An online video of a California defense attorney's speech to his staff celebrating a favorable verdict in a medical malpractice lawsuit has caused controversy both among his legal colleagues and the family of the patient at the center of the case. In a speech about a month after he successfully persuaded Orange County jurors to ignore a death certificate listing a patient's cause of death as peritonitis caused by a feeding tube that pierced the patient's colon, attorney Robert L. McKenna III celebrated the verdict, telling staff that the patient was "a guy that was probably negligently killed, but we kind of made it look like other people did it." McKenna, who told jurors that the plaintiffs' $10 million damage request a "cash grab" and dubbed plaintiffs' attorney Jorge Ledezma part of the "personal-injury industrial complex" said he apologized for his remarks, calling his language in the video "imprecise." Ledezma, citing legal errors during the trial and McKenna's inflammatory closing arguments, said his clients plan to appeal the verdict.
