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Your case is coming up for trial and there’s a knock at your door. You ask who it is and
the person says they have a document for you. You open the door up, it’s a process server
and you take a look at it. It’s a subpoena to compel you to come in and testify in your
own trial. Would you like to learn what this is about? Come join me as I share with you
this unusual situation. Hi. I’m Gerry Oginski. I’m a New York medical malpractice and personal
injury trial attorney practicing law here in the state of New York. Your medical malpractice
case, accident case or wrongful death case is coming up for trial in New York. And all
of a sudden you open up the door to somebody who’s been knocking and they hand you a
piece of paper. Confused, you look at it and you see that it’s your particular lawsuit
but it’s a subpoena. It’s a document that is compelling you to come into court and testify
in your own trial. How bizarre is that? Well let me explain how this happens. You see,
as your case is coming up for trial your attorney has to prepare your case and there’s a lot
of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that you probably don’t even know about. One
of the things that happens behind the scenes is that your attorney has to prepare a document
known as a subpoena and they send those subpoenas off to various doctors and hospitals to compel
them to send your records into the court so that now your attorney can use those records
and get them into evidence to support your claim. What you probably don’t know is the
defense attorneys - who are getting ready for your case as well – do the same exact
process and they send out subpoenas as well. They send them to the doctor’s offices.
They send them to the hospitals. Again, for the sole purpose of getting those medical
records into court so now when your case is actually on trial they can get those records
into evidence and use it to support their position. But subpoenas can be used for something
else too. They can be used to compel a witness to come into court and testify. There may
be an instance where the defense attorney does not believe that you are voluntarily
going to come in and testify at trial. In that instance, they are fully within their
right to have a subpoena delivered to you; to hand it to you and say listen we are compelling
you to come into court and testify at your own medical malpractice or wrongful death
or accident trial. Now one of the key reasons why they are going to do that is that they
want you to testify on their case. Remember, when you bring a lawsuit your attorney is
going to put on whatever witness and evidence is necessary for their part of the case. And
when they are done, they’re going to rest. And after they have rested, the defense attorney
will then have an opportunity to put on whatever witnesses they feel are necessary to support
and defend their claim. And as part of doing that, they are fully within their right to
compel you now to testify on their part of the case. So this is just one little thing
that goes on during the pre-trial process as your case is now coming up for trial and
I want you to be aware of it. Why? Because I want to show you a little bit of an insight
and an understanding into what goes on into the trial process here in the state of New
York. You know, chances are you have your own questions and concerns and if your matter
happened here in the state of New York and you have legal questions, what I encourage
you to do is pick up the phone and call me. I can answer legal questions and I do this
every single day. You can reach me at 516-487-8207 or by email at lawmed10@yahoo.com. I’m Gerry
Oginski, here in New York. Thanks for watching.