A broken life, then a break

Steven Schulman made his way out of the convalescent home in North Hollywood, wincing with each step.

He headed north on Laurel Canyon Boulevard, pushing an aluminum walker and dragging his left foot, which was encased in a bulky orthopedic boot.

He boarded the first bus he saw.

Thunk, thunk, thunk…

“I need to get to Irwindale,” he told the driver.

Doctors had advised him not to make the trip, but he was determined to confront the people who had done this to him. Their address was scrawled on a crumpled piece of paper he had carried in his pocket for weeks.

Guided by strangers, he boarded another half a dozen buses and two trains in an odyssey that lasted from dawn to late afternoon.

He got off near Longden Avenue in Irwindale. The last leg of his journey stretched before him: a 1 1/2 mile hobble through a moonscape of rock quarries and repair yards. Finally, there he was, at the headquarters of American Riggers, a lot full of cherry-red semi-truck cabs.

He climbed the concrete steps into a bungalow office. Sweat poured down his frame, slight but for his potbelly. His wounded foot felt like it might give out, but this was his moment, the one he had been waiting for.

He faced the company owner.

“One of your truck drivers ran me over,” he said.

Schulman expected an apology — and compensation. The man stared in apparent disbelief. Then he burst out laughing.

Schulman recalls the sting of what he heard next: “The only way you’re going to get anything is to sue me.”

An employee joked that if Schulman’s story was true, he wouldn’t be alive to tell it. Schulman flushed with embarrassment and then rage.

He could hear their laughter as he limped away.

***

Schulman had always prided himself on making his own way. After his father walked out on the family when he was a teenager, he moved from his native Chicago to the San Fernando Valley. Never very interested in school, he learned plumbing.

His first marriage ended in divorce, and so did his second. But when he reunited with his second wife, Leonora, in his late-30s, he felt like his life had finally fallen into place.

They moved to Sacramento and spent nearly every moment together, running a successful plumbing business. But the relationship was tumultuous. Schulman drank, and sometimes his temper flared. On a few occasions, police were called to the house to settle domestic disputes.

Still, she seemed to be the only person willing to stick by him. On a whim, they bought a puppy through an ad they saw on a hardware store bulletin board. They both had children from previous marriages; the dog, a German Shepherd mix, gave them something to raise together. They named her Pebbles.

Life was mostly good, until a phone call in 2006 triggered a disastrous series of events. Schulman’s wife got word that her son was ill. They had to move back to the San Fernando Valley so she could be with him.

The move to a relative’s condo in Encino was rough on Schulman. He often clashed with his stepdaughter’s boyfriend, who refused to allow Pebbles inside. The tension, aggravated by Schulman’s drinking, put a strain on his marriage.

Their disputes came to a head on Super Bowl Sunday 2007, as Schulman watched his beloved Chicago Bears fumble and fold in a rainy battle against the Indianapolis Colts. An argument led to blows, and Schulman was kicked out.

He wound up sleeping on the streets in Hollywood and the Valley. On the night of March 27, 2007, he found a mattress propped against a bright-blue dumpster behind a Trader Joe’s in Encino. He knocked the mattress onto the pavement and drifted off to sleep.

***

He can’t remember which came first: the roar, loud as a jet engine’s, or the sensation of thousands of pounds of pressure crushing his bones.

An 18-wheeler carrying a forklift in its trailer had turned into the alley and rolled over his legs.

Schulman screamed when he saw the white sneaker on his right foot turn red as it filled with blood. He dragged himself toward a nearby gas station. His kneecaps streaked a trail of blood on the asphalt. Someone called 911.

An emergency room doctor later compared the injured right foot to a crushed tomato: Squeeze hard enough and the insides will burst. The truck’s wheels also wrenched Schulman’s left calf bone, causing a severe fracture.

As he was lifted into an ambulance, Schulman mouthed the name he had seen on the truck’s cherry-red cab. He didn’t want to forget it.

American Riggers… American Riggers… American Riggers.

***

Schulman looked out of place in the Van Nuys Superior Courthouse. In filthy clothes, he clumsily navigated the halls. He wanted to sue American Riggers but wasn’t sure how. He hung around outside the courthouse, stopping lawyers for advice as they hurried in and out. He strung together their tips and filed a lawsuit.

When he returned to check on its status weeks later, a judge told him that his complaint had not been served on the defendant because sheriff’s deputies couldn’t find the company’s office. A sense of desperation swept over him.

He was limping out of the courtroom, fiddling anxiously with the pack of Marlboro reds in his pocket, when a man in a crisp suit grabbed him by the shoulder. He handed Schulman a business card: Gary Casselman, attorney at law.

In more than three decades as a civil trial lawyer, Casselman had won multimillion-dollar settlements and jury verdicts against such defendants as the cities of Los Angeles and Inglewood, mainly in police misconduct and personal injury cases.

It was a risk taking on the cause of a homeless man who couldn’t pay unless he won. Casselman’s wife and legal partner, Danielle, was skeptical to say the least.

“She told me if I lost, I’d be the one outside sleeping on a mattress,” Casselman recalled.

But he plunged in anyway. He thought he could win, and he knew the odds Schulman would face going it alone.

Schulman had been living on skid row in L.A. on and off for months since being discharged from a convalescent home. He and his lawyer could communicate only when Schulman begged enough change to use a pay phone. So Casselman put him up in a Santa Monica motel, fronting the cost — almost $24,000 for more than a year — while the case made its way to trial.

With a roof over his head, Schulman was able to take Pebbles out of a kennel. But the dog was too much for him to handle with injured feet. One day, when Schulman opened his motel-room door to greet Casselman, Pebbles ran out.

Casselman knew what he had to do. As the dog bolted across busy Lincoln Boulevard, the attorney, clad in a fine suit, gave chase.

“Pebbles!” he screamed, as cars zipped past. The pursuit went on for blocks. Each time Casselman got close, the dog, with the face of a puppy but the body of a small bull, dashed off jubilantly.

Casselman finally caught up with the runaway canine. Lacking a leash, he was forced to hunch over and drag the massive dog home by the collar.

***

The two-week trial last fall was an ordeal for Schulman.

The attorney for American Riggers’ insurance company painted him as a liar. His years of drinking were dredged up before the jury.

The driver of the big-rig testified that the first he saw of Schulman was when paramedics were tending to him. Schulman must have been injured in some other manner, and his memory of a cherry-red cab with the American Riggers insignia must have been fabricated, the defense said.

Casselman battled back, exposing inconsistencies in the driver’s story. A Trader Joe’s manager said the American Riggers truck was the only one scheduled to arrive around the time Schulman was run over.

An emergency room doctor who treated Schulman testified that his injuries were consistent with being crushed by massive wheels.

George Larrazolo, the trucking company owner, was questioned about Schulman’s unannounced visit and his demand for compensation. In a deposition, Larrazolo said he told Schulman: “If you have a problem with my company, then you need to deal with the insurance company.”

After some hesitation, he admitted laughing at the bedraggled visitor.

The 12 jurors reached their verdict on a Friday. As they entered the courtroom, Schulman tugged at his lawyer’s sleeve, demanding to know why none of them would make eye contact with him.

His future hinged on this moment. A win would mean a new beginning; a loss, desperation.

The jury voted 9 to 3 in favor of Schulman.

A clerk announced the monetary damages — $65,000 in economic compensation, $150,000 for pain and suffering, $25,000 for future medical expenses.

There was one piece of news still to come. When he heard it, Schulman grabbed his lawyer and gave him a joyful kiss.

For future pain, suffering and loss of earning capacity, $450,000.

***

On a recent afternoon, Schulman, 54, passed a row of car dealerships in Van Nuys — where he once begged for change on the streets – and admired the rows of gleaming new cars.

“I used to see all these people shopping for a car, living happy, normal lives, and I couldn’t even get a hamburger. I couldn’t even spit at the license plates,” he said. “And now I look at these cars and know I can buy any one of them.”

Schulman has been warned to watch out for vultures, but he’s also trying to make amends for his past. Recently, he sold his old Pontiac for 50 cents to a woman he found crying in a Little Caesars pizzeria. (She left in a rage days later when Schulman wouldn’t give her more.)

For a time, he shared his new Van Nuys apartment with an old buddy who was facing eviction. Such acts of kindness, he said, are his way of “paying it forward.”

He plans to use the money from the lawsuit — about $350,000, after legal fees and other costs — to hire a couple of plumbers and go into business again.

Casselman, however, is worried that Schulman could run through his money and wind up back on the street. He tried to talk him out of buying a Corvette, but Schulman’s mind was set. He dropped $30,000 on the car.

Schulman also sprang for two large flat-screen TVs for his apartment. In the weeks after the verdict, he often dined at nice Japanese restaurants, ordering plate after plate of sushi and bottles of hot sake. Other patrons stared at the man in the ragged denim shirt with stubble on his face, hollering for filet mignon and lobster tail.

“I want extra wasabi and extra, extra ginger,” he said during one of these meals.

After all he’s been through, frugality simply isn’t in the cards, he said.

“Maybe it is trying to make up a little for lost time. Yeah, so what?” he said. “I think I deserve it.”

But his most heartfelt fantasy centers on people more than possessions: He’s speeding toward Las Vegas in a shiny Corvette with a black leather interior. Pebbles is in the passenger seat, barking herself hoarse at passing motorcyclists.

A cigarette dangles from his lips as he bears down on The Strip’s bright lights. He’s on his way to find a son and daughter from his first marriage. He wants to introduce them to Pebbles and let them know that it all worked out for their father in the end.

robert.faturechi@latimes.com