People Say the Darndest Things at Their Depositions

Ms. A suffered a traumatic broken wrist injury in a fall on allegedly defective stairs.  Her deposition was scheduled, and taking place before the COVID-19 pandemic, it was in-person at the defense lawyer’s office. With post-pandemic depositions, many insurance claims representatives will now observe a deposition remotely, but in the old days sometimes the claims rep would attend the deposition in-person, alongside the defense lawyer, in order to better size-up a plaintiff.  Some would say that by being there in-person, phony things about the plaintiff can be detected, or by contrast a plaintiff could come across as compelling, honest, and likely to make a good impression on jurors.  One question that can set off the BS detector is whether as a result of their injuries, the plaintiff either needed help with household chores or had to hire someone to take care of things around the home.  The following is what happened when the topic arose with Ms. A.

Defense Lawyer:  “As a result of the injury, did your boyfriend have to help you clean your apartment?”

Ms. A:  “Men ain’t worth a goddamned thing when it comes to cleaning!”

(Defense lawyer pauses before following up, and exchanges smiles with the claims representative, because it clearly wasn’t the kind of response they were expecting.)

Ms. A (continuing):  “I’m sorry.  He tried to help out, but he’s terrible at it and I told him to stop.  I have very high standards for keeping my place clean, and I just couldn’t bear to see what he was doing.  As much as my wrist was hurting me, I fought through it and did the chores that had to be done.”

This exchange falls into the category of deposition testimony by someone jurors would like and want to compensate fairly.  (More about Ms. A in a future blog post.)