Yall are always talking about how god Greene County is. How would it compare to Hinds County, MS or Orleans Parish, LA?
There's not really any comparison to Greene County. Not only is it extremely poor and uneducated, it's corrupt as hell (no offense @z ), and because there are only 8k residents, the same people end up on juries all the time. From a results standpoint, it's one of the "tort hellholes" that gets brought up at defense conferences all the time like the Valley in Texas, Orleans Parish, East St. Louis, Hinds, etc.
You should see what’s happening on the South Carolina asbestos docket, which is consolidated in Richland County before a retired SC Supreme Court judge. As an example, on 5/5, the judge sanctioned an insurer because she didn’t like the way they kept their pre-1992 documents. As kept in the ordinary course of business, the documents were photocopied on microfiche in 1992, which was state of the art technology at the time. The defendant allowed access to Plaintiffs to review these files as they are kept. Plaintiffs moved to compel when they didn’t want to actually do the work to review the files, claiming they couldn’t find anything. She ordered the insurer to digitize them in a computer searchable format. Plaintiffs get to pick the firm that will digitize them. The estimated cost is $250,000 to $1 million, which she ordered as a sanction in addition to $67,000 in fees for the first plaintiff search.
Until this year, the entire State of West Virginia had no intermediate court of appeals and the West Virginia Supreme Court heard only select, discretionary appeals. Great place to be an out of state defendant before an elected trial judge in a rural county.
That's not a regular practice in Greene. Most of the jurors are just biding their time until they get to be the Plaintiff.
Judge granted this on my MIL 28. Any reference, mention, argument or question regarding the comparative fault of the Plaintiff or any party other than the Defendant. She also denied a defense MIL that we couldn’t say fault = negligence
They don't keep the content long. And they generally don't produce it for a subpoena. Generally need a warrant or order signed by a judge before they'll even consider it. Going to guess Jean Toal presiding? She's brilliant, but will gut you in a heartbeat if she doesn't buy your case.
During Covid lockdowns, the federal court in the ND Ohio experimented with Zoom jury trials. Entire jury empaneled and hearing the case via Zoom. It went as expected and the experiment didn’t last long.
We just ended Zoom trials in King County, Seattle, and most of Western WA. My old boss did 2 or 3. Said they were an absolute shitshow.
Trial update: got to the courthouse this morning and the #1 in-house Allstate lawyer was there. Was like what are you doing here? Oh I’m going to second chair. …ok? then he asked if my demand was really $3m was like dude I don’t have a demand I’m just going to see what the jury says We took a break during voir dire and he asked if had any interest in an evening mediation. this was after they offered $50k Friday at noon and then $100k policy limits at pretrial at 2:00 so the mediation is about excess over the policy when we got a mediator to do it I got an email from appellate counsel that I guess they’ve already assigned
Also got a good jury-one of them that im stunned didn’t get struck was crying during my opening because she felt so bad Some lawyers I used to work with watched the defendant testimony-I called him first-and they said he was one of the more unlikeable people they’ve seen
Love it. Good work Gallant Knight Feels like anything other than a jury verdict is letting them off easy at this point. They didn't pay attention to it worth a shit until you drug them to the courthouse. Drop the hammer on them now.
Yeah that’s why I haven’t made a demand and just said no to their offers Oh now y’all want to settle? Fuck off
I think I may have landed the biggest case of my career today if the insurance is there. Plaintiff was driving on the job and was hit by Defendant who was also driving on the job (F150, different employer, deep pockets). Plaintiff has been in the ICU since mid April and is still on ventilator. Broken hip, broken ribs, busted spleen, other internal organ injuries.
Defendant was driving for an energy company. I'm not sure if he was on the job at the time but the truck is registered to them. It is one of the largest energy infrastructure companies in North America. "We own an interest in or operate approximately 83,000 miles of pipelines and 141 terminals. Our pipelines transport natural gas, gasoline, crude oil, carbon dioxide (CO2) and more. Our terminals store and handle renewable fuels, petroleum products, chemicals, vegetable oils and other products."
let me guess: They came, made insultingly small offers, took forever between offers to make another offer, and tried to point out weaknesses in your case and appeal.
sounds brutal. Tell them to make a strong ass offer Will Wade style or you're bailing. You need to devote more time to kicking their ass tomorrow.
I've been on a settlement hot streak the last 2 weeks. Not 306 million fuckface kind of money but it's been one of my better months.
I’ve signed up a couple of potentially big cases the last couple of days. This can only mean I won’t find any decent expert to support the claim.
I don't love consortium claims, but they're such a good vehicle to distribute settlement money to screw ERISA insurers RE subrogation.
Zoom/phone depo’s in Criminal are a problem. People seem to lie easier over Zoom. On any serious Felony, it needs to be done in person. *I’m pages behind apparently
Decent chance we’re going to be called on Monday for another trial. I very much do not want that to happen