Jeff Adelman welcomes trial partners Nelson Baez & Jason McIntosh of Lytal Reiter to discuss their recent Plaintiff's personal injury verdict in Palm Beach. Nelson and Jason discuss what it was like trying a case in during the pandemic including juror sentiments about serving during the Covid-19 era. A must listen for any trial lawyer but especially those handling Plaintiff's personal injury claims. For more information about the trial, contact Nelson Baez at nbaez@foryourights.com and/or Jason McIntosh at jmcintosh@foryourrights.com . For more information about the Palm Beach County Justice Association, go to www.pbcja.org
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Episode Transcript
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Hello, everyone, and welcome toanother edition of Questions for Lawyers. I'm
your host Jeff Adelman, and todayI have two members of the Palm Beach
County Justice Association, Jason McIntosh andNelson Biez from Idle Rider, and the
reason we are presenting this show todayis just a short while ago these two
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gentlemen obtained a plaintiff's personal injury verdictin Palm Beach County, Florida, and
there haven't been many in person civiljury trials of late, so they were
kind enough to come on with meand talk to other trial lawyers about their
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experience dealing with a civil jury trialduring this COVID nineteen pandemic. Jason Nelson,
Well, first, Jason, verygood to see you again, and
as well Jeff. You know lasttime we were setting a course record at
the PG Golf Course for most forthe highest school divots that we called.
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Yes, I think we got thehigh score in that tournament. So I
don't think you've got like a basketballgame, you know, run up the
score. Yeah, that's what wewere trying to do. And Nelson,
Uh, again, it's always goodto see you as well. You were
part of that. You're part ofthat team effort to run up the score.
So good seeing you again. SoI guess the first thing I want
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to ask you about, Jason,is just what was it like after such
a long absence to walk into acourtroom again and get ready to try try
a case in these times? It'sit's it's it's funny, you asked,
Jeff, because I feel like Nelsonand I were kind of chatting about that
on the way the entire time.Control It's like, you know, our
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are it's in my DNA. Beinga trial attorney. Before I was a
trial attorney on the civil side,I was a prosecutor. So I'm used
to the courtrooms and I'm comfortable there, but there's that comfort is also cushioned
by butterflies, nervousness, the samething that we we normally get, the
feeling in our gut when the judgeis calling a jury panel up, when
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you know it's about to go,you know, and and the waiting game
of is it going to go?Is it not going to go? You
know? The first you know,the week weeks weeks before, and you
know, we were number eight onThursday. We ended up being number one
by Friday afternoon. You know,and so we had no idea if we
were going to go initially, sothat that kind of those kind of feelings
came back. And you know,it's been it's been far too long.
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It's been almost a year and ahalf since I've been in trial, and
obviously COVID shut down trial for overover I think it's ten months they were
shut down. So you know,as soon as we got back in there,
you know, those feelings started comingback. But also the comfort and
the familiarity of being in the fourwalls of the courtroom and kind of moving
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about the courtroom. You know,once you get past all the modifications they've
made, the plexiglass in front ofthe judge, everybody's wearing a mask.
You know, there's markers for socialdistancing. Certain parts of the benches are
marked off where people can't sit,you know, the jurors can't sit.
But apart from that, you know, it was very familiar. I'd say
that Nelson similar question. You know, your experience going back into the courtroom,
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but adding into it, seeing theplexiglass and all that, tell me
what that was like, What thatwas like for you. It was exciting
once we found out on Friday thatwe were definitely going, knowing that we
could, I mean, we'd beenpreparing all week knowing it was a possibility,
but knowing that we over the weekendcould really focus on being geared up.
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And in my eleven year career,twenty twenty was the first year I
didn't try a case, so itwas my last trial was in December of
twenty nineteen, So it was reallyexciting to know that we were getting back
in there. And there was thatexcitement of being one of the first ones.
I know that that couple of othercases have gone to trial, but
still being one of the first.But kind of, like Jason said,
once you got in there, youknow, you kind of forget you're wearing
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a mask, you see through theplexiglass, and you just get back in
the trial mode and and it feltgood. And just like Jason said,
all of the nervousness, all ofthe excitement, you know, all of
the you know, the you know, the objections, all that just like
starts coming right back to you,just as if you had, you know,
just back like when Jason and Iwere prosecutors trying all those DUI cases.
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So it was it was really niceto be back in the court and
it was a good feeling. Nelson. Let me ask you this because when
the case started out, you actuallywere not in the courtroom that you tried
the case. They ended up tryingthe case and can you can you talk
about that a little bit. Yeah, So for the for the VUA dyer
too, they called up about thirtypeople on our panel and we we asked
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there to be as big of apanel as we could, not knowing how
how many people would be stricken forcause and the judge. They're picking the
juries in the ceremonial courtrooms, sothe judge had to set up in the
ceremonial courtroom. We started the trialon Tuesday. We did jury selection in
the morning. We did closings inthe afternoon or I'm sorry, openings in
the afternoon. So and then ourfirst our first two witnesses in the ceremonial
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courtroom on Tuesday, and then onWednesday we moved down to Judge Kelly's courtroom.
Judge Caster Nachus presided over our case, but he has one of the
smaller courtrooms, so we were inJudge Kelly's courtroom that has one of the
larger courtrooms on the ninth floor,So I mean it was it was just
it wasn't too big of a changefor us. You know, a courtrooms
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of courtroom once you start talking.But it was just you know, getting
our witnesses schedule because we you know, it was kind of like a fluid
situation as to which room we weregoing to be in. But my understanding
is is that the judges are pickingjuries in the ceremonial courtroom to adhere to
all the social distancing, so theydon't they're rotating through if I you know,
I know that Judge Kracuso had comein on a break and was talking
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to Judge Castronacis about planning to startpicking a criminal jury on Thursday, so
she was going to be using thatsame ceremonial court room. Jason, you
actually did the VOA dear for thistrial. Tell me about your experiences questioning
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the jury and the sentiment about servingas a juror in the time of a
pandemic. Well, you know,I first and foremost, Jeff, let
me give tremendous kudos to court personnel, Court admin, Chief Judge Krista Marx,
Judge Kashernakis, and all the courtdeputies over there. At the courthouse.
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They did a tremendous instellar job ofhandling the entire process and basically making
it as familiar and comfortable and safeas possible and as far as COVID goes.
Judge Kashernakis got on a case managementcall with Nelson, myself and opposing
counsel the evening or the day beforetrial to kind of let us know and
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go over some parameters, and hesaid that they they actually cover a lot
of the COVID issues downstairs in themain jury room when they bring in the
big panels are the entire jury pool, and then the jurors that are selected
are normally have they have been vettedalready regarding comfort regarding COVID, So the
people that obviously come up to usare pretty serious. So, you know,
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that was one thing that was kindof an easy hurdle to overcome.
The judge, among his questions isthe common question of you know, does
anybody have any hardships with this causeany hardships to serve And a few people
raise their hand to mention that theydidn't feel comfortable being in a mask for
multiple days in the courthouse, andthen a couple of people were raise their
hands to say the opposite. They'vethey don't feel comfortable around other people who
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aren't necessarily adhering to protocol with themasks, and those people were basically dismissed
and allowed to go, you know, once they kind of made it clear
that they're not going to be ableto focus on the trial because they're worried
about this, the mask either causingthem anxiety, breathing issues, whatever it
may be. But beyond that,everybody else COVID was kind of an afterthought.
Nobody even really mentioned it. Wegot right into the issues, you
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know, the main issues that youwant to talk about in jury selection attitudes,
the beliefs of jurors, the biasesto kind of get to the nitty
gritty, and the law obviously ifthey can follow the law. Sure well,
Jason, let me ask you this, because you're questioning the jurors.
They're all wearing masks. Okay,that's what happened during the jury selection,
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right, Yes, all the jurorswore masks. The judge Kashnakas did give
the lawyers and the witnesses the opportunityto or the options to take off their
mask once they were you know,in the at the podium or in the
in the witness box, because they'revery removed from everybody else. At that
point, the witness boxes had plexiglassand the podiums were far from everyone else.
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So they allowed us to take ourmask off for you know, inflections,
and so people can hear us andunderstand us well. I think that
a lot of people's concern is notbeing able to read the expressions on the
jurors faces during vois deir and sayduring the trial, did you find that
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to be a concern of yours?You know, honestly it was. It
was an afterthought of mine because thejurors and it might have I mean,
it might be a unique set ofunique panel that we had, but the
jurors were pretty willing to answer thequestions that I had for them, and
we had because of technology and thefact that this trial was a hybrid and
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zoom trial, we had to getwait for the jurors to get microphones from
the deputies so that they could speakto response our question, so you could
clearly hear them when they responded.So, I mean that allowed us to
have a little bit more interaction becausesometimes you don't always hear jurors in the
back, and you know, Ilike to work my way through the roads
and making sure that I call oneverybody to find out what they what they
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know, which you know, tosometimes the detriment is a detriment to the
time that you have. But itstill worked out and it really didn't end
up being a problem. And duringtrial, the jurors had no pads and
they seemed like they were focused andtake paying attention. You know, you
can still see those same things.You might not be able to see their
mouth, but honestly, I meanseeing a juror's mouth there triilal isn't really
doing anything. It's more so whattheir eyes are doing and what they you
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know, what their body language is. And it seemed like they were all
pretty attentive. When you said it'sa hybrid zoom trial, what did you
mean by that? From from startto finish, the trial had a zoom
link that allowed not only spectators toparticipate and watch the trial all throughout Pombage
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County and I guess the world ifthey really logged on and they got the
password, but they also it alsoallowed you know, in the beginning,
we actually had a kind of ahiccup with the court reporter situation where our
court reporter didn't show up live andshe actually took jury selection, and it
might've just been jury selection. Ithink she showed it for opening, if
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I recall, but she took juryselection by zoom. It did cause some
problems because she wasn't able to hearlike the bench conferences with the judge because
when he puts on the white noise, the people on the zoom can't hear
the white noise. But she wasrecording the jurors commentary and the questions from
the lawyers by zoom, and sowe had to wait for microphones to get
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to the jurors so that they couldhear I mean, so that the court
reporter can hear on the zoom.That caused obviously some delays on our time,
but that's one of the technological kindof advancements that we've made in this
last year. Also during the trialwe've had, we had we our witnesses
were live, but the witnesses fordefense actually were called via zoom, including
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the CMEME doctor and two of theirfactnesses. So the cross examination and direct
examination was going just like our conversationright now. That's incredible, Nelson,
given the fact that the trial waslive streamed and you were able, I
mean anybody could have watched this trial. Explain what that was like, because
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normally somebody would have to show upto the courtroom and you know, tell
you, oh, good job,whatever. But here everybody could watch.
It was weird to have just anempty courtroom. You know, usually there's
somebody in the courtroom watching. Butit was a huge advantage that Jason and
I used throughout the trial to haveour office back back in there, you
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know, in the comfort of theiroffice is watching and you know, you
know, my assistants and paralegals watchingeverything, and they're able to give us
feedback as to how witnesses did,you know, things that they heard from
witnesses that they felt were important andthat then we could incorporate into into our
closing arguments, and then the samething from the other attorneys in our office.
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I mean, obviously they have differenttime constraints, so they can't watch
a full trial, but when theyare able to watch something, they're able
to pick up on things that youknow, when you're in a when you're
actually trying the case and the heatof the moment you either may miss or
you may not realize the significance ofthat to somebody who's hearing the case for
the first time. So it wasit was a really unique experience in that
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sense that you have a lot ofpeople back at your office actually watching,
and they can give you a perspectivethat's going to be closer to what the
jury's hearing as opposed to what Jasonand I, who know the case inside
and out, are hearing from thewitness stand. I can't imagine how invaluable
that that must have been to beable to get real time feedback from so
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many different sources on both sides ofthe you know, defense endpoint. Yeah,
I mean it was also unique thatknow, like Jason said, anybody
can watch it. So my wifefor the first time ever got to watch
me do a closing argument, andand you know, after the trial,
you know, just getting text messagesfrom from friends and former colleagues saying,
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oh I got to watch a littlebit of this. So it's a unique
experience. But it's certainly a toolthat as they keep the zoom links open
for trials going forward, that thatwe as attorneys definitely need to utilize,
you know, Normally, if youwant to have a consultant or if you
want to have somebody in there givingyou feedback, they can't just send you
an email right away, or theycan't just you know, hand you a
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piece of paper in the middle oftrial. Now you do have those opportunities,
and and it's it's basically, youknow, there there is no limit
as to how many people you canhave watching you and giving you feedback.
So it's it's a really unique,unique, I guess, consequence of the
whole COVID process. Nelson, youand I briefly talked about this, and
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I think it's important to bring upbecause this was a huge concern of mine
with opening up civil jury trials.The nation is extremely polarized right now.
There are people who, I mean, masks are a political issue. It
seems everything's a political issue. Whatdid you observe with the jury in terms
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of did you see a difference fromsay, the jury in December twenty nineteen
to the one that you saw thismonth February twenty twenty one in terms of
just being willing to talk and givetheir opinions. I would say the one
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thing that jumped out to me isthat all of the jurors that were there,
they really wanted to be there forthe right reason. In this COVID
age, it was so easy toget off of jury service. Not only
not only did did they give youopportunities before you ever walked up to the
courtroom, but even during the COVIDquestioning Judge Casternacus, if you gave a
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COVID explanation to why you couldn't bethere, you know, it was pretty
much you were able to go.So that was very obvious. So the
people that did stay that were notcause challenges. They were all people that,
throughout Jason's questioning, made it clearthat they wanted to be there because
they felt it was their civic dutyand their civic responsibility. So going into
the trial, we had a lotof trepidation that the people that would be
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showing up to the to a trialand sitting in a courtroom with strangers in
a closed room would be the peoplethat have the political beliefs that you don't
have to wear a mask or thatthe virus doesn't exist, and that mindset
tends to be not good for ourtype of cases. But we actually found
the opposite of that. Now,as Jason said, we could have just
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been lucky with the jury panel.And certainly, when you get a good
result like we did, you tendto think that everything worked out. And
I recognize that that's not going tobe the case for everybody that case to
trial, But it was very clearthat everybody who was on that jury panel
that they wanted to be there forthe right reasons, because they thought that
it was their civic duty to getback The other thing that I found that
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that I think was very helpful forus, that this new political environment has
shown is that people are no longerafraid to share their opinions, no matter
how you know, how unpleasant orhow unpolitically correct those opinions can be.
We had one gentleman, younger gentlemanwho came in wearing a Confederate flag T
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shirt on our jury panel. Nowyou know, I'm Hispanic, Jason's black,
and our client's Haitian, So youknow, we didn't think that that
was going to be an ideal jurorfor us, But that guy was not
shy with sharing his opinions. Andin response to some of Jason's questionings about
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are there too many lawsuits in thestate, you know, he mentioned that
there's too many complainers. We justhave too many snowflakes out there, and
you know that's obviously a trigger word. But when he says the snowflakes,
that got you know, Jason,got somebody else to comment and say,
oh, yeah, that's right.I think that there's too many snowflakes.
So you know it, we youwalk into the courtroom with this trepidation that
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you're going to have these these closetedpeople that are out to sink your case.
But the one thing that we atleast saw is that those people now
in this political environment are so eagerto share their values and their views that
you're going to be able to identifythem pretty easily. And at the end
of it, we were actually wondering, where was this guy on January the
sixth. Wow, Well, Imean that's I mean, that's the landscape
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we're dealing with right now. Jason, did you have a similar thoughts to
Nelson on that issue? Absolutely?And Nelson put it perfectly the you know,
the the one thing I mean I'veI've learned from from from going to
Varda seminars and hearing from the greattrial lawyers that have done var dyr is
you got to get you know,obviously, any any jury selection is about
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getting the jury talking. You're notgoing to change anybody's mind, and you're
probably not gonna find jurors that loveyou. But you really need to find
the jurors that hate you or hateyour client, you know, and and
get them off the jury. Andand once you get them talking, you
got to find out who else agreeswith the really really loud ones. And
the polarization of our country has youknow, and and and I mean the
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politics and everything that has happened thelast you know, last couple of years
has really emboldened people to speak up, like Nelson has said, So I
didn't find it to be problematic.Now the judges don't like it so much
when you you get the people talkingthat way. So you know, you
gotta be you got to kind ofdance delicately when you're doing it, because
I know I was. I mighthave been reprimanded a couple of times for
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some of the questions I was asking, but I meant the end of the
day, we got a job todo, you know, and I you
know, I wanted to stick toit. And you know, despite the
reprimanding or or whatever I want to. My job is to find out,
you know, if these people aregonna give my guy a fair shot,
you know, because then that's allwe want, you know, we if
we don't, if we're not gonnaget a fair shot, the chances are
we're not gonna win. So youknow, don't be shy about asking those
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questions. And I told the people, I said, look, I'm not
here to change your mind. I'mnot here to judge you. I just
need to know how you feel.And you know, it's a conversation.
And I think a lot of thepeople that we're not looking for as as
our ideal jurors, and uh,they you know, when we let them
know that, Look, this isthis is the non political correct zone.
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I want you to speak your feelings. I think a lot of those people
kind of feel more comfortable talking thatway, and that's exactly what we want.
It's all I mean, it's Imean, it's it's discouraging to hear
people talking like that, but it'sencouraging because you know that those people are
not going to be able to siton a jury. And that was a
real concern for me. So I'mI mean, I was actually really happy
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to hear Nelson and you say thatthat was very encouraging for me. Absolutely.
Let me let me ask you this, Jason. You've gone through it.
You know about the backlog there isin every county and well every state
in the Union. Can this bedone all throughout the courthouse or do you
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think that it may behoove uh somecourts to maybe do the vois deer virtually
and then bring the people into thecourthouse to get things cranking on the civil
jury side, because that's I mean, the backlog is tremendous right now.
I mean we were we were alreadybackloged before COVID, right we know that
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as plaint off lawyers, we couldn'tget the trial when we wanted to.
So you know, the backlog isonly only doubling down or tripling down and
moving exponentially. But I don't know, it's it's similar to you know,
the way our whole country is rightnow. I don't know if this system
is ideal for every single county becauseevery single county has different COVID numbers and
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different population densities and amount of casesand everything cases uh in court and cases
of COVID. But you know whatwhat the formula works for sure, but
it's you know the fact that wewere the only show in town last week.
Literally that's not going to do muchto you know, to stop the
the the dam of cases that hasyou know, welled up essentially all this
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time that's built up. So Ithink it's a it's a process that works,
and there's certain things that I think, you know, that they can
work on to make it smoother andmaybe maybe even start adding additional cases,
but it's not It can't get backto normal until obviously our cases are cases
of COVID cases go down, uh, and then then we can start actually
trying real cases in numbers, becauseI think the social distancing element of the
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jury and the jury pooled downstairs isreally what's most crucial. And if they're
not, if they can't bring inthe same amount of jurors that they used
to, they're never gonna be ableto try the same amount of cases because
we have to have those panels,you know, and and and I understand
the the the hesitance and and theyou know, the how much how much
care they're putting into the process ofmaking sure that they carefully picked which cases
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go to trial Jeff, I wouldjust add just to add on to that.
You know, going through these trials. I know that Tiffany fat has
had a trial go in November.We had our trial go in February,
and they're calling up trials. LikeJason said, we were very far down
the list at the beginning of themonth as after calendar call when we were
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going to get called up, andas all of these cases start getting called
up, you know, we're intouch with the Plaineiffs attorneys ahead of us.
Cases are settling, finally getting offers. You know, the backlog of
cases that actually need to go totrial is always going to be there,
but we as Pliniff attorneys have avery unique opportunity. Our trial cases,
the ones that we know we wantto push to trial. If we have
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those ready, the judge is goingto find trial time for us and the
defense attorneys they're going to have toeither be ready to go to trial or
they're going to have to pay us. Because we can get results. You
know, in during this COVID time, we can find the right jurors,
we can get results. Jason andI were fortunate enough to be able to
do that last week, and thecourts are giving us the time. So
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I mean, I think that wehave a real opportunity to show the insurance
companies and the defense attorneys how preparedwe are to get justice for our clients,
and we're going to have the opportunitiesto do it. And that's that's
just so important because I feel likeover the past year our hammer has been
taken away and hearing about your result. And it was a slip and fall
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case. Yeah, we had atrip and fall case. We had a
forty five year old Haitian gentleman whowalked into a Family Dollar. He entered
into the aisle and at the entranceto the aisle there was a box that
was that Family Dollar employees used asa merchant to stock merchandise on the shelves
that was just left there unattended.He tripped on that and he fell and
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broke his elbow, requiring surgery withtwo screws. Wow was the medicine on
that. He made a very goodrecovery, you know, post surgery,
he had a couple of physical therapyvisits, a couple of follow ups,
and then really no more future careor no more care up and post surgery
up until our trial. And itwas really a liability defense. They had
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two witnesses come in and say thatthere wasn't a box there. Then they
also tried to argue that if therewas a box there, our clients should
have seen it and been able toavoid it. That was the crux of
the case. Well again, justyou know, being able to see a
you know, a plaintiff be successfulin these times. I know that I'm
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not alone in that sentiment. I'msure everybody in pbc JA and FJA and
across the country probably heard about thisand you know, part in the expression.
But it's a real shot in thearm to hear something like that.
So I can't thank both of youenough for just taking the time to speak
with me and speak with everybody elseabout your experiences. Jason, I wanted
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to just ask you, you know, any final thoughts about your experience going
through this civil jury trial and PalmBeach, you know, just about the
future of this type of procedure andwhat anything that maybe you think can be
made a little better. First andforemost, it was just a fantastic opportunity
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and I can't and obviously it wasNelson's case and I jumped on it as
they said, you know, Ihave a trial coming up. You want
to take it? And I waslike, heck, yes, you know.
So I won't say I won't saywhat I really said, but you
know I wanted. I was,I was ready. I was hungry and
ready to go. And uh,it was. It was a It was
a cool process to see the zoomhybrid element to it, and obviously social
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distancing and the masks and stuff likethat. I hope that's not here to
stay. I hope we're able tomake a you know, overcome this with
the vaccine and and you know,the fight against COVID. But the technology
element I think can really be beneficial, both in the ways that Nelson spoke
about before, where people are ableto participate and watch the trial, you
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know, or even just be spectators, but also for strategies and and the
ability to call witnesses that may notalways be accessible, you know, or
and I mean the tremendous cost ofof sometimes bringing witnesses to court is you
know, it can be a bigburden, you know, on on on
justice. So the defense witnesses wereall by zoom, you know. The
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cross of them was a little awkwardbecause of the technology factor. And making
sure that you know, they couldhear us, can you can you know,
can you hear me? And therewas some interpreter issues as well,
But you know, I'm just imaginingthe ability to be able to squeeze a
witness in that otherwise would have hadto drive from somewhere in Miami or or
you know, somewhere out of countyand you know, for maybe half hour,
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forty minutes of testimony and it's ait's an entire day or even you
know, the doctors, and howmuch we have to pay doctors to come
and testify. You know, maybeable to be able to save money and
save time if we're able to bringthem in by Zoom or things of that,
you know, things of that nature. So I think there are some
elements of it that can be beneficial. And the fact that this trial happened
a year after the shutdown, ornearly a year after the shutdown, I
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think also made a lot of theparticipants, including us and the jurors,
judge, everybody, a lot morecomfortable with the proceeding. Is because Zoom
is like a part of our dailylives now, right. I mean,
our kids use it for school,we use it for work, you know,
meeting conferences, whatever it may be, depositions, So everybody was really
just kind of familiar. Once thatthat pops up, everybody's like, oh,
that's you know, like and thejurors were looking at the screen and
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didn't seem to bad an eye aboutit. So we've definitely been indoctrinated to
this new way of technology, andI hope that part we can continue to
cultivate. Nelson, what were yourfinal thoughts on your experience? So one
of the final takeaways that I'd liketo share with everyone that we haven't really
touched upon, is, you know, going into these trials, you know,
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when it comes to asking for damages, particularly pain and suffering damages.
I know that at least I hadconversations with attorneys in our office and other
you know, other colleagues with theJustice Association about you know, how do
you ask for damages in this pandemictime. You have people who aren't working,
you have people who are relying onstimulus checks or unemployment. You know,
(29:56):
are they going to feel bad forour clients? Are they going to
want to ward big money damages forour clients? And and I what and
and look this this one experience thatJason and I had isn't necessarily going to
be emblematic of what everybody's going toexperience. But you know, we when
I asked for pain and suffering,damn. You know, this was a
(30:18):
this was a past medical bills case. There was thirty seven thousand in past
medical bills and there was really nodispute on the past medical bills, and
our doctor only recommended one thousand totwo thousand dollars a year in future medical
bills. So it was really apain and suffering judgment that we that we
got. And that was a concernfor Jason and I when we're coming up
with those numbers to ask for.And I did my closing. I asked
(30:38):
for a range of future medical orfuture i'm sorry past pain and suffering of
one fifty to three hundred and forpast or I'm sorry and for future pain
and suffering of one hundred to twohundred. And the jury gave us the
number right in the middle. Youknow, they gave me two twenty five
(31:00):
for that past pain and suffering,and they gave us one fifty for the
future pain and suffering. And Ijust wanted to share that to show that
in this time, you know,people still can recognize the pain and suffering
that you're going through. Whatever ajuror is going through, our clients are
going through that, but injured.And I think that that during this COVID
(31:25):
time that there is a message that'sgoing to resonate with the jury that's going
to allow them to connect with that. And if you're fortunate enough to get
the right jurors on there, they'regoing to realize that, you know,
you still deserve money. Just becauseother people are going through a difficult financial
situation, life situation, work situationdoesn't mean that those frustrations need to be
(31:48):
taken out on our injured clients.So I think that that was an encouraging
takeaway that it certainly is. Wellgentlemen, I can't thank you enough for
doing this for the benefit of allof us plaintive trial lawyers. Thank you
for going in there and getting itdone. And I only hope that the
(32:13):
next time I'm seeing you, ifthey'll have us back, maybe back on
the golf course and you know,maybe we can beat that score from last
time. Definitely, Thank you,Jeff, Thank you, Jeff, Thank
you so much for those of youwatching listening. Thank you for your attention.
I'm Jeff Adelman. For questions forlawyers. Be well everyone,
Hello, everyone, and welcome toanother edition of Questions for Lawyers. I'm
your host Jeff Adelman, and todayI have two members of the Palm Beach
County Justice Association, Jason McIntosh andNelson Biez from Idle Rider, and the
reason we are presenting this show todayis just a short while ago these two
(00:28):
gentlemen obtained a plaintiff's personal injury verdictin Palm Beach County, Florida, and
there haven't been many in person civiljury trials of late, so they were
kind enough to come on with meand talk to other trial lawyers about their
(00:48):
experience dealing with a civil jury trialduring this COVID nineteen pandemic. Jason Nelson,
Well, first, Jason, verygood to see you again, and
as well Jeff. You know lasttime we were setting a course record at
the PG Golf Course for most forthe highest school divots that we called.
(01:14):
Yes, I think we got thehigh score in that tournament. So I
don't think you've got like a basketballgame, you know, run up the
score. Yeah, that's what wewere trying to do. And Nelson,
Uh, again, it's always goodto see you as well. You were
part of that. You're part ofthat team effort to run up the score.
So good seeing you again. SoI guess the first thing I want
(01:34):
to ask you about, Jason,is just what was it like after such
a long absence to walk into acourtroom again and get ready to try try
a case in these times? It'sit's it's it's funny, you asked,
Jeff, because I feel like Nelsonand I were kind of chatting about that
on the way the entire time.Control It's like, you know, our
(01:57):
are it's in my DNA. Beinga trial attorney. Before I was a
trial attorney on the civil side,I was a prosecutor. So I'm used
to the courtrooms and I'm comfortable there, but there's that comfort is also cushioned
by butterflies, nervousness, the samething that we we normally get, the
feeling in our gut when the judgeis calling a jury panel up, when
(02:17):
you know it's about to go,you know, and and the waiting game
of is it going to go?Is it not going to go? You
know? The first you know,the week weeks weeks before, and you
know, we were number eight onThursday. We ended up being number one
by Friday afternoon. You know,and so we had no idea if we
were going to go initially, sothat that kind of those kind of feelings
came back. And you know,it's been it's been far too long.
(02:39):
It's been almost a year and ahalf since I've been in trial, and
obviously COVID shut down trial for overover I think it's ten months they were
shut down. So you know,as soon as we got back in there,
you know, those feelings started comingback. But also the comfort and
the familiarity of being in the fourwalls of the courtroom and kind of moving
(03:00):
about the courtroom. You know,once you get past all the modifications they've
made, the plexiglass in front ofthe judge, everybody's wearing a mask.
You know, there's markers for socialdistancing. Certain parts of the benches are
marked off where people can't sit,you know, the jurors can't sit.
But apart from that, you know, it was very familiar. I'd say
that Nelson similar question. You know, your experience going back into the courtroom,
(03:23):
but adding into it, seeing theplexiglass and all that, tell me
what that was like, What thatwas like for you. It was exciting
once we found out on Friday thatwe were definitely going, knowing that we
could, I mean, we'd beenpreparing all week knowing it was a possibility,
but knowing that we over the weekendcould really focus on being geared up.
(03:44):
And in my eleven year career,twenty twenty was the first year I
didn't try a case, so itwas my last trial was in December of
twenty nineteen, So it was reallyexciting to know that we were getting back
in there. And there was thatexcitement of being one of the first ones.
I know that that couple of othercases have gone to trial, but
still being one of the first.But kind of, like Jason said,
once you got in there, youknow, you kind of forget you're wearing
(04:06):
a mask, you see through theplexiglass, and you just get back in
the trial mode and and it feltgood. And just like Jason said,
all of the nervousness, all ofthe excitement, you know, all of
the you know, the you know, the objections, all that just like
starts coming right back to you,just as if you had, you know,
just back like when Jason and Iwere prosecutors trying all those DUI cases.
(04:30):
So it was it was really niceto be back in the court and
it was a good feeling. Nelson. Let me ask you this because when
the case started out, you actuallywere not in the courtroom that you tried
the case. They ended up tryingthe case and can you can you talk
about that a little bit. Yeah, So for the for the VUA dyer
too, they called up about thirtypeople on our panel and we we asked
(04:56):
there to be as big of apanel as we could, not knowing how
how many people would be stricken forcause and the judge. They're picking the
juries in the ceremonial courtrooms, sothe judge had to set up in the
ceremonial courtroom. We started the trialon Tuesday. We did jury selection in
the morning. We did closings inthe afternoon or I'm sorry, openings in
the afternoon. So and then ourfirst our first two witnesses in the ceremonial
(05:23):
courtroom on Tuesday, and then onWednesday we moved down to Judge Kelly's courtroom.
Judge Caster Nachus presided over our case, but he has one of the
smaller courtrooms, so we were inJudge Kelly's courtroom that has one of the
larger courtrooms on the ninth floor,So I mean it was it was just
it wasn't too big of a changefor us. You know, a courtrooms
(05:43):
of courtroom once you start talking.But it was just you know, getting
our witnesses schedule because we you know, it was kind of like a fluid
situation as to which room we weregoing to be in. But my understanding
is is that the judges are pickingjuries in the ceremonial courtroom to adhere to
all the social distancing, so theydon't they're rotating through if I you know,
I know that Judge Kracuso had comein on a break and was talking
(06:05):
to Judge Castronacis about planning to startpicking a criminal jury on Thursday, so
she was going to be using thatsame ceremonial court room. Jason, you
actually did the VOA dear for thistrial. Tell me about your experiences questioning
(06:26):
the jury and the sentiment about servingas a juror in the time of a
pandemic. Well, you know,I first and foremost, Jeff, let
me give tremendous kudos to court personnel, Court admin, Chief Judge Krista Marx,
Judge Kashernakis, and all the courtdeputies over there. At the courthouse.
(06:51):
They did a tremendous instellar job ofhandling the entire process and basically making
it as familiar and comfortable and safeas possible and as far as COVID goes.
Judge Kashernakis got on a case managementcall with Nelson, myself and opposing
counsel the evening or the day beforetrial to kind of let us know and
(07:15):
go over some parameters, and hesaid that they they actually cover a lot
of the COVID issues downstairs in themain jury room when they bring in the
big panels are the entire jury pool, and then the jurors that are selected
are normally have they have been vettedalready regarding comfort regarding COVID, So the
people that obviously come up to usare pretty serious. So, you know,
(07:39):
that was one thing that was kindof an easy hurdle to overcome.
The judge, among his questions isthe common question of you know, does
anybody have any hardships with this causeany hardships to serve And a few people
raise their hand to mention that theydidn't feel comfortable being in a mask for
multiple days in the courthouse, andthen a couple of people were raise their
hands to say the opposite. They'vethey don't feel comfortable around other people who
(08:01):
aren't necessarily adhering to protocol with themasks, and those people were basically dismissed
and allowed to go, you know, once they kind of made it clear
that they're not going to be ableto focus on the trial because they're worried
about this, the mask either causingthem anxiety, breathing issues, whatever it
may be. But beyond that,everybody else COVID was kind of an afterthought.
Nobody even really mentioned it. Wegot right into the issues, you
(08:24):
know, the main issues that youwant to talk about in jury selection attitudes,
the beliefs of jurors, the biasesto kind of get to the nitty
gritty, and the law obviously ifthey can follow the law. Sure well,
Jason, let me ask you this, because you're questioning the jurors.
They're all wearing masks. Okay,that's what happened during the jury selection,
(08:48):
right, Yes, all the jurorswore masks. The judge Kashnakas did give
the lawyers and the witnesses the opportunityto or the options to take off their
mask once they were you know,in the at the podium or in the
in the witness box, because they'revery removed from everybody else. At that
point, the witness boxes had plexiglassand the podiums were far from everyone else.
(09:09):
So they allowed us to take ourmask off for you know, inflections,
and so people can hear us andunderstand us well. I think that
a lot of people's concern is notbeing able to read the expressions on the
jurors faces during vois deir and sayduring the trial, did you find that
(09:31):
to be a concern of yours?You know, honestly it was. It
was an afterthought of mine because thejurors and it might have I mean,
it might be a unique set ofunique panel that we had, but the
jurors were pretty willing to answer thequestions that I had for them, and
we had because of technology and thefact that this trial was a hybrid and
(09:52):
zoom trial, we had to getwait for the jurors to get microphones from
the deputies so that they could speakto response our question, so you could
clearly hear them when they responded.So, I mean that allowed us to
have a little bit more interaction becausesometimes you don't always hear jurors in the
back, and you know, Ilike to work my way through the roads
and making sure that I call oneverybody to find out what they what they
(10:13):
know, which you know, tosometimes the detriment is a detriment to the
time that you have. But itstill worked out and it really didn't end
up being a problem. And duringtrial, the jurors had no pads and
they seemed like they were focused andtake paying attention. You know, you
can still see those same things.You might not be able to see their
mouth, but honestly, I meanseeing a juror's mouth there triilal isn't really
doing anything. It's more so whattheir eyes are doing and what they you
(10:35):
know, what their body language is. And it seemed like they were all
pretty attentive. When you said it'sa hybrid zoom trial, what did you
mean by that? From from startto finish, the trial had a zoom
link that allowed not only spectators toparticipate and watch the trial all throughout Pombage
(10:56):
County and I guess the world ifthey really logged on and they got the
password, but they also it alsoallowed you know, in the beginning,
we actually had a kind of ahiccup with the court reporter situation where our
court reporter didn't show up live andshe actually took jury selection, and it
might've just been jury selection. Ithink she showed it for opening, if
(11:16):
I recall, but she took juryselection by zoom. It did cause some
problems because she wasn't able to hearlike the bench conferences with the judge because
when he puts on the white noise, the people on the zoom can't hear
the white noise. But she wasrecording the jurors commentary and the questions from
the lawyers by zoom, and sowe had to wait for microphones to get
(11:37):
to the jurors so that they couldhear I mean, so that the court
reporter can hear on the zoom.That caused obviously some delays on our time,
but that's one of the technological kindof advancements that we've made in this
last year. Also during the trialwe've had, we had we our witnesses
were live, but the witnesses fordefense actually were called via zoom, including
(11:58):
the CMEME doctor and two of theirfactnesses. So the cross examination and direct
examination was going just like our conversationright now. That's incredible, Nelson,
given the fact that the trial waslive streamed and you were able, I
mean anybody could have watched this trial. Explain what that was like, because
(12:22):
normally somebody would have to show upto the courtroom and you know, tell
you, oh, good job,whatever. But here everybody could watch.
It was weird to have just anempty courtroom. You know, usually there's
somebody in the courtroom watching. Butit was a huge advantage that Jason and
I used throughout the trial to haveour office back back in there, you
(12:46):
know, in the comfort of theiroffice is watching and you know, you
know, my assistants and paralegals watchingeverything, and they're able to give us
feedback as to how witnesses did,you know, things that they heard from
witnesses that they felt were important andthat then we could incorporate into into our
closing arguments, and then the samething from the other attorneys in our office.
(13:07):
I mean, obviously they have differenttime constraints, so they can't watch
a full trial, but when theyare able to watch something, they're able
to pick up on things that youknow, when you're in a when you're
actually trying the case and the heatof the moment you either may miss or
you may not realize the significance ofthat to somebody who's hearing the case for
the first time. So it wasit was a really unique experience in that
(13:28):
sense that you have a lot ofpeople back at your office actually watching,
and they can give you a perspectivethat's going to be closer to what the
jury's hearing as opposed to what Jasonand I, who know the case inside
and out, are hearing from thewitness stand. I can't imagine how invaluable
that that must have been to beable to get real time feedback from so
(13:50):
many different sources on both sides ofthe you know, defense endpoint. Yeah,
I mean it was also unique thatknow, like Jason said, anybody
can watch it. So my wifefor the first time ever got to watch
me do a closing argument, andand you know, after the trial,
you know, just getting text messagesfrom from friends and former colleagues saying,
(14:11):
oh I got to watch a littlebit of this. So it's a unique
experience. But it's certainly a toolthat as they keep the zoom links open
for trials going forward, that thatwe as attorneys definitely need to utilize,
you know, Normally, if youwant to have a consultant or if you
want to have somebody in there givingyou feedback, they can't just send you
an email right away, or theycan't just you know, hand you a
(14:33):
piece of paper in the middle oftrial. Now you do have those opportunities,
and and it's it's basically, youknow, there there is no limit
as to how many people you canhave watching you and giving you feedback.
So it's it's a really unique,unique, I guess, consequence of the
whole COVID process. Nelson, youand I briefly talked about this, and
(14:54):
I think it's important to bring upbecause this was a huge concern of mine
with opening up civil jury trials.The nation is extremely polarized right now.
There are people who, I mean, masks are a political issue. It
seems everything's a political issue. Whatdid you observe with the jury in terms
(15:24):
of did you see a difference fromsay, the jury in December twenty nineteen
to the one that you saw thismonth February twenty twenty one in terms of
just being willing to talk and givetheir opinions. I would say the one
(15:46):
thing that jumped out to me isthat all of the jurors that were there,
they really wanted to be there forthe right reason. In this COVID
age, it was so easy toget off of jury service. Not only
not only did did they give youopportunities before you ever walked up to the
courtroom, but even during the COVIDquestioning Judge Casternacus, if you gave a
(16:10):
COVID explanation to why you couldn't bethere, you know, it was pretty
much you were able to go.So that was very obvious. So the
people that did stay that were notcause challenges. They were all people that,
throughout Jason's questioning, made it clearthat they wanted to be there because
they felt it was their civic dutyand their civic responsibility. So going into
the trial, we had a lotof trepidation that the people that would be
(16:32):
showing up to the to a trialand sitting in a courtroom with strangers in
a closed room would be the peoplethat have the political beliefs that you don't
have to wear a mask or thatthe virus doesn't exist, and that mindset
tends to be not good for ourtype of cases. But we actually found
the opposite of that. Now,as Jason said, we could have just
(16:55):
been lucky with the jury panel.And certainly, when you get a good
result like we did, you tendto think that everything worked out. And
I recognize that that's not going tobe the case for everybody that case to
trial, But it was very clearthat everybody who was on that jury panel
that they wanted to be there forthe right reasons, because they thought that
it was their civic duty to getback The other thing that I found that
(17:19):
that I think was very helpful forus, that this new political environment has
shown is that people are no longerafraid to share their opinions, no matter
how you know, how unpleasant orhow unpolitically correct those opinions can be.
We had one gentleman, younger gentlemanwho came in wearing a Confederate flag T
(17:41):
shirt on our jury panel. Nowyou know, I'm Hispanic, Jason's black,
and our client's Haitian, So youknow, we didn't think that that
was going to be an ideal jurorfor us, But that guy was not
shy with sharing his opinions. Andin response to some of Jason's questionings about
(18:02):
are there too many lawsuits in thestate, you know, he mentioned that
there's too many complainers. We justhave too many snowflakes out there, and
you know that's obviously a trigger word. But when he says the snowflakes,
that got you know, Jason,got somebody else to comment and say,
oh, yeah, that's right.I think that there's too many snowflakes.
So you know it, we youwalk into the courtroom with this trepidation that
(18:26):
you're going to have these these closetedpeople that are out to sink your case.
But the one thing that we atleast saw is that those people now
in this political environment are so eagerto share their values and their views that
you're going to be able to identifythem pretty easily. And at the end
of it, we were actually wondering, where was this guy on January the
sixth. Wow, Well, Imean that's I mean, that's the landscape
(18:52):
we're dealing with right now. Jason, did you have a similar thoughts to
Nelson on that issue? Absolutely?And Nelson put it perfectly the you know,
the the one thing I mean I'veI've learned from from from going to
Varda seminars and hearing from the greattrial lawyers that have done var dyr is
you got to get you know,obviously, any any jury selection is about
(19:15):
getting the jury talking. You're notgoing to change anybody's mind, and you're
probably not gonna find jurors that loveyou. But you really need to find
the jurors that hate you or hateyour client, you know, and and
get them off the jury. Andand once you get them talking, you
got to find out who else agreeswith the really really loud ones. And
the polarization of our country has youknow, and and and I mean the
(19:37):
politics and everything that has happened thelast you know, last couple of years
has really emboldened people to speak up, like Nelson has said, So I
didn't find it to be problematic.Now the judges don't like it so much
when you you get the people talkingthat way. So you know, you
gotta be you got to kind ofdance delicately when you're doing it, because
I know I was. I mighthave been reprimanded a couple of times for
(20:00):
some of the questions I was asking, but I meant the end of the
day, we got a job todo, you know, and I you
know, I wanted to stick toit. And you know, despite the
reprimanding or or whatever I want to. My job is to find out,
you know, if these people aregonna give my guy a fair shot,
you know, because then that's allwe want, you know, we if
we don't, if we're not gonnaget a fair shot, the chances are
we're not gonna win. So youknow, don't be shy about asking those
(20:22):
questions. And I told the people, I said, look, I'm not
here to change your mind. I'mnot here to judge you. I just
need to know how you feel.And you know, it's a conversation.
And I think a lot of thepeople that we're not looking for as as
our ideal jurors, and uh,they you know, when we let them
know that, Look, this isthis is the non political correct zone.
(20:44):
I want you to speak your feelings. I think a lot of those people
kind of feel more comfortable talking thatway, and that's exactly what we want.
It's all I mean, it's Imean, it's it's discouraging to hear
people talking like that, but it'sencouraging because you know that those people are
not going to be able to siton a jury. And that was a
real concern for me. So I'mI mean, I was actually really happy
(21:07):
to hear Nelson and you say thatthat was very encouraging for me. Absolutely.
Let me let me ask you this, Jason. You've gone through it.
You know about the backlog there isin every county and well every state
in the Union. Can this bedone all throughout the courthouse or do you
(21:33):
think that it may behoove uh somecourts to maybe do the vois deer virtually
and then bring the people into thecourthouse to get things cranking on the civil
jury side, because that's I mean, the backlog is tremendous right now.
I mean we were we were alreadybackloged before COVID, right we know that
(21:55):
as plaint off lawyers, we couldn'tget the trial when we wanted to.
So you know, the backlog isonly only doubling down or tripling down and
moving exponentially. But I don't know, it's it's similar to you know,
the way our whole country is rightnow. I don't know if this system
is ideal for every single county becauseevery single county has different COVID numbers and
(22:17):
different population densities and amount of casesand everything cases uh in court and cases
of COVID. But you know whatwhat the formula works for sure, but
it's you know the fact that wewere the only show in town last week.
Literally that's not going to do muchto you know, to stop the
the the dam of cases that hasyou know, welled up essentially all this
(22:38):
time that's built up. So Ithink it's a it's a process that works,
and there's certain things that I think, you know, that they can
work on to make it smoother andmaybe maybe even start adding additional cases,
but it's not It can't get backto normal until obviously our cases are cases
of COVID cases go down, uh, and then then we can start actually
trying real cases in numbers, becauseI think the social distancing element of the
(23:03):
jury and the jury pooled downstairs isreally what's most crucial. And if they're
not, if they can't bring inthe same amount of jurors that they used
to, they're never gonna be ableto try the same amount of cases because
we have to have those panels,you know, and and and I understand
the the the hesitance and and theyou know, the how much how much
care they're putting into the process ofmaking sure that they carefully picked which cases
(23:27):
go to trial Jeff, I wouldjust add just to add on to that.
You know, going through these trials. I know that Tiffany fat has
had a trial go in November.We had our trial go in February,
and they're calling up trials. LikeJason said, we were very far down
the list at the beginning of themonth as after calendar call when we were
(23:52):
going to get called up, andas all of these cases start getting called
up, you know, we're intouch with the Plaineiffs attorneys ahead of us.
Cases are settling, finally getting offers. You know, the backlog of
cases that actually need to go totrial is always going to be there,
but we as Pliniff attorneys have avery unique opportunity. Our trial cases,
the ones that we know we wantto push to trial. If we have
(24:14):
those ready, the judge is goingto find trial time for us and the
defense attorneys they're going to have toeither be ready to go to trial or
they're going to have to pay us. Because we can get results. You
know, in during this COVID time, we can find the right jurors,
we can get results. Jason andI were fortunate enough to be able to
do that last week, and thecourts are giving us the time. So
(24:37):
I mean, I think that wehave a real opportunity to show the insurance
companies and the defense attorneys how preparedwe are to get justice for our clients,
and we're going to have the opportunitiesto do it. And that's that's
just so important because I feel likeover the past year our hammer has been
taken away and hearing about your result. And it was a slip and fall
(25:00):
case. Yeah, we had atrip and fall case. We had a
forty five year old Haitian gentleman whowalked into a Family Dollar. He entered
into the aisle and at the entranceto the aisle there was a box that
was that Family Dollar employees used asa merchant to stock merchandise on the shelves
that was just left there unattended.He tripped on that and he fell and
(25:25):
broke his elbow, requiring surgery withtwo screws. Wow was the medicine on
that. He made a very goodrecovery, you know, post surgery,
he had a couple of physical therapyvisits, a couple of follow ups,
and then really no more future careor no more care up and post surgery
up until our trial. And itwas really a liability defense. They had
(25:48):
two witnesses come in and say thatthere wasn't a box there. Then they
also tried to argue that if therewas a box there, our clients should
have seen it and been able toavoid it. That was the crux of
the case. Well again, justyou know, being able to see a
you know, a plaintiff be successfulin these times. I know that I'm
(26:11):
not alone in that sentiment. I'msure everybody in pbc JA and FJA and
across the country probably heard about thisand you know, part in the expression.
But it's a real shot in thearm to hear something like that.
So I can't thank both of youenough for just taking the time to speak
with me and speak with everybody elseabout your experiences. Jason, I wanted
(26:36):
to just ask you, you know, any final thoughts about your experience going
through this civil jury trial and PalmBeach, you know, just about the
future of this type of procedure andwhat anything that maybe you think can be
made a little better. First andforemost, it was just a fantastic opportunity
(26:59):
and I can't and obviously it wasNelson's case and I jumped on it as
they said, you know, Ihave a trial coming up. You want
to take it? And I waslike, heck, yes, you know.
So I won't say I won't saywhat I really said, but you
know I wanted. I was,I was ready. I was hungry and
ready to go. And uh,it was. It was a It was
a cool process to see the zoomhybrid element to it, and obviously social
(27:23):
distancing and the masks and stuff likethat. I hope that's not here to
stay. I hope we're able tomake a you know, overcome this with
the vaccine and and you know,the fight against COVID. But the technology
element I think can really be beneficial, both in the ways that Nelson spoke
about before, where people are ableto participate and watch the trial, you
(27:44):
know, or even just be spectators, but also for strategies and and the
ability to call witnesses that may notalways be accessible, you know, or
and I mean the tremendous cost ofof sometimes bringing witnesses to court is you
know, it can be a bigburden, you know, on on on
justice. So the defense witnesses wereall by zoom, you know. The
(28:06):
cross of them was a little awkwardbecause of the technology factor. And making
sure that you know, they couldhear us, can you can you know,
can you hear me? And therewas some interpreter issues as well,
But you know, I'm just imaginingthe ability to be able to squeeze a
witness in that otherwise would have hadto drive from somewhere in Miami or or
you know, somewhere out of countyand you know, for maybe half hour,
(28:30):
forty minutes of testimony and it's ait's an entire day or even you
know, the doctors, and howmuch we have to pay doctors to come
and testify. You know, maybeable to be able to save money and
save time if we're able to bringthem in by Zoom or things of that,
you know, things of that nature. So I think there are some
elements of it that can be beneficial. And the fact that this trial happened
a year after the shutdown, ornearly a year after the shutdown, I
(28:52):
think also made a lot of theparticipants, including us and the jurors,
judge, everybody, a lot morecomfortable with the proceeding. Is because Zoom
is like a part of our dailylives now, right. I mean,
our kids use it for school,we use it for work, you know,
meeting conferences, whatever it may be, depositions, So everybody was really
just kind of familiar. Once thatthat pops up, everybody's like, oh,
that's you know, like and thejurors were looking at the screen and
(29:15):
didn't seem to bad an eye aboutit. So we've definitely been indoctrinated to
this new way of technology, andI hope that part we can continue to
cultivate. Nelson, what were yourfinal thoughts on your experience? So one
of the final takeaways that I'd liketo share with everyone that we haven't really
touched upon, is, you know, going into these trials, you know,
(29:36):
when it comes to asking for damages, particularly pain and suffering damages.
I know that at least I hadconversations with attorneys in our office and other
you know, other colleagues with theJustice Association about you know, how do
you ask for damages in this pandemictime. You have people who aren't working,
you have people who are relying onstimulus checks or unemployment. You know,
(29:56):
are they going to feel bad forour clients? Are they going to
want to ward big money damages forour clients? And and I what and
and look this this one experience thatJason and I had isn't necessarily going to
be emblematic of what everybody's going toexperience. But you know, we when
I asked for pain and suffering,damn. You know, this was a
(30:18):
this was a past medical bills case. There was thirty seven thousand in past
medical bills and there was really nodispute on the past medical bills, and
our doctor only recommended one thousand totwo thousand dollars a year in future medical
bills. So it was really apain and suffering judgment that we that we
got. And that was a concernfor Jason and I when we're coming up
with those numbers to ask for.And I did my closing. I asked
(30:38):
for a range of future medical orfuture i'm sorry past pain and suffering of
one fifty to three hundred and forpast or I'm sorry and for future pain
and suffering of one hundred to twohundred. And the jury gave us the
number right in the middle. Youknow, they gave me two twenty five
(31:00):
for that past pain and suffering,and they gave us one fifty for the
future pain and suffering. And Ijust wanted to share that to show that
in this time, you know,people still can recognize the pain and suffering
that you're going through. Whatever ajuror is going through, our clients are
going through that, but injured.And I think that that during this COVID
(31:25):
time that there is a message that'sgoing to resonate with the jury that's going
to allow them to connect with that. And if you're fortunate enough to get
the right jurors on there, they'regoing to realize that, you know,
you still deserve money. Just becauseother people are going through a difficult financial
situation, life situation, work situationdoesn't mean that those frustrations need to be
(31:48):
taken out on our injured clients.So I think that that was an encouraging
takeaway that it certainly is. Wellgentlemen, I can't thank you enough for
doing this for the benefit of allof us plaintive trial lawyers. Thank you
for going in there and getting itdone. And I only hope that the
(32:13):
next time I'm seeing you, ifthey'll have us back, maybe back on
the golf course and you know,maybe we can beat that score from last
time. Definitely, Thank you,Jeff, Thank you, Jeff, Thank
you so much for those of youwatching listening. Thank you for your attention.
I'm Jeff Adelman. For questions forlawyers. Be well everyone,
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