I’ve got a jury trial against a pro se plaintiff set on Monday. She’s pro se because her lawyer fired her and withdrew when she wouldn’t accept a very generous offer. He didn’t assert an attorney’s lien. She failed to file a witness and exhibit list, so I moved to preclude her from offering and witnesses or exhibits. Judge grants it, and tells her to accept any offer I made. I left the very generous offer on the table. She said she wanted to take her chances. The judge explained to her, again, that she cannot prove her case and that he “would expect” me to file a motion to dismiss, and that she should take the offer. Smugly, she said “isn’t this a jury trial” in a “checkmate” tone. Instead of getting more money than she’s ever made in a year, she’s about to have her case dismissed.
Fast forward to Monday and wes tegg ’s firm will put up an announcement, “Attorney Wes Tegg obtains a directed verdict in a multi-million dollar claim due to his aggressive motion practice and extensive trial experience!”
Prepare to respond to a bar grievance from her. Withdrew from a clear liability case against macaroni grill where a lady swallowed some broken glass. Good money on the table, but an absolutely crazy client. After I withdrew, defense lawyer gets a MSJ granted, the client’s crazy husband then grieves the defense lawyer.
As a person who copies and pastes, uhhh I mean, drafts said defenses, I think it’s pretty much a waste of time on the plaintiff’s side to move to strike them. Unless there’s a unique legal question, nobody really pays much attention to them and then as you prep for trial and narrow the issues the BS defenses fall by the wayside. Failing to assert a specific affirmative defense can have a very detrimental effect, which is why the boilerplate ones get trotted out so that you can avoid a claim of waiver. Is there a specific defense that’s bothering you on a case you’re working on now?
Unclean hands, waiver, and estoppel, and right to a set-off. This is a simple breach of contract case with a pro-se defendant.
I just hope he grants the motion. I can’t imagine anything worse than trying a jury trial against this loon. She’ll mistry it in five minutes.
I have a mediation on June 21 where I expect my client to turn down a good offer. We've been round and round on her case. If she doesn't accept it I might have to fire her and withdraw as well. People like that drive me absolutely nuts. It's by far the worst part of plaintiff practice.
Part of being a good mediator is setting plaintiff expectations If the mediator you’re using on that date is just mediocre come up with an excuse to cancel and find someone good I’m mediating this morning with a mediator who frankly sucks but she is always available. The good ones in Houston are all booked 2 months out
The mediator we are using is considered the best in the state and is booked 2 months out. Wouldn't put it past my client to refuse to listen to him and me and blow up the deal.
“You need to get it out of your head that the medicals are X—we have an expert that says they should be Y” Cool bro we have 150 cases in litigation and 140 have dickhead doctors making 10k from insurance companies
To be fair, they’ve got hundreds of thousands of cases in litigation where dickhead doctors have inflated their bills to make money from Plaintiffs’ lawyers. You’re both sides of the same coin. No reason to take it personally.
didn't take it personally--just not sure why they kept harping on that over and over and over i get it--you hired an expert. sorry i didn't do a good job of explaining that. they said it in their opening and i mean thats fine. literally every time the mediator came into our room she made a big deal about how they hired an expert and that he would say the bills should be 10k
mediator is sending a proposal that we are probably going to reject offering 35k on 40k in meds on a commercial truck think state farm as just decided to make us try these cases with big policies
How’d you do on that coke s/f you discussed in here Gallant Knight or did you not have your mediation on it yet?
Generally if I’m not getting over 2x meds on a MVA I’m filing suit. They are settling for between 2-2.5x med. Rarely getting 3x meds. Exceptions for all of this of course.
Defense verdict in Pascagoula last week on birth trauma case where Plaintiff spent $150,000 on 7 experts. Brutal.
I wonder if there were any pretrial settlements with some defendants prior to trial. Sometimes it's not as brutal as it sounds because the Plaintiffs took a shot on a weaker case against a non-settling defendant after having been paid. That said, several years ago my partner tried a brain damaged baby case where the Plaintiffs refused to accept policy limits because of alleged bad faith. After a seven week trial with over $500K in costs, the plaintiffs got zipped.
I forgot how irritating it is applying for the bar, even just for admission on motion. The amount of things they want clarification on is absurd, despite me already being admitted in two other states.
That case actually wound up breaking the plaintiff’s firm apart. The worst part was that the company made a substantial offer during deliberations (like 10 times the policy limits) and the plaintiff’s attorney told them to fuck off because he was so convinced he was going to ring the bell. Oh, that bell was rung alright.
“Meds” are so subjective. When you’re talking about charges under an LOP, they’re just made up numbers.
I don’t use lop’s that much. usually hospital, primary care, neuro/ortho charges. and our local ortho clinic doesn’t like to get engaged with plaintiff lawyers or in litigation so the meds are usually legit
One of the hardest things is when you know a case is worth more than what they're offering, but they aren't going to put it on the table, and it doesn't make sense for my client to wait them out. I always feel like such an idiot when I know I could get more money if my client had the time to wait things out, but I guess I have to do what's in their best interest and shit... Feels like I'm letting the insurer win.
Even worse in a car wreck case where they are offering less than the case is worth but litigating the case would cost your client even more out of the bottom line so you take less than the case is worth.
judge in el paso would not let me call in for a status conference where all we are going to say is we've exchanged discovery and will be scheduling depos this summer. unreal. had to find a guy and pay him $500 to cover it for me.
I've heard from a fair number of lawyers that El Paso is the twilight zone when it comes to court practices like that, etc.
someone from the TTLA listserv emailed me and basically said that almost every court in El Paso will make you appear in person to get a trial date. The person covering for me said that she is going to have to enter in an appearance in the case because the judge is going to ask her who she is if her name isn't on the pleading. it really makes me appreciate the judges in houston every time i venture outside of here.
this was years ago now. i think it was in one of the county courts? don't even remember. there was a pretrial hearing. we called in, but the coordinator wouldn't put us through to the Judge. the Judge sanctioned us $500.00 for not appearing, and told us to fly there the next week for another pretrial or hire a local el paso attorney. yep, cost another $500.00. fuck me, that was a bad memory.