How I Survived a Lawsuit From Hell
By Harper Willis
Sue Chen founded Nova Medical Products, a company that designs safety and mobility equipment for the elderly and disabled, in 1993. The $26 million dollar company is based out of Carson, California and has 63 employees.
The problem
A "foreseeable misuse" lawsuit filed against the company in 2008 became so ugly it almost caused Chen to lose faith in her customers, her company, and herself.
The background
Susan Chen's father, a rehab doctor, was the inspiration for her company. He passed away when she was 14. "I went to the front of the church at his memorial service to play a piece of music in my father's honor, and I saw something that changed my life forever: Lined up against the back wall, there was a row of people in wheelchairs and walkers. They were all my father's patients," recalls Chen. Chen sees her work as a continuation of her father's legacy.
So when the wife of a customer filed a lawsuit blaming Chen's company for her husband's death, Chen took it to heart. The lawsuit claimed that Nova Medical Equipment bore responsibility for the accident for not properly labeling the product to prevent a foreseeable misuse. The client's family claimed that he had died from falling down and hitting his head after using his walker as a wheelchair. They were suing for $5 million.
Chen's insurance company hired a novice lawyer overloaded with other cases and with little at stake in closing Chen's case favorably or quickly. On the other side, the plaintiffs hired a team of top-notch, aggressive lawyers who prosecuted and won cases like this one all the time.
The company could afford to lose the case financially, but the suit had a devastating effect on company morale. Chen herself faced more than 20 hours of grueling depositions.
"Lawyers would sit me in a chair and stand over me, and scream right in my face that my company was going down, that I intentionally hurt my customers. I knew none of it was true, but after a while, it began to wear me down. It was all I could do to keep a happy face for my employees," says Chen.
The turning point
Chen finally decided to hire a new lawyer. She thought maybe that would at least help bring a speedy close to what was turning into a lawsuit from hell.
Within four months, the lawyer discovered something incredible: The allegations against the company were completely fabricated. "It was all in the medical records, which our original lawyer hadn't sufficiently examined," says Chen. Even so, the insurance company insisted on settling for a fraction of what the plaintiffs wanted rather than taking the case to court.
On some level it was good news, but for Chen it was also a terrible thing to discover. "It was hard for me not to just give in to feeling betrayed by and hating my customers, hating the lawyers, and feeling like my business was not achieving its aim -- to connect with and help people," says Chen. It forced her to reexamine her roots and ask herself why she was in this business in the first place.
Fortunately, this period of self-reflection led Chen to transform her business for the better.
The transformation
Even though Chen wasn't in any way responsible for the death of her customer, she realized that maybe on some level she had lost touch with her customers. She spent the next months visiting retirement communities, getting to know her customer base, and discovered something that radically changed her way of doing business.
"I learned among other things in my visits to retirement communities that 80-year-old men and women care just as much about being stylish and feeling sexy as anyone else," says Chen.
Now her company focuses not only on making the safest and most useful products but also on making the most aesthetically pleasing designs. One of her company's brand images features a man and women over the age of 60 sharing a hot tub -- naked.
"Other companies might not get it, but our customers love us," says Chen. "And I've never felt better about my company or myself."
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