The Luckiest Man

4 Dec 2022 · 1 min

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In this brief first‑person narrative, Jerry Taylor recounts a courtroom case from his early career as a young attorney in Orlando, Florida. He represented a nail‑gun manufacturer sued by the plaintiff firm of John Morgan (later of Morgan & Morgan). The plaintiff was a construction worker who, while standing on a ladder, was struck in the forehead by a 3‑inch nail fired from a nail gun operated by another worker on the same ladder. Remarkably, the nail passed directly between the two cerebral lobes without causing any lobar damage, leaving the victim essentially unharmed. Taylor labels the injured worker “the luckiest man” he has ever known, highlighting the extraordinary anatomical luck and the unusual circumstances of the legal dispute.

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What you're about to hear is the story of the luckiest man I've ever known. When I was a young lawyer, I represented corporations, and one corporation I represented was a nail gun manufacturer. At the time this happened, I was practicing in Orlando, Florida. My client, the nail gun manufacturer, was sued by John Morgan's firm. This is the same John Morgan that now has Morgan Morgan, probably one of the biggest plaintiff's firms in the United States. John's client was a construction worker who was standing on a ladder. Another man was standing on the same ladder above John's client. And he was operating a nail gun. The accident happened when the man with the nail gun dropped his arm down to rest it. The nozzle on the nail gun came in contact with the forehead of John's client. The nail gun fired and a 3-inch nail went into the forehead of the man standing below. That 3-inch nail went in directly between the two lobes of his brain. No damage whatsoever was done to either lobe of his brain. It was then that he became the luckiest man.