Bob does jury duty

I was called for jury duty this week.  It was a civil lawsuit trial that arose from injuries suffered in a traffic collision. The case turned out to be interesting to me because of the connection to what I do every day – which if you don't know is to teach safer driving.

The situation involved a woman who was injured as a passenger in her boyfriend’s vehicle.  The other vehicle had changed lanes suddenly in front of them, and then braked to make a right turn into a parking lot.  That driver had seen a McDonald’s and decided she wanted some ice cream.  She stated she never saw the other vehicle (at 10:50 pm on a well-lit street in a major business area), which then rear-ended her as she made the turn.  We conclude from that, that she didn’t look before she changed lanes. The injured woman sued the driver of that car for her medical bill (about $5,800.00) and they wanted some additional amount for “pain and suffering” as well.  She hadn’t gone for medical care for about two days after the accident – and then only on the advice of her attorney.  She had also filed suit against her boyfriend and apparently, there was some kind of cash settlement between them for his part.  They are still together and you have to wonder about that.

I am blogging about this because I think it was a fairly common type of case – all through the testimony my thought was that it wasn’t clear-cut, one way or the other.  What caused the wreck was the sudden move by the first car into the lane in front of the second vehicle (a small truck), her immediate and sudden braking (from 47 mph she said), down to the turning position in a very short distance), and the failure of the pick-up driver to anticipate that and successfully avoid the crash. As it was, the impact was so slight as to have caused negligible damage to either vehicle.  The driver of the vehicle that braked and caused the crash made statements that were not truthful, and changed her account of the event three times over the intervening months; this indicated to us that she was feeling guilt and trying her best to put the best "spin" on it that she could; this did not help her defense.

It was the collective thought of the jury that the medical bills were padded extensively by the chiropractor’s office, and that the treatment likely went on way beyond what was actually necessary (at their instigation as well).  The “treatment” for “back, neck and shoulder pain” in what couldn’t have been more than a 5 mph - 10 mph collision (and probably was less than that, based on the lack of any significant damage) - went on for 32 weeks.  The charges included approximately $600 for cold packs – one every visit at some $30 a piece – plus some additional ones for use at home.  We doubted the woman herself would have continued that long without advice from the chiropractor – and certainly not if she had thought she would eventually have to pay for the treatments herself (she was a person who likely lives at the poverty level, a house-cleaner, and she was back at work the next day). 

They told her that she “would have trouble down the road if she didn’t finish all the treatment" they were advising.  Really?  Two-thirds of a year of treatments for a fender-bender that caused so little damage we couldn’t even see most of it? The only visible damage was on the struck vehicle – a split or crack in the plastic bumper where it flexed on impact, and a small white paint scuff on the bumper where that vehicle was struck. There was no visible damage at all on the pick-up truck that we could attribute to the crash. We felt that the chiropractor and the attorney who referred the victim to the chiropractor were expecting a big payday – simply because they thought they could.

As the jury, we worried about the victim and what would happen to her financially if she didn’t collect something (even though we were told not to) – but we also did not want to help perpetuate the “accident injury lawyer – chiropractor subculture” that most assuredly exists; we can see their advertisements on late night television every day.  We might have been wrong, but we deduced she was involved in this at the advice of these other people, that she wouldn't have pursued it herself.

We also worried about the "65% at fault" driver – who was most definitely and predominantly at fault, but who we felt was being taken advantage of by the sharks. She is a young service woman and will not be wealthy any time soon, either. The good news for her is that she was in fact insured for these damages.  I am certain that this experience will be a long-term learning experience for her, as the possibilities have been weighing on her peace of mind for a long time; her stress was visible.  The accident happened almost three years ago.

In the end, we found that the lane-changing/braking vehicle was 65% responsible for the collision, and the vehicle in which the victim was riding was 35% at fault. We awarded roughly 50% of the chiropractor’s medical bill ($2,500) and nothing more (about $70-$80 per visit). Our deliberations took about one hour to arrive at that consensus, and I felt that the jury’s work was accurate and just.