Jon Marko turned Continental's admission into his case, then walked the jury through the verdict form, starting with the easy lines.
What does a jury write when the plaintiff's lawyer tells it Germany will hear what it did? Jon Marko of Marko Law closed for a boy hurt in an Auburn Hills test-track crash. On a 2:50 clip his firm posted on LinkedIn, he tells the Oakland County, Michigan, jury: "They're gonna have to write up a report and they're gonna have to send it back to Germany and they're gonna have to tell them what you did." On July 27, the jury awarded $896,467,970.
Continental had admitted liability, so the jury's job was to decide what the injuries were worth, Courtroom View Network (CVN) reported. Marko says Continental never made a settlement offer. CVN reported that the defense suggested $10 million in its opening and about $10.5 million to the jury. By Marko's account, the defense had named no amount anywhere before trial. Our read: admit liability, make no offer, and the jury writes the number.
▶ Watch Jon Marko's closing (1:24, YouTube). Marko Law's own clip, posted July 29. The Germany and verdict-form lines are in the firm's 2:50 LinkedIn edit. The full closing, about 57 minutes, is on CVN for subscribers.
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In July 2023, children from a summer STEM camp visited a Continental test track in Auburn Hills for a vehicle demonstration, Local 4 Detroit reported on September 24. A prototype Mustang Dark Horse on loan from Ford went out of control and hit people standing trackside, CVN reported. The verdict form lists a traumatic brain injury and a fractured skull among the boy's injuries.
"This is a really simple case," Marko told jurors in his opening, CVN reported. He said Continental put little kids next to a race track and a driver crashed a prototype car into them.
Then he turned the stipulation around. CVN reported that he urged jurors to reject the idea that Continental had accepted responsibility, arguing that admitting liability while minimizing a brain injury and multiple surgeries showed the company was still trying to evade it.
CVN reported that Marko spent most of his opening on the injuries and named no dollar figure. Continental's lawyer, Jonathan Ebner of Clyde & Co, suggested $10 million and told jurors, "The injuries are what they are." Ebner also told jurors the boy's grades had recovered, CVN reported. After the trial, Marko told CVN: "Yeah you got an A, but mom and dad still had to help you with your homework for four hours."
CVN's trial index shows Marko closed for about 57 minutes, Ebner for about 29, and Marko rebutted for about 10.
He began with himself and the jurors. On a 1:24 clip his firm posted on YouTube, he tells them that one night he came home, saw his own two-year-old son, "and I just started crying."
His firm's 2:50 LinkedIn edit shows two more moves.
He gave the jury an audience outside the room. He described "all those guys that have been sitting in suits in here," who would report back to Germany. Then: "the cameras been here the whole time. Everybody's gonna get to see what you guys did in this case."
He started the verdict form where nobody disagrees. "I would love for you all to agree," he said. "Some of the questions are going to be really easy. So the first question is just past medical bills ... this is not in dispute." The form then runs year by year into the 2080s. The jury wrote $1,575,000 for 2027's future noneconomic damages and raised that line 5% a year, to about $26.7 million for the single year 2085. In his opening, Ebner had told jurors to expect a request from Marko of more than $25 million, CVN reported. The jury passed that anchor on the 2085 line alone, in the future dollars the form uses, before Michigan's discount. Neither firm clip shows a dollar amount Marko asked for, and we have not found his ask in any public source.
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A defense lawyer could hear the Germany and camera lines as a send-a-message argument in a trial that was only about compensation. Nothing we read shows an objection or a ruling on those lines.
Samantha Teal, the plaintiff team's trial consultant, posted that day that the jury deliberated for an hour and 15 minutes.
Michigan law requires the court to reduce future damages to present value at 5% a year, compounded. By our math that puts this verdict near $230 million before interest, costs, collateral-source reductions and post-trial rulings, still about $170 million above a mediator's $60 million suggestion that Marko says his clients were willing to accept, over his objections.
In September, Marko told CVN his take: Continental or its primary insurer "failed to provide notice to the other insurance companies in the tower and now the upper coverage levels are denying the claim." CVN's September 24 story, reporting what Marko said, describes a $1 million sanction against Continental "for lying about insurance limits." We have not seen that order. Continental's lawyers did not respond to CVN, and Local 4 said it was still waiting to hear back.
The pattern held. CVN reported on September 24 that two more trials from the same crash ended in verdicts of $2,066,000 in early August and about $32.7 million on September 11, and that by Marko's account Continental made no settlement offer at any point in the litigation.
Know who is across the table. Marko describes himself to Michigan Lawyers Weekly as "undefeated across 21 consecutive seven-, eight-, and nine-figure cases." Put the plaintiff lawyer's record and his last closing in the reserve conversation before trial.
Pull every severe-injury file where liability is admitted and no offer is out. Find out who made that call, and whether every insurer in the tower has notice.
Ask defense counsel what number they will give the jury, and who approved it. Here the defense suggested about $10.5 million, CVN reported, and the jury wrote $896 million.
Any order entering judgment, post-trial motion or appeal in Oakland County Circuit Court Case No. 2024-209658-NO before Judge David Cohen. Marko told CVN, "There's not many preserved issues."
Think of the admitted-liability file you would least want a jury to price. Is an offer out on it? Reply with "none," the month of the last offer, or "unknown." You don't need to name the file.
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