My Most Recent Post All of my older posts Email me Leave me a message! Read my diary profile Get your own!

DON'T BLAME ME!

Leave me a note!


My Most Recent Entries:

King B.O.

How It Should Be Done

I Didn't Vote for Him

New Math?

VOTE 2008!


My Online Photo Albums:
(This site has been closed. IbeLooking
for a new place. Stay tuned.)


Other Places I'd like you to visit:

All my stuff

She is my daughter!

JohnnieV, a Sensitive Father.

Cosmicrayola, my cyber sister

MKM's Words, a friend whom I admire.

BillF has an opinion or 2.

My Jazzy friend with international flair.

Uncle Bob, the 1st blog I ever read.





*HUGS* TOTAL! give IbePiglet more *HUGS*
Get hugs of your own

If you want to know how it all began, click HERE for the FIRST entry. At the top of each post you can click "NEXT ENTRY" and so on. It might make a bit more sense that way, and you might stumble upon one of my better postings in case this one sorta just sucks!
Read the previous entry - Read the next entry

CLICK HERE for a RANDOM ENTRY.


Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2003 - 7:43 P.M.

The Verdict Is In!


Man, what a grueling day. Nothing like Little Bro's jury duty (see tag board below) when he had a 12 weeks stint for the DuPage 7 Trial, but still.

The case:

3 girls in daddy's sport's car (I forgot the model). Back seat passenger suing driver for injuries sustained in an accident.

Plaintiff's case: The driver was reckless. She claimed that while on route 88, the driver and front passenger argues after passenger vomited all over the place, wanting to stop and clean off. Driver refused. Passenger grabbed at the wheel several times, and she (plaintiff) begged the driver to slow down and stop the car to let her opt. The result was a spin out and they crashed into the concrete median. At that point, she heard her back crack and felt a "rush of fluid" through her entire body, was in "excruciating pain," and was unable to get out of the vehicle on her own. She did not take any medical aid, got into the tow truck with the 2 other girls, went to the driver's house, then went home, laid down, awoke in pain, went to the E.R. and was released with neck and back strain. A week later, she went to her Dr., still in pain, was referred to a neurologist, got an unremarkable MRI and was prescribed Physical Therapy. Although unemployed at the time of the accident and the subsequent 8 weeks, she claims that she now, with an 11th grade education, cannot do the job she most loves, working in a warehouse, because of pain (the accident was on 12/8/1999). She now drives a school bus for $14/hour for 30 hours per week. Asking for a verdict of neglect/negligence and damages awarded. The plaintiff not only had the physical therapy (which she did not complete nor did she do the required home exercises because they were too painful, but she had several MRIs, and after 8 months developed tingling in various (and changing) parts of her body over the next 3 years that required many chiropractic visits, 2 EMG's, another neurologist, and orthopedic Dr. None of them could find any objective evidence to explain these symptoms. The conclusion was she had a pre-existing condition that was aggravated by the accident.

Defense case: The driver was going 60, she saw a "flash" that looked like a deer, swerved, fishtailed and hit the median. The passenger had indeed vomited, but there was no argument. The front passenger also saw the deer. Period.

In the closing arguments, the plaintiff outlined what they thought was a fair settlement. Combining all of the medical bills accrued and projected into the future, pain and suffering past and future, loss of normal life past and future, and impact upon past and future earnings....

are you ready?

$164,000. But we could "go higher if we saw fit."

HIGHER???????????

First of all, we all agreed that the plaintiff was entitled to anything she paid her lawyer. What a dud! I felt he hadn't proved a damned thing! Lots of finger pointing, but no evidence! However, we resolved that in about 45 minutes of discussion, and ultimately we decided that the driver, regardless of the speed, with a vomiting passenger should have been in the right lane, slowing down at least. By the way, this being a civil case, the plaintiff did not bear the burden of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, only that the preponderance of evidence showed a probability that she did not react in a reasonable way. I thought that if I saw a deer, my instinct would have been to swerve also. But then again, her story didn't really jive with us... She didn't have to prove her innocence, but the plaintiff made his case with us that the scales were tipped BARELY!

Damages? Geesh. We decided that by their own witness, a neurologist, the muscle strain had "resolved" by July of 2000. So we covered all medical and chiropractic expenses up until that point, and not beyond. There were FAR too many chiropractic visits in our opinion, but as a patient you usually just keep coming when they tell you to, so we didn't penalize her for that. ($7,600) This was a pre-existing condition, and the damage caused by the accident had resolved. Hey, my back hurts too, for a lot of reasons. She eats the remainder of the chiropractic visits and the massive amounts of neurological testing for symptoms that appeared 10 months or more after the accident occurred.

We awarded her earning compensation by taking her current salary and applying it to the 8 weeks she was without a job from the date of the accident until employed. We did not feel her future earnings were compromised since she was earning a higher hourly salary now than before the accident. ($4,000)

I think we spent the most time on the pain and suffering part, I mean how do you measure that? Certainly there was a lot of visits to the Dr. and such. Actually, we spent hours on this, and finally awarded her $500 per month for the 8 months we had decided upon for the medical. We awarded nothing for the future as the original claim had been "resolved." ($4,000)

Loss of normal life was tough. I think I'm wording it wrong there, but basically her claim is that she isn't able to enjoy the things that have meant a lot to her, like riding horses and going to amusement parks. However, testimony revealed that for the last 20 years, she rode horses maybe once or twice a year and that she had gone the Great America since the accident, and went on the American Eagle. I argued that we were making up for the wages and pain and suffering and medical bills for those 8 months, and from December to July, how much was she deprived of any riding or Amusement Park trips? She also drove to Florida, so really. But many of the group felt that she should have something, so I caved on that issue. ($1,000)

Final judgment for the plaintiff: $16,6000. Some felt this was too much, others not enough. Frankly, I thought she was a liar and malingering, and I didn't like the final figure. However, I felt I could live with it in that each section of the award made some sense.

The plaintiff's lawyer was visibly upset with the decision. He sighed loudly after each amount was read. Oh well, his 1/3 cut is far less than he hoped. He did a crappy job, and I think that he didn't do $5.00 worth of work let alone $5500. I want the name of the defense lawyer though, he was very good.

What I found really interesting was that the judge had us back in his chambers afterwards, and answered all of our questions, like where was the mysterious vomiting front seat passenger? It seems she's been AWOL for several years! AND, get THIS! Apparently, this is the plaintiff's third go at this case, with a third lawyer. The last time she was awarded, and rejected $20,000! The judge worked with the insurance company to release a $10,000 lien against her, so she would have had that too. We KNEW greed was at play! Anyone who thought we awarded too little felt better having heard that. And, as we thought, alcohol was a big factor, but that was not allowed into evidence (not sure why). So those of us who were uneasy about the liability issue felt better too.

Judge bought us lunch and offered to buy us dinner (pizza) but we turned the latter down in the hopes we could break free sooner. We didn't get done until after 6, but it was ok.

All in all, I am very very glad I did this. I've heard all kinds of people try to get out of the process by being uncooperative or giving strong opinions in order to be dismissed. And I have to say that I'd be a little bit worried about a criminal trial. However, I am so glad I got to see the system at work, and I feel better about it. We only hear about the million dollar settlements. We only hear about the scandals and the rip-offs and the broken justices. But I got to see it work, and I see how it works, and I have faith in it. I even have a less negative feeling about lawyers who do their jobs defending people who are likely guilty. I still couldn't do it, and I wouldn't want my kids to do it, but I see the value of the whole system, and I'd advise anyone called up for jury duty to DO their civil duty and serve. You may need it sometime. What we did today was fair, based upon the evidence given us. We worked hard not to base our decisions upon anything but the evidence in front of us, and while we speculated about some things, there was always someone (more than just one) who drew the focus back to the facts presented in the case.

So for now, IbeThinkingJusticeLives!


Won't you PLEASE leave your feedback here?
1 readers left their mark on this one!

TagBoard
Name

URL or Email

Messages(smilies)


Read the previous entry - Read the next entry

Who's Who in Ibe's Diary (last UPDATED September 21, 2008)


If you would like to be notifed each time this page is updated, stick your email addy in the form and click on "join."

Your email address:

Site Meter