One of defense lawyers’ favorite tricks is to parade around vehicle damage pictures that only show a small dent or a scratch to suggest the crash wouldn’t hurt a flea. Here is how to expose it.
Use the right words
Never say “low impact”, that is their game, because it suggests something that is harmless. Say, “not a lot of visible property damage”. It is accurate and leaves open the possibility that there may be more there than meets the eye. Lots of people have taken their car to the shop after a crash and it looks fine, but never runs the same again.
Voir dire question to eliminate bias
How many of you feel, if there is not a lot of visible property damage to the vehicle, a person could not have been hurt badly in a crash, certainly not permanently, no matter what the doctors say or the evidence shows?
Exposing the trick
It’s not about the crush, it’s about the jarring. Being shoved from behind, unexpectedly and awkwardly, can hurt a grown-up. Picture someone sneaking up on you and shoving you in the back. I dare you not to cringe. I am sending with this an excerpt from my book, Don’t Eat the Bruises, laying out a little story and a powerful analogy that will bring this reality home for the jury. (The book is full of similar gems.)
How their own medical expert further exposes the trick
Typically, the defense hires the same old ortho or neurosurgeon to diagnose your client with just a sprain/strain. When they follow that script, while using the minimal property damage trick, they are talking out of both sides of their mouth. Point it out in opening by saying: If there is any suggestion that industrial frames of a car must be torn up for the occupant to be hurt, I want to put that to rest right now. The evidence will show the defense handpicked and hired a doctor who makes a lot of money being hired by the defense in lawsuits, a doctor who has been picked and paid by the defense side in this case many times. The defense side has paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. Most of those cases involved car crashes. The defense in this case had him examine, interview my client, review all of the medical records, including all of the radiology films in this case. After looking at all of that for the defense, he concluded Ms. Jones was hurt in this crash! He tried to downplay the injury, and we’ll talk more about that in a few minutes, but the fact remains, he will tell you this crash did hurt Ms. Jones. It is easy to understand how this crash caused a disc injury, because it is not crushing of the industrial frame that causes injuries like this, it is the sudden, unexpected, awkward jarring. Hopefully, given the fact their own hired medical witness agrees the crash caused injury, there won’t be any suggestion to the contrary. Time will tell, but now you know what the evidence shows. You also know, from the judge, that what the lawyers say isn’t evidence.