Bull

I really can't believe you spent money on that.

I had those when I was, like, six.

Hey, they're vintage, dude.

Have you two been here before?

Mm, Amir's?

Never been here.

Is it good?

Oh, man.

Oh, and they do this thing, it's like a contest.

You take a selfie with the slice of pizza

in the shot, and if the owner likes it,

you get a free slice of pizza.

Okay.

Wh-What are you doing?

Banking myself a piece of pizza.

What do you think? That isn't going

to get you a glass of water.

They've got hundreds of pictures in there

all over the wall that look just like that one.

Stay right here.

Hey.

Ah-ha-ha. I'm impressed.

Nice, James.

Come on down, James.

Somebody's gonna come by and hear us.

Give me a second.

Oh, my God.

I can't look.

James!

Oh, my God.

James!

James?

My client was a healthy, vibrant 14-year-old boy.

He loved to play baseball,

go rock climbing,

swimming in the summer, sledding in the winter.

Now he has to spend the rest of his life

- in a wheelchair. - And my client,

Immunity Insurance, shares your sense of despair about that.

But... nonetheless, this is clearly a tragedy

of your client's own making.

No one asked him to climb up on that roof.

No one compelled him to sit on a piece of signage

that was clearly not meant to support his weight.

So why are we here?

Why invite us to a settlement conference

if you have no intention of settling?

Ask the court.

As the insurers for Amir's Flying Carpet Pizza Parlor,

my company has decided to take the position

that we bear no liability for James Donovan's injuries,

regardless of how tragic they are.

Seriously?

Seriously.

We're prepared to go to trial.

I should have assumed as much

when you invited us to a meeting at a trial science company.

We sympathize with James

and his family, but we also believe

that any rational jury will find

that the owners of the establishment,

the Elmasry family, have done nothing wrong.

The fact is, your client was trespassing.

No. No, I'm sorry.

Your client was negligent.

They installed a giant, illuminated slice of pizza

on top of a two-story building.

It practically screamed to children, "Climb me."

I gather you're planning to invoke

the attractive nuisance doctrine?

If the shoe fits.

- It doesn't. - If I may...

interject.

The fact that we are having

the meeting here does not automatically negate

the possibility of a settlement,

or I would not have agreed to host it.

Secondly, the attractive nuisance doctrine

to which you are referring

is intended to protect toddlers

from being lured into hazardous situations,

like an unfenced pool or a broken trampoline.

Your client is not a toddler,

and this is not one of those situations.

James Donovan had enough physical strength

and mental acuity

to ignore large, illuminated signage,

scale a chain-link fence,

climb a two-story building and hoist himself upon a roof.

You can't blame that on the Elmasrys.

The Elmasrys lured him in

with their "selfie gets you a free slice" promotion.

They created a social media campaign

that encouraged children to compete

to see who could take the most attention-getting selfie.

Nowhere in their entreaties did it say:

"Do not climb on our building."

Okay. The court mandated a pretrial settlement conference.

We have conferred.

Now give us your demands so we can be done with it.

We know that the Elmasrys' policy with Immunity Insurance

is capped at $2 million.

We also know how lengthy and expensive litigation will be.

With that in mind, the Donovans are prepared

to settle for the full $2 million.

Well, thank you for coming by.

Don't you at least want to run it up the flagpole

before rejecting it?

I amthe flagpole.

Of course, I will run it by the Elmasrys,

but I already know what the answer will be.

See you in court.

$2 million would have been a pretty good resolution.

You didn't even counter.

We probably could have gotten them

down to about a million and a half.

That's why I hired the two of you.

We're gonna get them down to nothing.

Ms. Kress,

uh, I'm gonna be honest with you.

We're thrilled to have your business,

thrilled to do all we can to help you and your company

achieve legal success in this case, but...

Mr. Colón is right.

I'd seriously ask you to reconsider their proposal

and avoid trial.

This is a trial science company.

I thought you were all about going to trial.

I don't understand.

Well, Ms. Kress, put yourself in the jury's shoes.

Every morning they walk into that court,

and they see a boy in a wheelchair.

Then they look to the other side of the courtroom,

and they see you, me and Dr. Bull doing everything we can

to avoid giving that boy money your company can easily afford.

Money your customers, the very nice family

who own the pizza parlor,

have every right to expect you to pay on their behalf.

This is a premises liability suit.

How many hundreds of these do you deal with a week?

Many hundreds.

Then explain the math to me,

'cause I can't quite figure it out.

You'd rather give my company a million dollars

and spend all the other costs

associated with taking this thing to court...

than give a crippled child $2 million?

Oh, it isn't that that we take issue with.

It's the selfie of it all.

You would be shocked how many people are injured or killed

doing something that requires all of their attention

while pointing a phone at themselves.

Oh, I know.

People fall into the Grand Canyon.

They get mauled by zoo animals.

Selfie culture is a complex mixture

of identity, expression, self-esteem.

But... I am reasonably certain

you can't litigate it out of existence.

Well, my company is determined to try.

The question is, will we do it with the two of you at our side?

The trial hasn't started yet.

You can still bow out.

Happy to give some other firm that million.

And yes...

I know you two boys are supposed to be the best...

but if second best is all that's available to us...

I promise you we'll make do.

Like I said before...

we're happy to take your money, Ms. Kress.

Yes. Well...

it turns out almost everyone is.

See you at trial, gentlemen.

We just have to defend them. We don't have to like them.

*BULL (2016)* Season 04 Episode 09

*BULL (2016)* Episode Title : "The Flying Carpet"

Meet the plaintiff... James Donovan.

Wow. What a sweet-looking kid.

And we're on which side of this particular dispute?

Don't be a wise guy.

And this is the last photo

James took before he fell two stories to the sidewalk.

Scary.

And this is James today.

What a nightmare.

Will this kid ever walk again?

Based on the severity

of his injuries and the current state of medical technology,

I'd say that's highly unlikely.

But frankly, that's really a question

for his family's health insurance provider.

Our focus needs to be on making a case

that the willful trespassing that went on here

exempts this as a claim

against the property owner's commercial liability insurance.

This is Avery Kress.

Ah. Senior vice president

of claims at Immunity Insurance.

Our client.

Nice to meet you all.