sure, but quick settlements are quick settlements.For every case like that there are 15 cases with awful facts where the carrier makes you litigate it to the death.
I’d go less direct and confirm that he hasn’t done any accident reconstruction, testing, etc. and get him to agree that the mechanism of injury is more about the body’s movement.
Yah I have a section in my outline about the accident reconstruction/biomechanics not being what he does
It’s also fun to compare and contrast what he does in his regular practice vs what he does when the defense is paying him. If someone comes into your office and says I was in a golf cart crash and now my back hurts do you tell them that there’s no way they were hurt in that, call them a fraud, and tell them to get out of your office or do you treat the sultans they’re having?
This plaintiff is in Tampa and her doctors are all in Tampa. Golf cart crash occurred here on the coast. It's wild what these Tampa doctors put in there records. They all point blank give causation in the records. That NEVER happens here. Even the dang radiologist! "Given the patients history and findings, it is medically probable the herniating disc at T6-7 is related to the accident of 12/16/21."
This is how I handle that: In your previous work back when you actively treated patients, you provided testimony on behalf of your patients, correct? You would agree that in those instances, when you're treating your own patients, your role would be to be an advocate for your patient, correct? And being an advocate for your patient, you're going to give them the benefit of the doubt. You're going to explore questions or issues you have, especially when it deals with issues of causation? When you're hired in a setting like this as an expert witness, you don't have those type of considerations in play, correct? If a patient is your patient, you're going to give them a little different consideration than when your role is as a medical evaluation requested by a defendant or their company?
Just got a $50K offer + PIP waiver on a straight UIM case with like $8K in medicals and 3-4 months of chiro and PT. Nice little $20K payday I was not expecting.
It was 35%, but you take the fee from the "new money" + amount of PIP waiver, so it's based on that total recovery. Plus Washington has a statute (probably nationwide) where the UIM insurer has to share in attorney's fees, so they throw in an extra $3,000 - $4,000 to cover a portion of my fees and put more $$$ in client's pocket.
It's an incredibly convoluted mess that changes when it's a 3rd party recovery + UIM recovery or just straight UIM. You take the attorney's fee and multiply that by [amount of PIP waiver divided by total settlement]. So on a $50K new money offer + $8K PIP waiver, it'd be: 35% of $58K x ($8K PIP waiver divided by $58K ---- usually a percentage in the low 20s) = a separate check the UIM carrier strokes to the attorney.
I agree you make a good point. I stole some his questions but I'm having to reword them as he's way too intellectual with his phrasing. I just prefer to talk like bubba talks for the most part. Or at least not be some arrogant sounding lawyer.
The worst part about having a prolific defense whore expert is having to comb through billions of previous depositions looking for nuggets.
Why’d you go to medical school — to help people? And when you saw patients, wasn’t it your goal to help them? From your review of the records from the treating doctors in this case — the folks who saw my client, talked to him, laid their hands and eyes on him — they were trying to help him get better weren’t they? Sitting here today, you’re not helping anybody are you? Best answer you can get is that he’s helping the defense.
Devil's advocate , best answer he can give, and what he loves to say after reading a million of his depos: "I'm here to help the jury understand the medical side of this case. I'm an umpire in these cases. I'm here to call balls and strikes. I'm neutral." And "I just had a deposition yesterday where I testified for the Plaintiff." The thing is , he testifies for the defense like 90% of the time. I read one transcript where the plaintiff attorney put his list of testimony in front of him to prove the 90% thing and asked him to write P for ones where he was for plaintiff and D for ones where he was for defendant. Doctor said he couldn't remember all these cases and which one he was for. To my knowledge no one has ever stopped the deposition, asked for better rule 26 disclosures, and really called him out on this. Another line of questioning I've seen is something along these lines: The treating physician has consequences if he doesn't get it right, correct? If he gets it wrong something bad can happen to the patient and then he can be sued , true? But if you get it wrong in the opinions you're giving here today, there is no recourse against you , isn't that true? If you get it wrong, Mrs. Smith can't sue you can she? You can come in here and offer incorrect opinions and harm this patient by doing so and nothing really ever happens to you, true?
I mean juries know when a defense expert says that he can’t recall the % of D and P that they’re full of shit
umpire doesn’t get paid by the home team, he gets paid by the league. Something something sec football analogy this is like if LSU got to pick and pay for their own refs
I wish I had made them call him to trial instead of agreeing to this trial deposition. It's $6k if he comes to trial. Only $1500 for this.
I'm stealing that. Another good question I've seen : Who is your customer in these cases? He typically says "I'm paid by the defense."
I like Mitnik’s take: The plaintiff’s doctor is a treater. His client is his patient. The defense doctor is an employee. His client is the defense attorney.
After a relatively slow June and July, I’ve picked up almost 10 projects in the last week and I am wildly busy. I’ve also realized that my workload ebbs and flows with the school year. Going forward, I’ll try and plan extended vacations in June/July, but it’d be nice if there was a way to “plan” billable hours that takes into account a slow summer that didn’t involve working shitty hours the rest of the year. Weekly reminder that the billable hour is the WOAT
After the other attorney filed their Notice of Appeal, I noticed we never got an oral argument date set by the Appellate Division. I looked in the state filing system and realize they mislabeled their Notice of Appeal as "Appellee Brief," which means it probably never triggered the Appellate Division to take a look at it. I told them what happened and offered $2.5k for them to go away. No response. So I filed a Motion to enforce the lower judge's Order. Their response was due last Friday and the other attorney called me begging for an extension because his kid was in jail or something. I said fine...they filed their response yesterday just basically being like "it was an oopsie but like the document still said Notice of Appeal so idk judge...like just be cool." These guys will not just take the fucking L and let me bank my fee...ffs.
Obviously, but I also have four associates running at or over 100% utilization and we continue to hire.
Top ten bad way to start your day: Case with 11m in insurance and a non-hostile primary level OC who wants to mediate and his level has tendered is replaced by excess with a friendly but super koolaid drinking wants to try every case OC. God damnit.
life hack: stop getting carriers to pay you 21.5 million and you won't get primary layer counsel replaced
but on a serious note, that sucks when it happens. It's always tough trying to do the balancing act of not getting the lawyer booted from the case but still doing what you need to do. like on one of my cases, we have a nice defense lawyer who is completely and utterly overworked and we know at the 4th or 5th layer of coverage it goes to very competent, very aggressive, but also friendly lawyers who we work well with, but we don't want them involved this early on.
We have the typical, isn’t it fun to work stuff, but our bonuses for associates are objective and they like cash.
Oh man it was so fun after he called himself the umpire “ Doctor the umpire isn’t paid by the home team is he?” “Correct”
just got a citation for a lawsuit we filed in galveston county. first line: "Greetings! You have been sued."
you’re getting sued ? Sorry the citation thing throws me off. “Citation” is not in our vernacular in this context here.
Got a straight UM case in a mediocre venue. Client was hit head-on by a driver in a stolen car in a police chase. She doesn't have significant injuries, but UM in Alabama includes punitives, so I guess this could be a limits case? Never had a set of facts quite like that.
In that case the TPA called me about the other day to tell me I shouldn’t bother filing because it’s so defensible, she sent me the documents they’re relying on to prove the lack of merit in my position. I thanked her for being proactive and told her I’d have my experts review it and let me know what they think. My experts say these documents do nothing to help the defense.
Depo of commercial vehicle driver in prison tomorrow. Wonder if he's going to be shackled to a table. They told us they were worried the room would be too small for lawyers, court reporter, videographer etc. They won't even arrange for this guy to be transported to the court house for trial. Having the driver in a jump suit on video should probably help.
if he isn’t in a jumpsuit or it isn’t readily apparent it’s prison, make sure to have exhibits for him to look at and then hold up for the camera.
Another thing I enjoyed today: the doctor kept trying to get into biomechanical opinions. He kept talking about their biomechanical expert's testimony. I hand a hunch he had not been provided my accident reconstructionist's report. Because he kept saying the speed of the golf cart was like 4 miles per hour. My expert says 10mph. On cross I asked him if it had been provided to him. Answer: No. So earlier you said you were the umpire right? You are neutral. You're calling balls and strikes. And to do that you need all the info, right? Not just one side? But the only reports you were given were the ones that the defendant hired. True. And you would need to see both sides in order to be fair and neutral. Yes. Also he's opining that this was a minor crash but admitted on cross he has no clue how much these golf carts weigh or what speed they are capable of traveling and that he was going completely on the testimony of the defendant driver and their expert . He also opined that it was basically impossible to have a thoracic disc injury because the thoracic spine is protected by the rib cage and is very stable . In 40 years of practice he's never seen a thoracic disc injury caused by a MVA. Also he referenced an AMA guides newsletter. I objected that it hadn't been referenced in any of the designation materials. He gave me a gift and just spontaneously said he added this treatise to his opinions just yesterday. Got him to admit that on cross and that there was no way I could have prepared for that opinion. They are going to have to agree to strike a bunch of this stuff.