tyler. The driver told police that he dropped a cigarette, which caused him to collide with the van carrying Branson’s clients.
When Branson cross-examined the truck driver under oath, the witness broke down in a Perry Mason-like moment. The driver dramatically confessed that the company made him drive even when he was tired.
“I offered to settle the case before trial for $2 million, but the defense counsel would not even meet with me,” Branson says.
The jury awarded Branson’s clients $5.6 million.
While he was in trial in the truck driver case, he received a call asking him to get involved in the case of two brothers who were thrown from an amusement ride at the State Fair of Texas. One was killed. The other was critically injured.
Branson’s investigation discovered the amusement ride had scores of stress fractures, including some fractures that had been welded over. He negotiated a $10 million settlement for his clients, had the ride banned from being used in the U.S. and convinced the State Fair to institute additional safety measures.
Branson represented a handful of people who were killed or critically injured when Delta Air Lines Flight 1141 crashed at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in 1988. Two years later, he scored $11 million in settlements for his clients.
A decade later, he won a $5.7 million jury verdict for a victim in the 1999 American Airlines Flight 1420 crash at the Little Rock National Airport.
In 2007, Branson represented an 83-year-old widow of a 76-year-old man who died after his vehicle was struck by an 18-wheeler carrying hazardous materials on Interstate 635 in Dallas. The defense attorneys for the environmental waste company initially offered less than $1 million to settle the case, citing the woman’s age. Later, the defendants offered $3 million. The widow, who came to the U.S. after World War II on a liberty boat, said she would accept $5.3 million – an amount the company rejected.
“We showed the jury that the truck driver was on drugs and that he had a long history of being on drugs when he was hired to drive the truck,” he says.
The jury returned a verdict of $20.9 million.
Two years later, Branson scored $34 million in settlements for a Dallas Cowboys coach and scout who were seriously injured when the team’s training facility collapsed in 2009.
That same year, one of the families of 23 nursing home patients who died in a fiery bus crash while evacuating during Hurricane Rita hired Branson to represent them. He helped negotiate an $80 million settlement for all the plaintiffs.
“We learned early on that technology was our friend in demonstrating everything from truck crashes to buildings exploding to jurors,” Branson says. The firm employs a videographer, a computer generated graphics artist and a medical illustrator.
In fact, the Melvin M. Belli Society honored Branson with the 2007 Mel Award, which celebrates lawyers who demonstrate “creative advocacy, spirit of innovation and paradigm-shifting techniques in the presentation of evidence.”
Branson’s most recent courtroom success came last August when he represented two Dallas businesses – Tiburon Land and Cattle and Trek Resources – which sued their business partners who conspired to fraudulently cut them out of a lucrative mineral rights leasing deal.
After a three-and-a-half week trial, the Fisher County jury awarded the plaintiffs $43 million.
Looking back at his nearly five decade long career, Branson remains proud to be a lawye
“The law business has changed a lot,” he says.
Branson points to more diverse jury pools, tort reform, the move away from unanimous juries and the use of technology.
“When we got televisions in the courtroom and we could televise depositions, it made all the difference,” he says. “We are able to graphically recreate truck crashes, medical operations, oilfield explosions or even the complexity of corporate contracts so judges and jurors can better understand them.”
Even opposing lawyers tip their hat to Branson’s abilities.
“Frank Branson is the best trial lawyer I have ever seen in action,” says Gibson Dunn & Crutcher litigation partner Bill Dawson. “He’s always completely prepared. He understands what’s important and he, better than anyone I have ever seen in a courtroom, knows how to communicate that message to the jury.”[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]