There’s a story in one of my venues. Jury comes back with a 3 billion verdict. Meant to be 3 million, but they put too many zeros.
2ish. I expect the liability aspect to be fast. but Plaintiff is asking for an insane #. so who knows if they can wrap it up today.
Like 22 million The formula (numbers used in a multiplication equation) to calculate impairment and non economics was hilarious and plucked out of mid air Just got hurt questions about insurance and how much of the current 1.4 million in past medical bills have been paid. Also had a vague question of “what is plaintiff expected to pay” presume the last question has to do with his medical bills and not atty fees
This guy was 16 and his knee was wrecked. He walks with a cane. Suffered pretty real deal brain injuries. he also went to college and got a degree. They have made him look like the saddest sack of a 21 year old ever. He isn’t in great shape, but I’ve seen worse
Yes. Closer to 1.5. Projected like 1.2 in future wage loss. And 1.9 future meds. Obvi this last two numbers are super inflated.
maybe its the plaintiff's lawyer in me but if you show me a 22 year old who has to walk with a cane for the rest of his life and i'll be writing down some sort of apocalyptic number the moment i get the verdict slip.
My very last defense trial was the exact opposite. A 40-minute verdict after a 7-day trial, jury awarded $4.5 million on a case that the plaintiff attorney begged me for the $250k policy limits on and I warned the carrier that it was a really bad case .
I don’t disagree but I mean I would be spending more than 2.5 days just calling his friends, family, teachers, etc
Lawyer has discovered that 18-wheelers have blackboxes that store valuable information. She is going to be issuing her first request for that information. This minor accident, that required no repairs, occurred in 2020 and the truck has been driven since that date.
We didn't get notice of the accident until the lawsuit was filed on the eve of the SOL. This is a pretty small trucking company, relatively speaking.
At some point you have to know your limitations and refer that out to someone who knows what they’re doing
Amen. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing when I first started. Our firm had always referred our PI work out for some reason and just cashed a check. Little to no involvement. Once I started, I would still refer them, but I attended every depo, reviewed every document, went to every mediation until I figured it out. Make a lot more money when you don’t split it. But if I had tried to do it on my own at first. Oh boy at the malpractice.
What do you mean? policy limits were 250k At mediation last month with the insurance coverage counsel, plaintiff’s counsel said I am not sticking around d unless the insurer ponies up 1.4 (the ends) The mediator and coverage counsel (who was at trial these last two days) talked about the bad faith case after plaintiff’s counsel walked out. They both think they can win on a MSJ in federal court. As someone who does bad faith work, I agree. Their bad faith case sucks. Like I said, they sued 5 people for the crash, including an “unknown hit and run driver.” And their first accident deconstructionist agreed with the police it wasn’t until their rebuttal expert that they figured out our guy played the largest role. And we had offered policy limits months before the first expert
Gotcha. Yeah, seems like a waste of time, but good experience and you didn't get a nuclear verdict. Sucks to have a 3 mill verdict, but I'd say that's a job well done.
Agreed. We knew this was a stinker. You always want to get a wild winning verdict. But it is what it is. Hopefully I’m done with the stinker trials and can get a win next time. But sometimes in defense work you get stuck with bs
No. That’s what plaintiff asked for as an opening offer from the insurer and if that wasn’t the opening offer, plaintiff would walk. I don’t know what the insurer had, but they probably had like 650k. Like I’ve said, there were 2 plaintiff’s counsel. One parachuted in half way to tee up the bad faith case. And he is a world class ass hole. I hate people who come into mediation and say the opening offer needs to be X or I am walking. The mediator in this case pissed
They do that because they don’t want their client to get hotboxed and pressured into accepting an amount well below value.
I think there are better ways to do that than making that statement in mediation and wasting everyone’s time that day just a few weeks before trial. Like, why not mention that a week before mediation so the other party can get financials in order? The other parties involved in mediation will despise you if that’s how you go about it. just a personal thing
Nothing will be worse than mediating with Allstate when the difference between their pre mediation offer and their top offer at mediation is less than the cost of the cost of the mediation itself that was a fun couple of hours
You haven’t lived until you get a mediation offer that is less than the offer that was on the table a week ago.
I also love when defense counsel calls to say that the carroer really wants to mediate because they’re concerned about the case, so you basically put the case on pause in anticipation of the mediation that gets set 3 months later because it’s the only time the “best” mediator will be available, and then they show up with a fraction of the money it would take to actually get the case settled.
Hey Sammy Meatballs or other Georgia lawyers, would Peachcourt+ allow me to view and download documents like Alacourt, even if I'm not licensed in GA? If so, would I also have to pay per page?
what county? We are a state of idiots and use 2.5 filing systems. odyssey is most of the metro, peachcourt everywhere else, then file and serve xpress is Fulton state and is absolutely fucking awful. peachcourt and odyssey will let you purchase like pacer/alacourt
It’s always great when a defendant claims they only have $1 million in coverage, and “forgets” that three pages later in the same document there is an additional section revealing a $5 million umbrella. Fuckers.
In a similar vein, with this trial, plaintiff’s counsel told us we would be settled for policy limits if they could get the 25k minimum limits from the co-defendant. Weeks go by. I check in multiple times. Eventually plaintiff counsel tells me that there won’t be a settlement. I call co-defendant counsel and he said plaintiff’s counsel never asked him about settlement. Co-defendant was dismissed right before this trial.
OC said I was being disrespectful when I laughed at his client. He’s a nurse practitioner and said he’s never seen someone go to a hospital a day after a wreck
ChatGPT is going to be a game changer. Sometimes when I get asked tax questions, I’ll revise the email several times to make it more understandable to a non-tax person. Client asked a question that I knew the answer too off the top of my head but would take some explaining. Hoping ChatGPT would help cut down on the iterative process of simplifying things, I typed one sentence into ChatGPT to the effect of, “draft me an email saying that X, Y, Z.” It did a damn good job, probably getting me 60-80% of the way there. I then edited what it produced and sent it on to the client with some added analysis. Apparently there are ethical issues with including client info because it’s public record, so if you try this don’t include client-specifics