Fighting for Sarah Anderson

Dalton:
All right. Welcome back. Mobile Mornings with Dan Brennan and Dalton Orwig. And I want to introduce our guest here that we have on Bryan Comer with the personal injury lawyers Tobias & Comer Law, LLC. Bryan, thank you so much for coming on with us this morning.

Bryan:
Thanks for having me.

Dalton:
One thing that stands out to me as we were talking during the break is Mobile born and bred. You are and the entire team there Tobias Comer local, local, local. And when you think of Alabama lawyers, you think of Billboard, you think of a lot of crazy stuff that's going on. But what you really want when you want somebody to litigate case for you is a real person that actually cares for you and is doing local Mobile things, just like we are. Local Baldwin County things. That's what you guys do at Tobias & Comer Law, LLC.

Bryan:
That's right. And it is. And I grew up North Mobile County in Satsuma, and my wife and I live here in Mobile. My partner, Desi Tobias, he and his family live in Mobile. We tell folks we're real people who help real people. And so we're here in the community. We've been in the community. And if you call us that's who you're going to get. It's not some tagline. It's not some sales pitch. Just we're actual litigators who try cases from the very beginning when you walk in the door and can handle it all the way through to the absolute conclusion of the case, even if that means going on appeal.

Dalton:
That's so great to hear. I was looking at some of the cases that you guys have have. They're on your website at Tobias & Comer Law, LLC. And one of the first things that came to my mind, I've had a couple of family members who have been injured through no fault of their own and other instances. And one of those family members of mine actually did reach out to a lawyer who handled her case. The other felt like she didn't really have a case. She was almost like, embarrassed about what happened to her. And I would imagine that that is the case with a lot of people that they're either injured through no fault of their own or something happens to them, and they are afraid to reach out to just see what might be out there for them. What do you have to say to people that are either intimidated to reach out to Tobias & Comer Law, LLC or for some other reason, just don't want to reach out? What would you say to somebody like that?

Bryan:
And that's a really good question. And I was the same way. I'm the first person in my family to graduate from College, much less go to law school and be an attorney. And just not being in that field, it can seem intimidating. And that's the thing that we really want to try to get through to people is there's really nothing to be intimidated about from our end, because we are we're real folks. We live right here in the community. We go to church here. Our kids go to school here. And there really isn't kind of a dumb question that can be asked. And so what we do is the contingency fee agreement means that we don't bill by the hour. You don't have to pay a retainer to come in and see us. Instead, you can come in and say, hey, here's what happened to me. Do I have a case? And so what then happens is that then starts the investigative process on our end. And there's some cases where we can say, Okay, well, that's terrible and terrible things happen, and sometimes terrible things just happen. However, sometimes it takes a little bit of digging a little bit of an investigation beforehand to determine that there is a responsible party that needs to be held accountable for it. And so maybe at first blush, it might not seem particularly to somebody who doesn't have experience with lawyers or the law. Maybe I don't have something here. But maybe you didn't know that the corporate defendant had had five other people get seriously injured in the exact same way from, say, a defective product. And that's the investigation that we do. And then we can come back and say, okay, here's what we found. And then, yes, you have a case, and we'd like to help you with it. Or unfortunately, there's not going to be anything we can do.

Dalton:
I'd like to hear specifically about this one case that I was reading about earlier. Sarah Anderson. This one struck me because Sarah Anderson was, I guess she was an Auburn University student from Robertsdale, but was at Auburn. And this was the same time right around when I was in college at Troy at that time. And something awful happened to Sarah Anderson, and her family had reason to believe that what actually happened was not what the reports were saying. Tell me a little bit about that case. What happened with Sara Anderson?

Bryan:
Sure, that case is one that I'll remember for the rest of my life. It was the most tragic situation. She was killed on I 85, and her father came to see me with a police report that said that she was ejected and killed in a one car accident. And he was adamant that he had told her growing up, you always wear your seatbelt. And she always did. And so with that meeting with him started an Odyssey that lasted for about four years, where we had to go in and did a deep dive and actually got into the things that you see on CSI or something like that, where we got into DNA evidence and come to find out there were actually two wrecks. She had been involved in a one vehicle hydroplane accident. She was driving to Montgomery from Auburn at night, and during a rainstorm, she hit a puddle of water, hydroplaned and wrecked the car. Well, we ended up finding out through eye witness interviews, from actual recreation reconstructing the accidents to DNA analysis. She had a passenger with her. We did blood sample analysis. We did a bunch of forensic investigation, and we proved that she was not ejected in that wreck, that she was actually trying to warn people of her wreck. And then she was hit by an 18 Wheeler who wasn't paying attention, I mean, even still just talking about it, it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up because the driver tried to pass it off like he didn't do anything wrong. There was a collision, and he acted as if there was nothing wrong. But come to find out when we were able to piece it together, we discovered exactly what happened, and he wasn't paying attention. Another motorist had seen her actually waving her flashlight on her cell phone, trying to warn traffic. He doesn't pay attention, and he hits her car and it kills her.

Dalton:
And to think all that came from a gut instinct that her father had that no, she was wearing her seat belt. That's all she's ever done. That's absolutely amazing. And then for you to go above and beyond and all of that investigating and learning all these new things and eventually making sure that everything was right with Sarah's family.

Bryan:
And ultimately, it was interesting from an intellectual standpoint. I mean, it was interesting to learn about forensic pathology, and how does the body react to certain things, like she didn't have any marks on her body that would indicate that she had gone through a windshield or through the side window or had been ejected, but to learn about that sort of thing. But it was so definitive. The death certificate was amended by the County by the Montgomery County corner, and the accident report was amended by the Alabama law enforcement agency. And so that's how overwhelming the evidence was. That that's the thing that we do. And that's what I try to tell people. When we say that we're real people, when we investigate a case, we investigate it, we find out, you know, what actually happened. And so often, particularly in cases where someone has died, where a parent or a spouse gets the knock at the door from a trooper and the worst moment of their lives happen. They want to know what happened. And that's what gives us the most satisfaction is being able to answer that question for somebody is what happened to your loved one.

Dalton:
Well, you guys are local. I mean, you said it earlier, Tobias & Comer Law, LLC willing to go not just the extra mile, but however many miles it takes to make sure that everything ends up right. Bryan, thank you so much for coming on the show with us. If people want to go online is at tmclawyers.com? And for a consultation, I think I saw the number. 251-432-5001

Bryan:
That's right. And you're right. There's no fee for a consultation. We love to talk to people.