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I am Gordon Johnson. I'm from Wisconsin I'm interviewing
Thomas Harding from British Columbia Thomas Some of the problems we have
in cases is the tactics thats used by defense attorneys
talk to me about that well
home defense attorneys only have to say no they don't have to build anything all
the need to
do is to story if they can't destroy they can
make up stuff too make it out if the jury doubts then the plaintiff loses
no matter how good the case is no matter how true the injuries are
the jury will not give any money will not make the defendant live up to his
responsibility
because they have a doubt ID's I
usually talk about the jury skepticism yeah
and you know it's sad because the jury system
is the best democratic institution we have it can overturn
government edict can change the law changes the world
um and the defense insurance industry for the last 50 years at least to spend
millions of dollars
publishing propaganda to tell people that
most people who have claims and lawsuits are liars
what techniques to defense attorneys use
to create skepticism well the first one is
what I call the them the thousand slices
that instead of looking at the big picture you know
how was this person before the injury and how were they
after how is that different the look at something
as simple as on me see a brain injury that has
20 known symptoms and this particular plaintiff has 18
and so the pic 10 you know headache doesn't really have a brain injury so
let's put that aside
and nauseous and prove you have a headache so let's put that aside in this
trip to more than one by one
until they say well there's nothing left so he doesn't have a brain injury and
of course that's not how medicine works you don't diagnose by taking away all
the symptoms first
which should be to we should look at the big picture they should look at
the jurors that isn't judges should look at does the evidence fit together
is it all consistent one with the other
and you know something we see all the time is that
if um the plaintive comes along and says
I was traveling this way going that place at
just before the collision and the wife who was in the car says no no no we were
going that way we're going a different way we're going to my sisters house not
my brothers house
the defense lawyers will say well there you go they're lying
and you know having been married for thirty years
it's rare that my wife and I agree on the details on just about anything
what's important newsworthy in the car with a traveling
where they hit was there an injury the
the to all kinds a little tricks like that the
defy the actual science to make up stuff about science which is quite alarming
what are the problems with most or I do
trials mostly judge trials in I'd I do a lot of jury trials compared to most but
here we do our jury trials um most
people don't actually know science very well and
and so the defense will hire experts to lie about the signs
one would looking at fair-minded people from outside it say that both sides
my is that not the case it isn't really and
and the difference is that I'm by in large
a plaintiff lawyer doesn't have
any fund from the plaintiff because persons here
hurt badly enough and has suffered long enough that they're gonna sue because
it's not easy choice to
use their artwork they don't have any money left they spent it all on trying
to
ticker themselves and so the lawyers funding losses
and if the lawyer loses he's not only not getting any money from the work is
done but he's also not
recovering anything for all of the outer pocket CS worse the defense lawyer
doesn't have that I am back if the defense lawyer loses a long trial
he gets paid more then if he had won a short one
or god help us settled one honorably
um so you know it's it's like training a dog if there are no consequences to its
behavior you can teach it
and defense lawyers there's no consequence to their bad behavior
I'm terming
about that kinda bad behavior well so the comparison is that
um if the defense exper and
you know we have all come to terms with this if they earned a balk at the income
acting for insurance companies
the fit into camps for me they
they're the ones I call the ideologues who just don't believe anybody was ever
and into the flight liars and flat-out liars will will to speak up stuff the
ideologues who
examine you and you know they just don't believe anything you say
um and the defense lawyers know who they are all the insurance companies
trade almost like player cards
who they won and when you're in the book your income working for insurance
company were
your salary depends upon having a particular opinion you'll always have
that opinion
from a plane two sides quite different because if we put thousands of dollars
tens of thousands even hundreds of thousands of dollars into a case
I was assumed that by witness lies
someone's gonna figure it up there's the defense lawyer whose job it is to figure
that out there stood
trial judge's job is different that authors a maybe twelve jurors depending
where you're from
each of them looking all the skeptically and if they catch the plaintiff in one
lie
they give him nothing but the catch the defense in one lie
they still may give the plaintiff nothing it's not like that they flip
that switch for the fence