Car Accident Opening Statement

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: We're going to do this a little bit differently. I'm going to talk about a couple of core concepts, and then I'm going to give you an opening statement, an opening argument, whatever you prefer to call it. I think the reality is it falls somewhere between the two. This is pretty fundamental, but especially if you find yourself getting farther and farther along your practice and trials may get spaced out, you fall out of the habit of practicing your opening statement. I don't care if you have to do it to your dog, your wife, your neighbor, if you're lucky enough to have coworkers. If it's worth going to trial on, you've got to sit down and practice. If you've got a video camera, that's an ideal way to do it. It's one of the things I'm doing right now. I'm shooting this. You constantly have to critique yourself. It has been six months since I've tried a case. They do get spaced out from time to time, and we get rusty. Even the best among us forget some of the core fundamental concepts that lie behind good oratory, good speaking, good communication. So that's a core concept. If you are going into trial and you have not practiced your opening statement at least three times from start to finish, you are screwing up. You are going to find things coming out of your mouth when you practice that don't make any sense. If it doesn't make sense to you, if it looks dumb on video, it is a terrible thing to be telling the jury. If your paralegal is telling you that really is kind of corny, drop it. You're not being honest with yourself if you don't give this thing a significant dry run. And one thing that often comes out when you're trying to get your opening statement to people are the elephants in the room. And I have fallen victim to this many, many times. We take a case in. We work the case out. We cannot stand the defense lawyer. They're being way too snide. She's never like that. And they make you mad. And you find yourself too closely aligned with your plaintiff's case. You can no longer be intellectually honest with yourself. You're forgetting that there are humongous problems with your case. And I tried a case against what used to be heartwarming with Trevor a couple years ago, which is a glaring example of this. I tried a case with a lady who had five prior car accident claims. Somewhere along the way I forgot that. Not that I didn't know it. I just simply decided it wasn't all that important and I was going to go full speed ahead with my trial. And during the course of the trial, which was going technically perfectly, everything was coming in. Evans was going great. I had Trevor on the ropes. I had completely forgotten about the fact that the jurors might not think it's cute that you have five prior injury claims in the prior six years. That might color their impression of how they're going to hear the evidence. But I chose to be blind to that. The jury punished me again with less than half of what had been put on the table on the second day of trial. And I will say this Judge Panos told me to be careful and he saw it coming and I didn't listen. So there's two things out of that. One of which is before you give that opening, make sure you have fleshed out the elephants in your case. They're horrible. They will step on you and destroy you. And keep reminding yourself of this lesson no matter how many years you've done it. That said, I'm going to give a brief opening statement in a case that is based on fact. And then we're going to talk a little bit about it. You guys, is this picking up enough if I stand up the regular height? Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for agreeing to serve on our jury today. I know you've spent a great deal of time sitting around upstairs in the Fulton County courtroom and it seemed like it would take forever. But this is kickoff. We are here, we're going to talk about the evidence, we're going to talk about law, and we're going to talk about how the case is going to proceed. If you have not already figured it out from the voir dire process, this case is about a road wreck. Our client, Jessica, the plaintiff, was seriously hurt when she was thrown from the back of a motorcycle driven by her boyfriend. Her boyfriend, Robert, is the defendant today in this case, and he's sitting over there. Jessica is the victim, and she's sitting next to us. We're going to get a little bit into the details of the injury, but it's important that you know that you are deciding a couple of core issues in this case. The first issue is very simple, and that is, who is responsible for causing the injury to Jessica? That's the question of negligence. The second one is, what is a fair amount of compensation to award to her for the significant injuries she got in this crash? That is your job. That is what you are here to do today as a jury. You may recall the oath that she swore a few minutes ago. That is a sacred oath. That is an oath to apply the laws of this state and this nation to the evidence that you're about to hear. Our job and our commitment to you as attorneys is to be efficient, to be fair, and to present all of the facts that you're going to need to make the correct decision. To make a decision that you are comfortable with, that you can live with. We are going to do that in a very expeditious manner. I do not want you to imagine that because we are going quickly through the evidence, that we are not treating this case seriously. We very seriously consider your time. We think this case is not going to take past two days. If I do my job and the defense counsel does their job and respects your time, we are going to have you out of here in two days. So pay close attention. Some trials take two weeks. We are not going to do that to you. How is this thing going to go? These are opening statements. We have the opportunity to tell you a little bit about what the cases are about. To prepare you for some of the evidence that's going to be coming into the case and to talk briefly about the law. And we intend to do that. This case is a matter of you taking down the evidence. You'll notice the judge gave you notepads. Those are invaluable tools. Because over the course of two days you are going to hear many witnesses walk up in front of you. And they are going to tell you what they know. It may be hard at the end of this process to remember exactly what the witness said. And the judge is going to tell you that it is up to your personal recall. So make some notes. I implore you. Jot down things that you think are essential facts. That brings us to this point. There are two things in this trial. There is law. The rules. And there is evidence. Evidence consists of documents. Photographs. You'll know it because you'll see us lawyers tender that into evidence. Evidence consists of what witnesses have to say to you from the stand as they are under oath. These are the facts of your case. You are not to pull facts in from other places. You are to consider what is given to you within the walls of this courtroom. That is your sacred duty. Now the rules that you are to apply to this trial all come from that lady sitting there. She is the judge in this courtroom and she has already read to you some of the rules you are to use. At the end of the case, more rules will be read to you. Do make notes on these. Because the wording of these rules is essential. Through hundreds of years of the existence of the United States, we have pared down and eliminated fluff. We said, you know what? We want our trials to be about fairness. We want them to be about key issues. We don't want sideshow. We don't want theater. So take your duty to apply these rules very seriously and listen very carefully to the rules. You are going to combine those rules with the evidence and you are going to make a decision at the end of the case. We are going to talk a little bit about Jessica now. Jessica, as you can see, is a 25-year-old young lady. She is beautiful. She is talented. You will hear testimony about her career achievements even at this young age. At the conclusion of the case, after hearing the witnesses, you will have no doubt that she has a very bright future in front of her. You are going to hear the story of what happened on that fateful day on April 1st of 2012. You are going to hear that she and her boyfriend decided to go for a ride in the hills outside of town. He has a motorcycle. He said, "Hey, would you like to go enjoy the weather?" She said, "Absolutely." So she climbed on the back and they proceeded to ride through the hills. Now, she did not know him that long. They had not been dating more than two months. She had no knowledge of his experience level. That will be the evidence before you in this case. And as he rode along that day, he got carried away. He wanted to be a hotshot. He decided he was going to ride too fast. He was going to take turns too hard. He was going to heel over on the bike. And as you can already anticipate, that didn't go very well. Robert, the defendant, lost control of his motorcycle, went outside of the lane and crashed into a ditch, severely injuring Jessica. You're going to have evidence before you that as a result of her broken ribs, as a result of the road rash that ripped skin from her legs, she incurred $15,000 in medical bills and permanent scars. You will have an opportunity as the jury to see the scarring on her legs. And that gets to one of the core issues you will decide, and that is clearly Robert caused this crash. What is a fair amount to compensate Jessica for what she's going to be dealing with for the rest of her life? In cases that involve severe scarring, our firm typically asks for $1.5 million. In moderate scarring cases, we will typically ask for $750,000. But we are honest with you in the jury. This is not a severe scarring case. And at the conclusion of this trial, we're going to ask you for a verdict of $250,000 to fairly compensate Jessica for what she's gone through and what she's going to go through. As you all have listened to me describe this crash in some detail, you may be forming a picture in your head. I want you to hold on to that picture, because there is more that is going to come into this trial, and it is important that you retain the picture. The defense, we anticipate, is not going to talk a whole lot about the severity of the injuries, because they are severe. They are not going to talk a whole lot about whether or not Robert loves to control the motorcycle. He absolutely did. They are going to talk to you about distractions. And as you listen to the evidence, I want you to be asking yourself all along, why is the defense introducing evidence that has nothing to do with the issues? It has nothing to do with negligence, and it has nothing to do with damages. What are those two issues? The first one is, they will say that Jessica knew that Robert was a bad motorcycle rider, that he was wild, that he didn't wear a helmet. Basically, they will be introducing evidence, and they hope that she will think that she was asking for the list of them. As you hear these facts come in, if you find yourself considering whether or not she deserved it as a motorcycle rider, you will know that you are being biased. And so we ask you as you listen to the evidence that is going to come into the case, to be critical of it. Why is it coming into me? Am I being manipulated here? Keep your mind open as you listen to all the evidence. The second thing we believe the defense is going to want you to focus on has absolutely nothing to do with the case. You will find out that Robert is married. Robert has two children. Robert is the head football coach of the local college team. What does that have to do with this crash? What does that have to do with the scarring? Absolutely nothing. Do not let yourself be manipulated as you hear the evidence come in. If it has nothing to do with negligence, and it has nothing to do with damages, it is an attempt to play on your emotions. As the court will charge you, these cases are not decided on sympathy. They are not decided on the lack of sympathy. They are decided on the evidence and the law. And the evidence is Robert caused this crash. The evidence is it caused significant injuries to Jessica. We think at the end of the case you are going to have no problem realizing that and realizing that most of the defense's case is a distraction and an attempt to get you to not light the plaintiff. We thank you very much for your time in this case. We ask you to keep your thinking caps on. To listen critically to everything that comes in. And to ask yourself, am I being given open-handed evidence or am I being manipulated here? Thank you very much.