A tale of a broken life, then a break

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

He headed north, pushing an aluminum walker and dragging his left foot, encased in a bulky, orthopedic boot.

He boarded the first bus he saw.

"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-dozen buses and two trains in a journey that lasted from dawn to late afternoon.

The last leg of his journey was a 1 ½-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 semicabs.

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

If the story was true, an employee joked, Schulman wouldn't be alive to tell it. He flushed with embarrassment and then rage.

He could hear their laughter as he limped away.

Life of ups and downs

Schulman, 54, always had 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 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 fallen into place.

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

Still, she seemed to be the only person willing to stick by him. On a whim, they bought a puppy. They both had children from previous marriages; the dog, a German shepherd mix, gave them something to raise together. They named her Pebbles.

Disastrous events

Life was mostly good, until a 2006 phone call triggered a disastrous series of events. Schulman's wife received word that her son was ill. They had to move back to the San Fernando Valley.

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, strained 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 slept on the streets around Hollywood and the Valley. On the night of March 27, 2007, he found a mattress propped against a bright-blue garbage bin 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 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 pooled with blood. He dragged himself toward a gas station. 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 calfbone, causing a severe fracture.

As he was lifted into an ambulance, Schulman mouthed the name he had seen emblazoned 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 Court House. 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 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 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.

The trial

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 semitrailer 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.

A medical expert testified that Schulman's injuries were consistent with being crushed by massive wheels.

The jury voted 9-3 in favor of Schulman.

A clerk announced 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 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.

Making amends

Schulman recently 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. He recently 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, worries 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 fine 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.

After all he's been through, frugality 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."

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 it all worked out for their father in the end.