(this is the rest of the story from another thread)

Ok, court room and the slick move.

This is a Jury trial. Which doesn't happen often, so it's a big deal, in the town we lived in. The Mayor was excused, because He said "100% of all rear ends are the fault of the person doing the rear ending" So, he was gone. Actually it's 93%.

So, First day goes along just fine. The second day, there were more folks in attendance. 5 Women were watching this trial. At a break, I asked one of them who they were. Come to find out, they were from Our Lawyers office. They had traveled 150 miles to watch their boss work. Why? They had never seen Him actually get to trial!!! Always had settled before trial.

At that time, our Lawyer said the plaintiff would settle for $45,000. I said, heck yes!! Do it. (insurance would pick that up) He said that he passed along that info to the Insurance Company, and He would hear from them later.

Back into court we go.

We get to closing arguments. The Plaintiff's lawyer goes first. He gets up and does his thing. While he is up there, he is using a tripod with a paper pad to write things on. And he flips to a new page for new topics. Our lawyer gets up and stands with the jury so he can read what he is writing.

After the plaintiff's Lawyer gets done, he flips all the pages over and sits down.

Our turn. Our Lawyer gets up and flips the paper pages to one page, says something about that subject, then goes to the blank page and writes as he talks.

Well, what he wrote, wasn't what He was always saying! On one page, near the end of his closing, he wrote in big words "HE HAS BEEN PAID" The plaintiff had accepted money from the insurance company of the young girl who had caused the accident. The plaintiff's lawyer never got up to read what he was writing! He never saw it! And, the subject of the plaintiff getting money from the other company wasn't mentioned during trial. Now, that folks was slick! The jury now knew the plaintiff had already settled with someone else!

We did win! We were the 7% that are not blamed in a rear end accident!

After the trial, I was talking with one of the Ladies from his office and asked why he didn't settle this case. Then I find out the Why.

Years before our lawyer was in town for another case. When he returned to his hotel room, he found someone rummaging through his stuff. Our Lawyer is a big guy. The crook attacked him and our lawyer proceeded to kick the living day lights out of him.

So, later, the crook sued our lawyer for medical bills. (Our lawyer of course didn't have to pay those bills.) Our lawyer needed a lawyer. And who was this lawyer? The plaintiff's lawyer from our case!

Our lawyer never wanted to settle this case out of trial. He wanted to go one on one with him in a court room for the fun of it!!! (again, that is why his staff drove 150 miles to watch)

I didn't like seeing our case get handed to the Jury, but after hearing the back story, it ended up being kind of fun!

Now you know the rest of the story!

 

Congratulations sir. Good to hear that you are good to go without anymore hassle.

 

It took 4 years to get to trial. It took 2 of those years before he filed the law suit. Then 2 to get to trial. That was the toughest part.

Thank you!