Trial

Published on: April 12, 2018

SOCIAL MEDIA BLACKOUT

It’s an increasingly connected world that we live in. An important part of that connection is electronic—most of us interact with others electronically through social media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and SnapChat, to name a few. Of course, there are also e-mail messages and text messages.

This is how we communicate with our family, friends, and the 10,000 other people who have friended us. It’s fun to have an online presence, we encourage you to do so, if it is something that works for you.

But if you have a personal injury claim, we need to talk. The title is a bit harsh—you don’t need to cut all ties with online social media, but you do need to be careful. The problem, from my perspective, is context. As a lawyer, I will search for the social media posts of my adversary. We saw a post once from a defendant (who denied causing the accident) that said (and I’m paraphrasing for a G-rated post, here), saw a beautiful woman on the street, and got into an accident. Now, maybe he was distracted, and the accident caused because his attention was elsewhere. Maybe he was just trying to be funny, or make light of a serious situation because that the type of humor he has. I don’t know. But I can tell you that it was important evidence to show the jury, and that they didn’t trust his story at trial.

Published on: April 11, 2018

TRIAL TESTIMONY

By Posner & Cord, LLC

Prince-Georges-County-Circuit-Court Trial is scary. If you have a trial, and you’ve never been, you probably have some anxiety about the whole thing. Where do I sit? What questions are going to be asked? Can I bring notes?

You will have a long conversation with your lawyer to go over all of this before trial. We’ve been through it before, and we’ll answer all of your questions. There is one thing we need you to prepare in advance: a list of your non-economic damages.

Non-economic damages include the following, according to the Rules (Md. Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 11-108):

Published on: April 8, 2018

HOW TO PREPARE FOR YOUR DISCOVERY MEETING WITH YOUR LAWYER (DISTRICT COURT VERSION)

By Posner & Cord, LLC

Prince-Georges-County-Circuit-Court Every case, whether a circuit court or district court, has a phase of discovery. In the district court, this simply involves the exchange of written questions, known as interrogatories. In the circuit court, this involves more interrogatories, plus some document requests, and likely depositions.

We’re going to cover what to expect in the discovery process for district court in this article. In the district court, unless you are proceeding by way of small claims (case limited to $5,000.00 recovery), each side is permitted to ask the other side up to 15 written questions (interrogatories). There is not specific required form, so we don’t always know what is going to be asked of us. But, most lawyers tend to use the same interrogatories over and over again, so we can tell you the questions that GEICO lawyers usually ask, the questions that State Farm lawyers usually ask, and so on. (For examples, click on these links: Allstate IROG (04-08-18), SF IROG (04-08-18))

Your lawyer will get these questions, and will usually do a first draft of the answers based on the intake with you, and a review of the file (including the police report, medical records, and other documents). Then, the lawyer will usually ask you to fill in the blanks.

Published on: March 7, 2018

HOW TO PREPARE FOR YOUR TRIAL: DISTRICT COURT VERSION

By Posner & Cord, LLC

If your cases has been set for trial, there are some things that you will need to prepare to be ready. What are you preparing for? Simply, to provide the best testimony possible to the judge. That means you need to be ready for the questions your lawyer will ask you, and you need to anticipate the questions that the defense attorney will ask you. These are the steps important for testimony, whether it is an automobile collision case, slip-and-fall, or any other type of personal injury.

Contact your lawyer. Set up a time before the trial to go over your testimony. Our office will use a trial script to help you understand the questions we will ask. Based on our review of your file, including your medical records, our conversations with you, and your answers to interrogatories, we will draft the questions and what we think the answers are. Your job is to review those, make sure they are correct, and help provide as much detail as you can.
Know your medicals. You should review your medical records—preferably, read them all to remind you of what you went through. At the very least, have a good idea of who you went to, for how long, and know about how much they charged you. Reading medical records isn’t the most enjoyable thing, but knowing your medicals will help you to understand your case.

Published on: March 2, 2018

FAQ: WHAT TO EXPECT AT A PRE-TRIAL CONFERENCE

By Posner & Cord, LLC

Prince-Georges-County-Circuit-Court We had a pre-trial conference in Cecil County earlier this week. As I was discussing with my clients what to expect, I was reminded that, as “old hat” as these pre-trial conferences are for me, most people have never been through the process. This is a good place to describe what they are all about.

One caveat before we start–there is some variation between the counties, and sometimes even between judges in the same county. Your lawyer should know (either by experience or by asking other lawyers with experience) exactly what to expect in your case. Here is a sample scheduling order for Baltimore City Circuit Court, which sets the pre-trial conference: Scheduling Order (02-24-18)

Some frequently asked questions:

Published on: February 28, 2018

PRESERVING EVIDENCE WITH A SPOLIATION LETTER

By Posner & Cord, LLC

Exhibit-Sticker-02-24-18-300x300 Immediately after an injury, it is important to collect and preserve all the evidence you will need to prove your case. Trials can be lost because of a lack of evidence. Sometimes, a judge deciding liability may need to know where the cars came to rest, what the property damage looked like, or what the dashcam footage revealed. Sometimes that evidence is in the hands of another person, corporation, or governmental entity.

Enter the spoliation letter. This is the singularly most important step in evidence preservation. Without it, it is possible, even likely, that the evidence you need will be destroyed, often in the normal course of business. Security tapes are routinely recorded over every day, week, or month. Documents and photographs may be destroyed when they serve no further use. But a proper spoliation letter can not only help to ensure that evidence remains available, but when sent to a future defendant, it can help you in other ways if the evidence is destroyed. For example, a judge may rule that if evidence destroyed after the receipt of a proper spoliation letter, the jury can infer that the evidence was harmful to the destroyer’s case.

So, make sure that your spoliation letter (or your lawyer’s spoliation letter) is sent by some mechanism to ensure you can prove it was sent–a fax, an email, hand-delivery with a date-stamped copy, or a certified letter with return receipt requested is usually a good start.

Published on: February 26, 2018

GET OUT OF JAIL FREE

By Posner & Cord, LLC

Get-of-Jail-Card-02-28-18-300x176 It’s one of those things that most lawyers have had to deal with at one time or another in personal injury cases. The client (plaintiff or defendant), or an important witness, might be, as we call it, a “resident of the State.” That is, they may be in jail.

If the testimony is important for your case, you have the burden to get it. A judge may not be very forgiving if you did not do the legwork to arrange for the prisoner’s testimony. You don’t want to have to ask for a postponement unless it is absolutely necessary.

You’d think it would be a simple matter to get someone transferred from a jail to courthouse (after all, they probably took the reverse trip at some time in the past). Sometimes it is easy, sometimes it is not. How do you get them out of jail (however briefly)? File a writ of habeas corpus ad testificandum. A writ is a written command. Habeas corpus is a Latin phrase that means “that you have the body.” Ad testificandum is another Latin phrase which refers to oral testimony, usually before a court. Put it all together, and it is essentially a command that a person be released from jail for testimony at court.

Published on: February 24, 2018

GETTING A TRIAL DATE

By Posner & Cord, LLC

Our district court clients often have questions about how long it will take for their cases to conclude. The real answer is always “it depends.” It depends on whether the insurance company offers a reasonable settlement and when; it depends on how congested the court’s docket is; it depends on the schedule of the parties, the lawyers, and the witnesses; it depends on how easy (or difficult) it is to locate and serve the defendants.

However, we can give some general guidance. Your case may vary, of course, but the process is usually this:

The first date at which to calculate the time to get to trial is from the time that we decide to file a complaint in the courthouse. We might file a number of reasons:

Published on: February 20, 2018

GETTING WITNESSES TO COURT (IN SHACKLES, IF NECESSARY)

By Posner & Cord, LLC

I had a district court trial—it was complicated liability dispute before Judge John Green in Baltimore City District Court. In this auto accident collision we sued the other driver, and the other driver sued us. This was a classic red light/green light case, which boils down to he-said/she-said when there are no independent witnesses.

An independent witness is a person who is unaffiliated with either party who sees the auto accident. Independent is important—friends and relatives are more likely to lie to help their friends and relatives, so they have a bias, an incentive, to lie (even while under oath).

In our case, there were no independent witnesses. However, there was a police officer who talked to the parties immediately after the collision. In a trial, that police officer could testify about what the parties said, even if one of them hypothetically told the police officer that he “didn’t know what color his light was.”

Published on: February 17, 2018

NICE GUYS FINISH FIRST

By Posner & Cord, LLC

Pit-Bull-5
For nearly as long as there has been lawyer advertising (not too long—it was roundly prohibited in many states until about 1977), lawyers have compared themselves to animals. Pit bulls, sharks, and other ferocious animals. The reason is simple—it’s what the market wants.

I’ve had this conversation with many potential automobile accident clients:

“You seem too nice.”