Where You Sue (or Get Sued) Matters
September 26, 2011 by David Newdorf
Filed under Lit Tip Of The Week:™ Practical Advice For Litigators
You may have a choice of courts in which to file your California personal injury or business claim.
Should you choose state or federal court? Which county or state or judicial district? These choices matter because of differing procedural rules, local procedures, and jury demographics. For example, federal court requires a unanimous jury to reach a verdict (even in a civil case), but only 9 jurors out of 12 are needed to reach a verdict in California state courts. Next to an outright defense verdict, a hung jury is generally the civil defendant’s next best outcome. Since hung juries are more likely in federal court (you only need one hold out juror), a defendant may have a good reason to remove a case from state to federal court.
Defendants benefit from federal court summary judgment procedures.
In U.S. District Court, the shorter notice periods for bringing summary judgment motions generally favor defendants. With four to five weeks from filing to hearing in federal court, plaintiffs may not have a chance to conduct discovery directed at issues and points raised in the motion. In California courts, the opposing party will have at least 60 days before its opposition is due. During this time, the plaintiff may serve written discovery requests and take depositions if needed to shore up the evidence in support of an essential element of plaintiff’s claim. Finally, federal judges have more latitude to grant partial summary judgment concerning discrete issues compared to the narrow grounds for summary adjudication under the California Code of Civil Procedure.
Choosing your jury pool
In state court, jury pools vary from county to county. Rural counties tend to provide more conservative jury pools, which often is reflected in defense verdicts or lower plaintiff’s verdicts. Urban counties generally are more plaintiff-friendly venues. But even within a metropolitan area, jury pools differ from county to county and courthouse to courthouse.
Lawsuit venue rules vary depending on the case
You may have little choice about where to file your action. For example, consumer collection actions can only be filed in the county where the contract was signed or the county where the defendant currently resides. A defendant may have the option to remove a lawsuit to federal court, but the removal petition must be filed within 30 days of service of the complaint. Where there’s a choice, the decision where to file can have a large effect on the ultimate outcome of litigation. Consult with an experienced business or personal injury attorney concerning these strategic decisions. If you are a transactional lawyer, you would be well advised to consult with (or refer your client to) a litigator regarding these strategic litigation calls.
About Newdorf Legal – a California
Business Litigation Law Firm
Newdorf Legal is the go-to small firm for big problems. When business executives and public officials face complex legal challenges, they turn to David Newdorf for advice and representation. The firm’s lawyers have significant experience in the private and public sectors handling high-profile litigation. Newdorf Legal provides business and public entity clients expert advice and representation in:
- business litigation
- commercial disputes
- California breach of contract lawsuits
- business torts/interference with contract
- real property litigation
- joint venture/partnership issues
- investor lawsuits
- fraud and other civil actions
For a free copy of our informative brochure, “The Top 10 Business Litigation Mistakes . . . and how to avoid them,” contact Newdorf Legal.
Call David Newdorf at (415) 357-1234 (or e-mail to info(at)newdorf.com) for all of your California complex litigation questions.
S.F. Superior Court’s Closure of One Law & Motion Courtroom Will Lead to Big Changes
September 19, 2011 by David Newdorf
Filed under Around the Courthouse
Effective October 3, 2011, San Francisco Superior Court is closing one of its two Law and Motion courtrooms due to budget cut backs.
The new Law and Motion judge will be the Hon. Harold E. Kahn, to be located in Department 302 at the Civic Center Courthouse. Judges Peter Busch and Loretta Giorgi, who had been assigned to Law and Motion duties, will be moving on to the Hall of Justice, where they will preside over criminal trials.
The coming 50 percent reduction in judicial staffing will lead to big changes in civil law and motion practice. Just a year or two ago, there were two commissioners handling discovery motions in addition to two Law and Motion judges. The Court elminated the Discovery Departments and shifted that work to the two law and motion judges. Now, Judge Kahn will be handling the work load formerly shared by four judicial officers (with the exception of asbestos cases, which have all been transferred to a new, specialized department).
In the past, a lawyer could schedule a motion in S.F. Superior Court on any date without first reserving the hearing date. That will inevitably change. San Francisco will be forced to follow other Bay Area courts, such as San Mateo and Alameda County, that ration hearing dates. These courts — and no doubt, San Francisco soon — allow only a limited number of motions on each hearing date. In some counties, it takes 60 days to have a demurrer heard. With several rounds of motions and amended complaints, a case can easily plod along for a year or more in the initial pleading phase.
This cutback came after the state Judicial Council provided several million dollars in additional funding in order to stave off even more severe layoffs in San Francisco Superior Court. The state court cutbacks will likely put additional pressure on federal courts as more lawyers decide to go federal if they have that option. For years, the trend had been in favor of state court filing. Many lawyers who could have filed in federal court chose to file employmnent and civil rights cases in Superior Court under California state stautes to avoid federal court.
With these cutbacks, lawyers will need to be more focused and effective advocates to get the attention of an over-worked Law and Motion department. See San Francisco Law and Motion Tips for best practices in this department.
ABOUT NEWDORF LEGAL – A CALIFORNIA
BUSINESS LITIGATION LAW FIRM
Newdorf Legal is the go-to small firm for big problems. When business executives and public officials face complex legal challenges, they turn to David Newdorf for advice and representation. The firm’s lawyers have significant experience in the private and public sectors handling high-profile litigation. Newdorf Legal provides business and public entity clients expert advice and representation in:
- business litigation
- commercial disputes
- California breach of contract lawsuits
- business torts/interference with contract
- real property litigation
- joint venture/partnership issues
- investor lawsuits
- fraud and other civil actions
For a free copy of our informative brochure, “The Top 10 Business Litigation Mistakes . . . and how to avoid them,” contact Newdorf Legal.
Call David Newdorf at (415) 357-1234 for all of your California complex litigation questions.
Old Typewriter
September 12, 2011 by David Newdorf
Filed under News
I learned to type on an old typewriter.
I watched my mother, a former legal secretary, typing at warp speed. I was about 8 years old, and it fascinated me. She got me a book from the library, “Learn to Touch Type.” And I did, self taught on a Royal, or maybe it was a Remington. “Watch the quick brown fox . . . ” I’ve been typing ever since.
The rhythm of fingers on keys, the heft of the manual carriage return, the bell dinging at the end of the line — these things are comforting and beautiful. Old typewriters are steam punk marvels of office machinery.
Royal Manual Typewriter
I went off to college at Berkeley and typed on semi-antiquated (even then) Royal 440′s at the Daily Californian. (If I got the model wrong, somebody let me know.) We typed our stories one paragraph to a half-page sized sheet of newsprint. That way the editor could easily reorganize the story by shuffling the sheets. I never did that half-sheet thing at other newspapers (computers quickly replaced typewriters), so I don’t know if that was common back in the day.
My IBM Selectric
OK, “Mad Men” fans. The IBM Selectric is about as old as the Draper kids. Meaning, about as old as I am. Look it up on Wikipedia if you want to know old that is. (Selectric, that is, because Newdorf isn’t listed.) When I went to journalism school, I bought an IBM Self Correcting Selectric III with lift-off correcting tape. Now that was space aged. Hit the correction key and it would back up, one character at a time, typing over your mistake. White Out was a thing of the past.
Remember the Tandy TRS 80 (affectionately known as the “Trash 80″)? A kind of lap top of its day, we filed stories from the field on the Trash 80, sticking the pay phone handset into the 1kb/hour modem. Now explain to your kids what a pay phone was. Mercifully, the TRS 80 phased out quickly. Hello-sweetheart-get-me-rewrite was definitely faster.
The Selectric stayed with me, though, and, when I was done with newspapering, the trusty putty-grey beast went with me to law school. I typed the California bar exam on that machine. It sits in the attic now. When I’m no longer around to protect it, my kids will put it out on the corner.
Unless nostalgia saves it. There is some of that for these beautiful machines. Street poets will compose a poem on the spot, banged out on a manual typewriter, for a buck or two. It may not be any good, but you can tell it was handmade. One-of-a-kind, too, unless the bard used carbon paper.
A freshly minted Cal Tech engineer told me recently about the “old fashioned keyboard” he had seen. Yeah, kid. We called them typewriters.
The “Fine Print” In Contracts Does Matter
September 11, 2011 by David Newdorf
Filed under Lit Tip Of The Week:™ Practical Advice For Litigators
Few clients care about the contractual boilerplates – until their business dispute hinges on these terms and conditions. Transactional lawyers, businesses and individuals should consider what standard terms are appropriate before a dispute arises. Post-dispute, you need to read the contract closely.
Common Contract Terms That Will Affect Your Dispute
Some examples of terms that will affect your contract dispute:
- The forum selection clause may dictate where you need to hire litigation counsel.
- Look for remedy-related terms such as “limitations of remedies,” “waiver of damages” and “indemnification.”
- Did the parties waive a jury or court trial, and if so, what will that do for the prospect of recovering significant compensatory damages?
Attorney’s Fees Provisions in Contracts
If there is an attorney’s fee provision, think carefully how that will affect the lawsuit. Often an attorney’s fee provision will cause a party to become entrenched in its position and make it difficult to settle a relatively low-value dispute. The party who is convinced he’s right may not mind spending $100,000 in fees on a $50,000 dispute because he expects to recoup them.
Also pay attention to contractual procedures for notice. Many contracts require written notice and an opportunity to cure any claimed breach. Failure to follow these procedures may jeopardize the claim.
California Breach of Contract Law Firm
Newdorf Legal is a California-based law firm with extensive experience litigating breach of contract lawsuits, interference with contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and many other types of business lawsuits. For more information, contact David Newdorf at 415-357-1234 or info(at)newdorf.com.
San Francisco Jail Strip Search Policy Upheld by Courts Based on Record of Contraband Smuggling
September 11, 2011 by David Newdorf
Filed under Around the Courthouse
September 2010 — A federal appellate court has ruled that San Francisco’s policy of conducting a visual strip search for weapons and drugs before placing new arrestees in the general jail population did not violate the prisoners’ rights.
The 6-5 ruling by a panel of judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit came in the case of Bull v. City and County of San Francisco, 595 F.3d 964 (9th Cir. 2010) (en banc),a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of arrestees who had been strip searched at the San Francisco County Jail from 2002 to 2004.
San Francisco attorney David Newdorf, who represented the City along with attorneys from the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office, said the ruling was a victory for common sense and safety. The County Jail’s policy was to release arrestees without a strip search whenever possible through issuance of a citation or posting of a bail bond, Newdorf said. For safety and security, deputies only strip searched those who were not eligible for immediate release and were going to be housed with other detainees in the general jail population, he said.
Jail Safety Justifies the Searches
“The evidence before the court showed that more than one thousand of items of drugs, weapons and dangerous contraband were smuggled into the County Jail from 2000 to 2003,” Newdorf said. “This decision is a common-sense ruling. Prisons are already dangerous places. Those who are arrested, or whose loved ones are arrested, will be able to rest easier knowing that measures have been taken to prevent inmates from smuggling needles, knives and other dangerous items into the confined jail environment.”
Newdorf, the managing attorney of Newdorf Legal in San Francisco, was a deputy city attorney from 2001 to 2008. He briefed and argued the Bull case in the U.S. District Court and before a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit. He assisted the City Attorney’s Office in the March 26, 2009 argument before the en banc 11-judge panel.
Judge Sandra Ikuta, who wrote the majority opinion in Bull, stated:
“The record reveals a pervasive and serious problem with contraband inside San Francisco’s jails, as well as numerous instances in which contraband was found during a search, indicating that arrestees’ use of body cavities as a method of smuggling durgs, weapons, and items used to escape custody is an immediate and troubling problem for San Francisco jail administrators.”
Judge Ikuta concluded that despite the “invasive and embarrassing” nature of a strip search, “San Francisco’s strip search policy was reasonable and therefore did not violate the class members’ Fourth Amendment rights.”
About California Litigation Firm Newdorf Legal
San Francisco-based Newdorf Legal is a firm of trial lawyers that represents companies, executives, investors, government and public officials in litigation. The firm handles disputes related to breach of contract, interference with contract, trade secrets, fraud, unfair business practices, real estate and public entity litigation. For more information, contact David Newdorf at 415-357-1234 or info(at)newdorf.com.
San Francisco Superior Court Law & Motion Tips
September 8, 2011 by David Newdorf
Filed under Lit Tip Of The Week:™ Practical Advice For Litigators
Judges Peter Busch and Loretta Giorgi, who preside over the Law and Motion Departments at San Francisco Superior Court, provided useful tips and insights into the working of their courtrooms at a recent seminar. The take-away message: make it easy for the judge to rule in your favor. Be concise; avoid repetition; organize your brief with logical headings; organize the evidence with tabs; provide courtesy copies to chambers; if attacking the pleadings, attach those to your motion.
This is always sound advice, and even more so with the conslidation of courtrooms and judicial staff layoffs.
Here are some noteworthy tidbits from the Bar Association of San Francisco event:
- Demurrers to answers, although permitted, seldom advance a case. Both judges discouraged them.
- There is a backlog of unsorted mail in the clerk’s office. If you want or need the order on your motion filed, bring it to the hearing or bring it in ex parte.
- Don’t file pro forma objections to every sentence of every declaration. Save evidentiary objections for points that matter. According to Judge Busch, parties are not entitled to rulings on every objection. Interestingly, Judge Giorgi said she reviews the objections — not the research attorneys.
- The Court does not have West’s California Reporter — cite to the Official Reporter (Cal. and Cal. App.). Parellel cites are unnecessary.
“We will rule on more summary judgment motions in a month than you will write in a career.” Judge Peter Busch.
- Unless your motion turns on an aspect of the legal standard for a motion — e.g., the shifting burden on summary judgment — you don’t need to recite the standard. The judges can recite that in their sleep.
- The judges need your courtesy copies and will continue the hearing if any courtesy copy is missing. If you want to make sure the hearing goes forward, lodge both your briefs and the other sides briefs.
- Judge Giorgi will often give a pro per litigant a break and continue the hearing if the unrepresented party did not give proper notice to opposing counsel of their intent to appear and contest the tentative ruling. Judge Busch generally will enforce the rule and adopt the tentative if proper notice was not given.
- The judges used to have a bench memo from their clerks for every motion. With staff reductions and conslidation, the judges now handle approximately one-third of the motions from start to finish without a bench memo.
ABOUT NEWDORF LEGAL – A BUSINESS LITIGATION FIRM
Newdorf Legal is the go-to small firm for big problems. When business executives and public officials face complex legal challenges, they turn to David Newdorf for advice and representation. The firm’s lawyers have significant experience in the private and public sectors handling high-profile litigation. Newdorf Legal provides business and public entity clients expert advice and representation in:
- business litigation
- commercial disputes
- California breach of contract lawsuits
- business torts/interference with contract
- real property litigation
- joint venture/partnership issues
- investor lawsuits
- fraud and other civil actions
For a free copy of our informative brochure, “The Top 10 Business Litigation Mistakes . . . and how to avoid them,” contact Newdorf Legal.
Call David Newdorf at (415) 357-1234 for all of your California complex litigation questions.
Learn about the effect of the California Supreme Court’s Howell v. Hamilton Meats decision on valuing medical damages in personal injury lawsuits.
August 20, 2011 by David Newdorf
Filed under Around the Courthouse
The Bar Association of San Francisco is sponsoring a seminar Sept. 28, 2011, on the effects of the recent California Supreme Court decision in Howell v. Hamilton Meats on personal injury litigation.
Topics
• The implications of the California Supreme Court decision in Howell v. Hamilton Meats for valuing medical damages in personal injury cases;
• How the Howell decision affects the selection and use of medical damages experts and changes settlement and trial strategies for plaintiffs and defendants;
• Substantive and procedural questions left unanswered by Howell;
• Analysis of Howell within the broader context of “negotiated rate differentials,” the collateral source rule and differential billing for the insured, uninsured and recipients of Medicare/Medicaid.
Speakers
- Matthew Davis
Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger
- Kelly Dermody
Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, LLP
- David Ettinger
Horvitz & Levy LLP
- Philip Leider
Chapman, Popik & White, LLP
- David Newdorf
Newdorf Legal
For more information, follow the link to the BASF seminar flier and sign-up form.
For all of your litigation questions, contact Newdorf Legal, a San Francisco business litigation law firm.
San Francisco business attorney David Newdorf helps obtain ruling from California Supreme Court that will save business and governments billions annually.
August 18, 2011 by David Newdorf
Filed under Lawyers & The Law
SAN FRANCISCO (August 18, 2011 ) – The California Supreme Court ruled this week that court awards to accident victims for past medical expenses must be limited to the amounts actually paid and accepted as payment in full by medical care providers. The case pitted personal injury lawyers against doctors, hospitals, local government and insurers who urged the Court to adopt limits on court damage awards. The case is Howell v. Hamilton Meats & Provisions, Inc., S179115, decided on Aug. 18, 2011.
San Francisco business litigator David Newdorf represented the League of California Cities as a friend of the court, or amicus curiae, in the case. The Supreme Court cited Mr. Newdorf’s brief in rendering its decision.
Lawyers for accident victims had asked the Court to allow juries to award the full amount stated on doctor and hospital bills, even if the care provider accepted a reduced payment from insurance and neither the patient nor the insurance company was liable for higher billed amount. The doctors and hospitals would not be able to share in the increased recovery for medical expenses. The amount would be paid to the plaintiff and, under typical contingency fee agreements, shared with the plaintiff’s lawyer.
The higher medical expense awards would have added several billion dollars to court judgments annually, according to insurance industry estimates. California cities, which are often viewed as “deep pockets” by personal injury lawyers, would have faced higher tort payouts at a time when vital services are already being cut.
“Cities and businesses are interested in a tort system that fairly compensates injured persons while protecting taxpayers and citizens from undue expense,” Mr. Newdorf said. “The issues raised by this case have a significant effect on the ability of state and local government to provide vital services to all Californians.”
Founded in 1898, the League of California Cities is an association of 474 California cities dedicated to protecting and restoring local control to provide for the public health, safety, and welfare of their residents, and to enhance the quality of life for all Californians.
To read the Supreme Court decision or Mr. Newdorf’s amicus brief., visit newdorflegal.com.
Mr. Newdorf has been litigating this issue on behalf of clients since 2001, when he was appellate counsel in one of the seminal cases on medical damages, Nishihama v. City and County of San Francisco (2001) 93 Cal. App. 4th 298. The California Supreme Court decision in Howell affirmed the earlier decision in Nishihama.
Mr. Newdorf is managing attorney of San Francisco-based Newdorf Legal, which represents individuals, businesses and public entities in trials and appeals. The firm’s practice areas include business disputes, business torts/interference with contract, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, investment disputes, real estate, commercial landlord-tenant cases, and municipal law. Mr. Newdorf worked previously as a trial lawyer and team leader in the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office and was a litigation associate at a major international law firm. Mr. Newdorf was recently listed in the 2011 Northern California Super Lawyers magazine, an honor reserved for 5 percent of the State’s lawyers based on nomination by fellow lawyers and evaluation of professional reputation and achievement.
For all of your litigation questions, contact Newdorf Legal, a San Francisco business litigation law firm.
What Happened To Heller Ehrman — And Who’s Next?
October 22, 2008 by David Newdorf
Filed under Lawyers & The Law
Until very recently, Heller Ehrman LLP was a mainstay of the San Francisco legal community. Today it is gone. Virtually overnight, a firm that in 2007 grossed $471 million and spun off $1 million in profits per partner has vanished.
I’m not an alarmist by nature, but what happened at Heller – just a block from my own office at Bush and Montgomery Streets — can happen again, in any major U.S. city, with little warning. It can happen at another firm as venerable and successful as Heller. It can happen during good economic times or bad. Not only can it happen, I’m quite certain it will happen. Just wait and see.
By any measure, whether financial or professional, Heller Ehrman was successful to the end. Heller was the victim of a classic run on the bank. It started slowly with a handful of departures, none alarming by itself. The departures continued in 2007, which saw a modest 3 percent decline in revenues and profits per partner.
Then a larger group — 14 intellectual property litigators — decamped together to Covington & Burling this year. The remaining partners became increasingly anxious and started walking toward the exits. Soon the walk became a run as a mob mentality gripped the partnership, and no one wanted to be the last lawyer left. The snowball effect will destroy even a fundamentally healthy organization.
What did Heller do wrong? Nothing – other than to succeed and believe the law firm consultants who seemed to know what they were talking about. Heller hired and trained the best lawyers. It expanded into the best legal markets. It excelled in the most profitable practice areas. All the while, it gave back to the community through significant pro bono work and a commitment to diversity in its ranks. Heller’s success begat growth.
The larger it got, the more business it needed to sustain itself. The feeding of the mega-firm that Heller became required large clients, deals and cases, which it successfully attracted. Several big litigation cases wrapped up in 2007, resulting in a down year. Still, revenues for the year were only down 3 percent. Who would walk away from a $1 million-a-year partnership over 3 percent? But looking at competitors who saw a boom year in 2007, Heller’s results felt meager to some partners.
It’s no secret that the professional services sector is inherently cyclical. As the economy cycles through boom and bust, different practice areas rise and fall. Litigation and bankruptcy, for example, typically outperform other practice groups in tough economic times. One of the business advantages of larger law firms over smaller ones is that the diversity of practice groups can smooth over some of the ups and downs. One year, the transactional lawyer may bring in a lot of business. Next year, it’s the litigator.
The irony of today’s legal landscape is that smaller firms – the ones with larger swings in revenue from year to year – may be more stable than larger ones. That is because once a law firm gets big – as in one of the 100 largest in the country – the bonds between partners are too weak to support even modest economic stress. The partner down the hall or three floors up or in a different time zone isn’t interested in carrying the load for a group of strangers in another practice group who happen to be having a bad year.
Unlike in years past, when many lawyers spent their entire career at a single firm, the typical big firm partner today may be working at his second, third or fourth firm since law school. In a revolving-door partnership, it’s no longer a virtue to suffer a down year for the good of the firm. If your group is raking in the bucks today, someone else will take you, and if they offer you more money, why not? Don’t wait around, because the offer won’t be there next year when your red-hot practice area cools down.
What are the lessons of the Heller Ehrman debacle? For many out-of-work Hellerites, the lesson may be that the “Manahattanization” of big law is pernicious, some would say evil. Heller, like all the rest, gauged its success by the standards of big New York law firms that raked in profits per partner double or triple Heller’s. Heller looked to New York not out of greed, but simply because that is the yard stick used by partners at nearly all of the 100 largest U.S. law firms.
This is not a morality tale. Big law is not evil, just a little misguided at times. Big Law is also different from the native culture of the Hellers of the world (who were themselves misguided at times). I worked as an associate at O’Melveny & Myers LLP from 1994 to 2001. During that time, I saw the partnership make a strategic decision to keep up with the New York firms. The law firm consultants said “You’re either growing or dying. There’s no middle ground.” O’Melveny drank that cool aid, and has done very well.
Seeing the success of many California firms that have moved East, who wouldn’t agree with the consultants that “Bigger is better”? Now we see there’s more to it than that. Growth is no guarantee of survival. Heller Ehrman was middle of the AmLaw 100 pack in 2007 – ranked 55th in revenue per lawyer, a key metric. It had improved its rankings over the past 10 years from the number 60 spot in 1998. It did everything right, but ended up in the dust bin.
The Heller story is tragic in the ancient Greek sense. Classic tragedy depicts the downfall of a noble hero or heroine, usually through some combination of hubris, fate, and the will of the gods. I’m not sure which of these was Heller’s downfall, but that doesn’t matter. I’m more concerned about the walking dead at other successful law firms suffering from the “Bigger is better” delusion.
It’s time for some firms to take stock and figure out another route to success before they grow themselves into the ground.
For all of your litigation questions, contact Newdorf Legal, a San Francisco business litigation law firm.
Sample Deposition Questions In Personal Injury Cases
September 18, 2008 by David Newdorf
Filed under Lit Tip Of The Week:™ Practical Advice For Litigators
This week’s litigation tip expands on my article, “The Top Ten Killer Deposition Questions,” to provide ideas for basic deposition questions in a personal injury matter.
The most popular articles on this website have to do with depositions, which shows how important this discovery procedure is in today’s civil litigation practice. Based on the most recent California court statistics, between 8 and 12 percent of civil cases filed go to trial. For the other roughly 90 percent of cases that settle or resolve through a dismissal or motion, the deposition might as well be considered the trial.
Defense lawyers typically ask these questions (at least I do when defending a case involving personal injuries), so plaintiff’s lawyers should review this list with their clients during preparation for deposition. Also check out my article on “Preparing Your Client For Deposition.”
- “When did you first realize there was going to be an accident? Tell me how you knew an accident was about to happen.” This is a good opening question to set the stage.
- For trip-and-falls:
- “How did the accident happen? What happened with your foot? Did you trip? Did you slip? Did your foot catch? Did some part of your body twist?”
- “Was there any foreign substance or article on the surface where you fell? Was there anything unusual about the surface where you fell?”
- “How did you land? On what part of your body? Were you face up or face down? Which direction was your head pointed? Which direction were your feet pointed?”
- For motor vehicle accidents:
- “What did you hear right before the accident?” If the police report, photos or accident reconstruction report shows skid marks left by any vehicle, that would produce a loud, shrill noise that could be heard for blocks around.
- “Describe how your body moved during the accident.” A detailed verbal description and/or the videotape of the deposition (if used) will be useful to a retained medical doctor, chiropractor, biomechanics expert or accident reconstructionist. Sometimes the plaintiff’s description may contradict the laws of physics (such as when plaintiff says he fell backwards following a sudden bus stop) or be inconsistent with other evidence.
- “What parts of your body made contact with what parts of the interior of the vehicle (or sidewalk or floor)?” You want to compare the purported points of impact with the medical evidence of the location of cuts or bruises.
- “When did you start to hurt?”
- “Did you have any swelling? Where? When did that occur?”
- “Did you have any cuts, bruises or scrapes? Where? When did those become visible?”
- “Did anyone take any photographs at the location of the accident? Who? When? When did you see these photographs?”
- “Did anyone take photographs of your injuries?” Ideally, you should have obtained these photos in response to document demands before the deposition. Sometimes the plaintiff’s lawyer hasn’t done his or her job in gathering responsive documents, so you should always ask the plaintiff.
- “When did you first seek any medical treatment? How did you get there?” I’m always amazed how many accident victims call a lawyer before a doctor. And there was the bus fall-on-board case I defended once where the plaintiff stood up, announced he had changed his mind and “wanted to get paid,” and laid back down on the floor to wait for the paramedics. Meanwhile, he got out his cell phone and started calling law firms.
- “How did you find your doctor?” Often the lawyer has referred the client to a favored treater, who will take a lien on the case instead of payment up front. Many plaintiffs’ attorneys, however, frown on this practice.
- “How long were you at the doctor’s office for treatment?”
- “Describe your treatment.”
- “When did you last see your doctor?”
- “Did your doctor prescribe any medication?”
- “Are you currently taking any medication as a result of this accident?”
- “How are you feeling today?”
About Newdorf Legal – a California
Business Litigation Law Firm
Newdorf Legal is the go-to small firm for big problems. When business executives and public officials face complex legal challenges, they turn to David Newdorf for advice and representation. The firm’s lawyers have significant experience in the private and public sectors handling high-profile litigation. Newdorf Legal provides business and public entity clients expert advice and representation in:
- business litigation
- commercial disputes
- California breach of contract lawsuits
- business torts/interference with contract
- real property litigation
- joint venture/partnership issues
- investor lawsuits
- fraud and other civil actions
For a free copy of our informative brochure, “The Top 10 Business Litigation Mistakes . . . and how to avoid them,” contact Newdorf Legal.
For all of your litigation questions, contact Newdorf Legal, a San Francisco business litigation law firm.