Dirk Derrick (00:00:00):
Welcome to The Legal Truth, the podcast created to provide you general legal information about South Carolina law, lawyers, and the legal process, and hopefully prevent you from being surprised by the unexpected. We will answer many of the questions I've been asked during the past 35 years about South Carolina personal injury claims and workers' compensation claims. We will also discuss existing laws and proposed changes in the law and how they affect you. My name is Dirk Derrick. I'm the founder of the Derrick Law Firm, and I'm your host.
Voiceover (00:00:35):
Please see required ethics disclaimers in show notes.
Pearl Carey (00:00:41):
Hi, everyone, and welcome to The Legal Truth podcast. Today, we're here to discuss building a case, a look behind the curtain. I'm Pearl Carey, and today I'm here with my co-host, Dirk Derrick. Thanks for joining me, Dirk.
Dirk Derrick (00:00:52):
Glad to be here.
Pearl Carey (00:00:53):
And today we're here to discuss what exactly it takes behind the scenes to build up a case. So, Dirk, my first question for you is, when a client first calls our office, what are the first things that you kind of look for in an initial conversation?
Dirk Derrick (00:01:06):
When they first call our office, we're just trying to get them to tell us everything they know about the incident. I will tell you that every case that we build, there's different elements in the case. I explain to my attorneys, my attorney's supposed to be explaining it to our clients, but every case is like a three-legged stool. You have a stool that has three legs and all three legs are solid. You can sit on it. You can depend upon it. Any of the legs are weak, or broken, you're going to bust your butt. So it's the same thing about cases. Three legs of a case are liability. Is there a wrong that South Carolina recognizes as a legal wrong that you can bring an action for? So liability, what happened? Second leg is causation. That wrongful act caused damages, and the third leg are the damages, both actual punitives.
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So, when somebody first calls in and we're talking to them, in our mind, we're thinking about the three-legged stool. Do we have evidence as to all three legs? And then you're building it up. You're just talking to the client, getting information out of the client, finding out everything they know, everything they saw, everything that happened to see if it is a claim that South Carolina recognizes from a liability standpoint in the first place. Is it a recognizable legal claim in South Carolina where there's liability? And then you're trying to find out where evidence is, and you're getting ready to decide how you're gonna preserve all that evidence. So, you're questioning them as far as evidence in regards to all three legs. When somebody first calls in, we're looking for evidence as to each element of a case that we have to build. I will tell you that a case is like a three-legged stool.
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If you don't sit on a three-legged stool, you better make sure you got three solid legs. Same thing, civil litigation and cases. First leg is liability. What happened? Second leg is causation. Did that conduct cause damages that you can prove? And number three, damages. Where there are actual damages, is there a potential claim for punitive damages? So, when people first call in, we're taking a quick analysis of what happened. We're looking for where the evidence is, witnesses, videos, what we need to preserve. Is it a claim that we can build and increase the value for our client? There's some people who called in and they had a fender bender and they went to the ER one time and they're well. They said completely well. The person who hit us said it was their fault. In that case, there's really nothing we can do to increase the value for that person. And I don't want to take a case and take fees when they don't need me.
Pearl Carey (00:04:00):
Right. So, just making sure that all three parts of that three-legged stool can maybe be obtained in the future.
Dirk Derrick (00:04:05):
That's right. So, some cases people call in and they explain something to you. And we know that under South Carolina law, that's not recognized as a legal wrong, so we don't have liability. There's some people call in and it was a tap. They went to a doctor one time. There's no injuries. There's very little damages. So, really, we can't do anything to build that case to add value. So, that's what we're looking for to start off with. Is it a case that we can add value to and where's the evidence on all three legs?
Pearl Carey (00:04:37):
Absolutely. So speaking of that liability leg, how do you begin building up that part of the case?
Dirk Derrick (00:04:43):
Well, liability is who caused it. South Carolina is a comparative negligence state, which means from a legal standpoint, we have to show that the damages were caused by someone else, at least 50% of the blame. In South Carolina, the plaintiff can actually be 50% the blame and someone else can be 50% of the blame. They still have a valid claim and they only get 50% of their damages, but we're looking to see if somebody was 100% at fault or at least 50% at fault. And we're looking at what defendants or what people or businesses played a part in causing the incident. We believe in fast acquisition of facts because facts disappeared. So we hire a private investigator immediately to go try to find surveillance video, which is the best evidence. And if we get brought into a case early, we have a much better chance to find surveillance and video, looking for pictures, looking for evidence on the scene, vehicles, taking pictures of vehicles, talking to witnesses who may have stopped and talked to an officer.
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We're seeking the accident report. If it's a case against a business, if it's like a dram shop case where someone overserved alcohol, we send what's called letters of preservation to entities that may have evidence that we need for the case. Letter of preservation is telling them what you have, those receipts you have on your cash register, the videos you have in your business, that's evidence in a case. So, you are legally required to preserve it. So, we're trying to preserve as much evidence as possible on cars. Most cars now that's been made the last 10 years have data in it. And you can actually download the data and see what that car was doing for the last three to five seconds before impact, whether on the gas, whether on the brake, how fast they were going. So, we try to preserve that data as fast as possible.
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From a liability standpoint, speed is very, very important because if we get hired six months after the fact and nobody preserved this evidence, a lot of times all the evidence is gone. It makes it a lot harder to build a case. To build a solid liability leg, we want to preserve everything. I tell our attorneys, I want to know every piece of evidence in the world about what happened and why it happened because what happened gives you the foundation. Why it happened really can increase value. For example, somebody rear ends somebody at a stop sign. You know what happened. Somebody has a certain set of injuries because of that. Somebody rear ends them and it has... Just look at those facts that has a value. The jury would tell you, a focus group would tell you what the value of that case is, why it happened.
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That person is texting that runs into the back of the car. Focus group says that value's much higher. If the person who was driving the vehicle who ran into the back of the plaintiff's car was drinking, that value shoots up again. So, the why it happened is as important as what happened. If you're going to build cases correctly, you go after the why. If you only go after the what, you're only going to get 25%, 30% of the value of the case if there's evidence out there that you're not getting. So, we're going after the what, we're going after the why. I would tell you that a lot of times we're trying to determine if somebody was texting on the phone and we'll ask the at-fault party for that evidence. We ask the insurance company for that evidence and give them a chance to give it to us.
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If they don't give it to you, your only recourse is to file a suit and subpoena. You can get it after you file this lawsuit where you don't have the ability to get it if they won't voluntarily give it to you. So, a lot of times we go into our clients and say, "We need to file a suit to go get this evidence." And say, "Well, I'm not real sure I want to file suit." Well, the insurance company knows that there's people who don't want to file suit and they have the evidence until you file it and it's the only way to get it. So, if we ask somebody, "Let us file a suit to go get this evidence." So, if it hides within the walls of a defendant and they won't give it to us voluntarily, we need to file a lawsuit to go get it. That happens in premises cases. I have a client who says they fell in the grocery store because there's a wet spot. There's no sign that somebody had mopped up, there's no signs. Well, we want to see the surveillance of that area.
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A, to make sure our client's telling us the truth, B, see how long the wet stuff was on the floor, see if some employees can see that some employees knew about it. We want the incident statement, we want witness statements, and a lot of times those businesses won't give it to you. Well, that's so important in evaluating the case and to determine liability that if they won't give it to you, the only choice you have is to file a lawsuit. From a liability standpoint, if you just think of it, you're trying to get every piece of evidence in the world about what happened and why it happened.
Pearl Carey (00:09:54):
So, in dram shop cases, do you have to file a suit in order to send those places a letter of preservation or no?
Dirk Derrick (00:10:03):
We send letters of preservation before lawsuits are filed. If we want something after a lawsuit's filed, we send them a subpoena.
Pearl Carey (00:10:09):
Okay.
Dirk Derrick (00:10:12):
But you don't have the ability to subpoena anything until you file a lawsuit. So, we send a letter of preservation to say, "Hey, this is potential evidence in the case, hold it." And the cool thing about letters of preservation is that if they do not hold it, and you can show the jury that they had it, they had cameras up, the cameras were working, and then they destroyed it. If you go to trial, the judge can give an instruction to the jury that if they determine they destroy the evidence, you can assume the evidence was bad for them.
Pearl Carey (00:10:45):
Incriminating, yeah.
Dirk Derrick (00:10:46):
So, you get a presumption of bad evidence if they destroy it. It's a powerful tool to preserve stuff. It's not perfect or things do go missing. If the case is bad enough or we already know that the damages are going to be good enough to substantiate a common plea's action, the best route is going to file suit and subpoena the stuff.
Pearl Carey (00:11:09):
So, there are obviously some different kinds of cases and different kinds of evidence that you would need in order to prove those cases. What kind of evidence in particular would you need to prove a trucking case?
Dirk Derrick (00:11:17):
Trucking cases, it's interesting. Those cases are interesting. On the liability issue on trucking, there's a whole body of regulations that trucking companies have to abide by. A car driving down the road, supposed to drive the speed limit, take away somebody's lane, not turn in front of somebody, not follow people too close. Trucking, there's hours of operation, there's maintenance requirements, there's how long a trucker can drive before he needs to take a break, and then how much of a break he needs to take. And there's a whole regulation on what they have to do. So, on trucking cases, we're not just looking about what happened at the time of the wreck. I told you, we're looking at what happened. So, we don't investigate that, police reports, private investigator, witnesses, talk to our clients, pull data from the truck, pull data from our car if we need to as far as what happened, but we don't really dig deep in why it happened.
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Did it happen because the trucker hadn't had any sleep? Did it happen because the trucking company hired somebody that did not qualify under the regulations and shouldn't have been driving a truck in the first place? Did it happen because this person had proven themselves to be a dangerous driver over and over and the trucking company kept them in the trunk? So, there's a lot of digging that goes on in trucking cases as to the why, because the why it happened is the most important thing. Most of the time in a trucking case, we need to file a lawsuit immediately because you can't get that stuff. They're not going to turn over all that information you need to determine why. And those answers to the why question can take a case that has a value here and raise it here. So, in order to get the real value, you need to have all the facts to determine the why.
Pearl Carey (00:13:15):
Absolutely. And so what kind of evidence would you need to obtain for a car accident case?
Dirk Derrick (00:13:20):
Car accident, same thing. You think what and why. In every case, we're looking at from a plaintiff's standpoint, because the defendant can always point the finger at the plaintiff and say, "No, it was your client that did something wrong." So, first you're looking at the what happened. Again, you got the scene of the incident, car wreck, you got pictures, you got the police report, you got witnesses. You're trying to get everybody's information from everyone who has any information about this case, what they saw as far as what happened. And then you're trying to dig into the why. And you have to look at the what from the plaintiff's standpoint, defendant's standpoint, the road. Is it a defective road? Is it a potential case against the state for defective road? What the defendant did, what the plaintiff did? What was the weather? Where was the sun light?
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I mean, you're looking at all these things to find out what happened. Then you're looking at the why. And in a why case or an accident case, you're really looking down to whether or not there's any evidence that the other party was drinking, intoxicated, on drugs, speeding, texting. All those things would allow you to possibly collect punitive damages, increase the value of the case. So, if you don't answer all those why questions and look at all those different elements that could be a reason for punitive damages, then you're leaving money on the table, you're not building the case to get the real value.
Pearl Carey (00:14:54):
Right, absolutely. So obtaining all that information as early on as possible is really important.
Dirk Derrick (00:14:59):
Yes.
Pearl Carey (00:15:00):
So, in terms of dram shop liability cases, what types of evidence would you need to obtain early on?
Dirk Derrick (00:15:05):
Dram shop's a little different because you're taking the what happened at the scene. You got a drunk driver who's injured or killed somebody and you're trying to determine why that drunk driver was drunk on the road. Was it somebody who just got drunk at home and left the house and went to hit somebody? Was it somebody who went to a bar and was overserved? In South Carolina, it is illegal, of course to drive drunk, but it's also illegal to overserve a drunk person. Somebody's drunk in your restaurant or your bar, you can't keep selling them drinks and overserving them. So, in order to determine the defendants in that case and who should be in the case, you got to find out where the alcohol came from and when it was served. So, you do a lot of investigation to determine where they got the alcohol and blood alcohol was at the last time they were served to drink.
(00:16:00):
So, you dig into that. A lot of times that requires a lawsuit. You can imagine if somebody's been charged with driving under the influence and maybe killing or greatly injuring people, he or she will have a criminal lawyer who says, "Don't say anything. Plead the fifth." So, you have that person who may have the best knowledge as far as where the alcohol came from, who's not talking. A lot of times we can pull some data off of cars now, GPS data to show where they have been, some cell phone data to show where the people have been. So, you're trying to put together the puzzle going back from the time of the accident to find out anyone who contributed to this drunk driver causing these injuries.
Pearl Carey (00:16:45):
Got it. And so with premises liability cases, how does the evidence that you need differ?
Dirk Derrick (00:16:51):
Premise cases, it really comes down... You can get a lot of the evidence if it happened outside on the sidewalk in the public, but if it's on premises or inside the premises, you need the information from the potential defendant. Like I said, you need to preserve and get the video of the incident. A lot of businesses, a lot of premises have video inside now. That really can answer the question as far as the liability of the defendant. It shows what happened. And in premises cases, a lot of times they can be held legally liable if they cause a dangerous condition or if there's a dangerous condition there and they had ample time to fix it, knew about it, should have known about it and didn't do anything about it. An example is if I'm walking through the grocery store and the woman in front of me spills her coffee in front of me.
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She's in front of me, she spills the coffee. I don't see it. I fall on it. There's no liability on the part of the grocery store. They didn't do it and they didn't have time to clean it up or know about it. Second scenario, woman goes to the grocery store, spills coffee, and it's on the floor for 45 minutes. And in that time, two employees walk by. One employee, you can actually... They dodged it. That's a different case, but you wouldn't know that if you didn't have the surveillance to look at and see how long it was there.
Pearl Carey (00:18:17):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:18:18):
That's why that's important. Also, getting the statements from the witnesses, the employees, and getting the people who are on the clock to be able to question them. Those things determine the value of those cases. I find it interesting when we talk about this off the air. We always ask our business or build on a premise case, "Hey, give us the video. You got video, give us the videos so we can make a determination whether or not this person has a valid claim." They won't give it to you. And it says, "Just show us. We don't get it anyway. If we have to file suit, we're going to get it. We've already preserved it. You've acknowledged you have it. Give it to us so we can make a determination."
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It's amazing they don't give it to you because we've had cases where they give it to us and we say, "We have no claim." I mean, why did you make us sue? If you had just given it to us six months ago, we wouldn't have had to filed a lawsuit. So, I need to ask somebody in that industry. I think it probably comes down to their insurance companies who tell them you never give a lawyer anything. You make them go through the legal process to get it.
Pearl Carey (00:19:23):
Probably. But when it comes to those premises liability cases, what if businesses don't have cameras in pertinent areas? Can you still prove that something negligent happened or how would that work? Would that just depend more on witness statements, I guess?
Dirk Derrick (00:19:36):
It'd be witness statements. A lot of times when somebody falls on a substance or a condition in a business, gets hurt, they bring the ambulance. There's some EMS workers. They may have heard people talk. Employees come up. They may be some talking going on as far as what happened. And sometimes there's admissions made, but you have to put it together. It's a lot easier with the surveillance. Plaintiff has the burden of proof, which means we got to prove the case. And we may have to rely on our plaintiffs, what they were told, what our plaintiff's friends were told. Maybe some come down more to witnesses. It can come down to store policies. We're looking at the policies and see if they did what they're supposed to do before the incident occurred. Did they have people checking so many minutes to make sure things hadn't been spilled?
Pearl Carey (00:20:29):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:20:29):
Or wasn't dangerous conditions. Sometimes it's not a situation where a third party did anything. It's a situation that the employees of the business created the dangerous condition. That can be leaving pallets sticking out the end of an aisle, be having a defective cooler that they know is leaking water every day. They don't get it fixed, but they don't put up signs to prevent people from getting hurt on it. So, there's different things for different types of incidents, but it's always better to have video. Every focus group we've done, every one of them, you know what they want to see?
Pearl Carey (00:21:06):
Video.
Dirk Derrick (00:21:07):
Where's the video?
Pearl Carey (00:21:07):
Photos. Yeah.
Dirk Derrick (00:21:08):
I want to see the video of it happening. And I said, "I promise you, if I had video, I'd show you video."
Pearl Carey (00:21:14):
I'm not hiding it.
Dirk Derrick (00:21:15):
Everybody assumes there's video of everything. And in a lot of situations there are. Again, the faster we're hired, the more likely it is we're going to preserve and get video.
Pearl Carey (00:21:27):
Right. So, now that we've touched on liability, are there any final things you would say that plaintiff should be aware of when it comes to that liability leg?
Dirk Derrick (00:21:35):
Well, the plaintiff's conduct is always, no matter what type of case it is, the plaintiff's conduct is a crucial part of the liability leg. So, we're always investigating what the plaintiff did. Did the plaintiff play a part in the why it happened? People don't understand this and you wouldn't understand it, but everything that comes out of the plaintiff's mouth from the time the incident happens until the case is concluded can be evidence. Everything the plaintiff does from the time of the incident to the case ends can be evidence.
(00:22:13):
Everything they post on social media can be evidence. I don't think plaintiffs understand that they are laying down evidence every day, especially when they're out in public or when they go on a public platform that affects the value of their case. It affects the liability leg as well as the causation and damage legs, everything they do. So, we're looking at everything the plaintiff did, what they saw, what they were doing. All of that's just as important from the plaintiff's standpoint as the defendant's. I'll give you an example. And these two are different cases. Plaintiff, person we represent is going through an intersection. Somebody turns left in front of the plaintiff, right into them. In fact, they turn at the last second to where the plaintiff gets the very front of the turning car. Jurors are going to say, "That's nothing you can do in that situation."
Pearl Carey (00:23:12):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:23:13):
Take the same street, same two parties. Person turns left in front of the plaintiff, does a four-second turn, and the plaintiff hits the very back end of the person's car who turned in front of them and never came off of his gas. And the evidence and the witnesses are saying, "Plaintiff never slowed down." Different case.
Pearl Carey (00:23:35):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:23:36):
Same accident, different case. Because now why didn't the plaintiff slow down? Why didn't the plaintiff come off the gas? Why didn't they hit the brake? The jurors, the focus group jurors, we run these by over and over and over and say, "Whoa, plaintiff's got some fault." They may put 50% on the plaintiff or may give 25% on the plaintiff, but plaintiff's conduct in that situation and their ability to explain why they didn't slow down is part of the determination of how the jury's going to divide up the liability. And people see it different. Some people say, "Nope, you made a left-hand turn in front of them, you're responsible." Other people will say, "Nope, it takes two to tango. The plaintiff should... They've got to act reasonable too, so we don't put blame on them also." So, investigate everything that plaintiff did and advise the plaintiff, "Everything you say and do from this day forward is evidence that can be used against you."
Pearl Carey (00:24:36):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:24:36):
So, if you go on TikTok or wherever and say, "This happened, this idiot did this, this, this, that," you may see that thrown up in your face, what you were saying afterwards.
Pearl Carey (00:24:50):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:24:50):
And what we have found makes a big difference with jurors is the attitude of the plaintiff and the defendant at the scene. I mean, if plaintiff gets out the car and cusses the defendant or the defendant gets out of the car and cusses the plaintiff, that can be evidence.
Pearl Carey (00:25:08):
Yeah. That can make you not look so good.
Dirk Derrick (00:25:11):
Yep. And that can make a difference in the eyes of the jury.
Pearl Carey (00:25:13):
So, now that we've discussed that liability leg, tell me a little bit more about the causation leg.
Dirk Derrick (00:25:18):
Causation. The law says that even if somebody was liable, even if they caused the wreck, the plaintiff has the burden of proving that their negligence causing of that incident caused you damage. The law describes it as proximate cause, which doesn't mean it has to be the only cause, but it's got to be a cause of your damages or your injuries. It's a but for test, but for this incident where you have been injured, okay? So, that comes down to a lot of time we do in personal injury, so most of it is about injuries. Did this incident cause these injuries? Usually it takes expert testimony. It doesn't always. I mean, if you're driving down the road, car hits you, you have a fracture of your arm and your bone sticking out your arm.
Pearl Carey (00:26:11):
I don't like this metaphor.
Dirk Derrick (00:26:13):
You can testify, "Hey, that bone wasn't sticking out before this wreck. That wreck caused that bone to stick out my arm."
Pearl Carey (00:26:21):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:26:22):
Judges are going to let you testify to that. You don't need expert testimony. And most jurors will say, "I believe Pearl. I don't think she's lying about this." But things that are not that obvious, a lot of times you need expert testimony and you need evidence. You need imaging. Imaging is the best piece of evidence to prove an injury. Understand jurors come into a courtroom or jurors and the insurance company. When I talk about what jury's going to do, we don't try a whole lot of cases. We don't have to because we can show everybody what the value of the case is with our focus group. The backdrop is what a jury will do with the case. That's the real value of the case and how they will respond to it.
(00:27:05):
We have to prove that this incident caused this problem. Understand there's jurors who are, you got to show them. So, they want to see things. So, in causation, we'll take the medical records, the imaging, the doctor's opinions, expert opinions as to, "Hey, this person has been working 40 hours a week, has not been complaining of this problem. This wreck happened 24 hours ago. They came to me complaining of A, B, and C. Those are symptoms that do arise. These are the types of injuries that happen in this type of accident. I believe based upon a reasonable degree of medical certainty and based upon the plaintiff's history, that incident caused these injuries."
(00:27:56):
And so, we're always trying to build the causation up through experts most of the time. It gets more difficult as we age. As we age, we get wear and tear in our body. You get discs, are worn down. You get more and more preexisting conditions in your body. You may have had a shoulder injury 10 years ago. You may have a disc problem at L5 that hasn't given you any problems for five years. Now you get in this wreck and you got these conditions, you got this new herniated disc, or you got your shoulder has been inflamed. You still have to prove that this incident caused these pains and the need for this treatment. Now the law does say that you can have a preexisting condition. And if the wreck worsens that preexisting condition, you're entitled to the medical treatment, surgery, whatever you need because of it.
(00:28:52):
We have something called the eggshell plaintiff rule. If I am someone with very brittle bones and you're not, we're in the same wreck. I fractured eight bones. You're fine in two weeks. The person who caused the wreck caused my problem, even though they found me in a very brittle stage. The law says they take me as they find me. They cannot say, "We're not responsible. We did not cause Dirk's fractures because he had this preexisting condition that became susceptible to these fractures." They did cause it. And the law protects people who age, who may have brittle bones just as well as they do somebody in your youth and your age and healthy people. But that's always raised by the defense on anyone who has preexisting conditions.
(00:29:45):
How we build that up is we get the doctor's opinions, love to have imaging, and then we go back 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, be able to show the jury, "Hey, they hadn't had any problems with this body part since 2010, this brought it about." We show them an image that was taken five years ago and they didn't have the condition. So, you're having to prove injuries a lot of times by disproving it existed before the event.
Pearl Carey (00:30:19):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:30:20):
Also, you have, in some cases, proving causation comes down to a mechanism of injury and you may need a biomechanics expert to testify. An example of that is you have a car accident and cars are being made better and better and better. And you have a car accident, somebody gets hit at 15 miles an hour. The cars withstand that impact pretty well, but your client's hurt, got a herniated disc. And the defense says, "Ah, it's just 15 miles an hour. It couldn't have caused a herniated disc." But you'd have your doctor who would testify whether or not there was any symptoms of an acute injury. They can look at some imaging and see if it looks like there's some blood or some inflammation around it or they can look and see if there's blood or inflammation around the injury site to see if it's evidence of an acute injury that just happened. But you also may bring in a mechanical expert to explain to the jury how a car can withstand this, but the amount of force that was applied to the client can cause this kind of problem.
Pearl Carey (00:31:28):
Okay.
Dirk Derrick (00:31:30):
To be able to supplement what the doctor is saying by proving this is the kind of impact that can cause this problem. So, causation usually requires experts, whether it's doctors or other experts. There's situations where it can become real tough. When somebody has a lot of preexisting conditions, you can have somebody who's got so much stuff going on in their body that more than one thing can cause something to get worse. We've had people with nerve problems, bone problems, anxiety problems. You get this big bucket of preexisting and then an incident occurs and you're trying to prove what was caused by it. Client says everything's worse. Clients saying that is not enough for the judge and the jury. If the client doesn't have the expertise to say, and they don't because they aren't experts, you need an expert witness to come in and say, "Based upon a reasonable degree of medical certainty, it is more likely right than wrong that this incident worsen that condition."
Pearl Carey (00:32:48):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:32:49):
And without that, you cannot present damages to a jury. You can't seek damages for that element. If it's something that an expert has to testify to, the plaintiff believing it is not enough.
Pearl Carey (00:33:01):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:33:02):
And that's a tough conversation. And we have those quite often where the plaintiff says, "Hey, had a wreck, then this got worse. It's got to be connected."
Pearl Carey (00:33:11):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:33:12):
That's not enough. We've got to get an expert witness who say it. And there are doctors who will study up and try to give their opinion. A lot of times you have to go outside the treating physician because you got to give these 500 or 1,000 pages of preexisting conditions, these medical records to an expert to see everything that led up to that point for them to give an expert opinion about it. Treating physicians don't do that most of the time. They're treating people. A lot of them, they don't want to be expert witness. They'll give you a deposition and give you their opinions about what they've done since they treated them, but they do not want to take the time to go to 1,000 pages of medical records and give their opinion. If you give it to experts and they say, "Hey, I cannot say based upon a reasonable degree of medical certainty that was caused by the incident." You lose that issue.
Pearl Carey (00:34:05):
So, would that be a reason why getting medical treatment early on after an accident is important?
Dirk Derrick (00:34:11):
Absolutely. Absolutely. From the causation standpoint, what the injured person needs to do is, and this is if they're hurt. If they're not hurt, I'm not telling anybody to do anything if they're not hurt.
Pearl Carey (00:34:24):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:34:24):
I mean, the number one rule is be honest. If you're not honest, you kill your case. You got to be honest. The thing to kill your case the fastest if you're not credible. If you're exaggerating, if you're not being honest. So you got to be honest. Second thing, if you're hurt, go to the doctor. Third, do what the doctor tells you to do. Jurors are not very sympathetic to people or empathetic to people. If a doctor says, "Hey, go do A, B, and C so you'll get better," and you don't do it. They say, "Well, why are you asking me for money if you're not doing what the doctor tells you to do?"
Pearl Carey (00:34:57):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:34:58):
So, the biggest thing for the injured party to do is to get medical treatment when they need, do what the doctor tells them. Follow up every doctor's appointment that they could give you. If you start missing doctor's appointment and you have a period of time that you have not seen the doctor when you're supposed to see the doctor, or you have a period of time where you quit treatment, you kill your case. Those periods of time allow the defense to say, "Hey, in March, went to the doctor. The doctor says, 'Come back in April.' They didn't come back until July. Now, if you were hurt, wouldn't you go back to the doctor when they told you to come back? And we don't know what in the world happened between March and July. They may have fallen at home. They may have had another accident. We would never know because they quit treatment." And that gap in treatment is the biggest, being honest and not having gaps in treatment are the best things an injured person can do to preserve their rights and get the real value of their claim.
Pearl Carey (00:35:56):
But are there sometimes some instances where gaps in treatment are understandable that a jury can be sympathetic too? Like perhaps you have to book out the doctor for a certain amount of time and it takes a significantly longer amount of time than it should. Are there things like that that juries do understand?
Dirk Derrick (00:36:12):
Absolutely. And you can explain that away. Just understand what the jury's thinking. The jury's thinking you're hurt. Are you getting treatment as fast as you can? Are you doing what the doctor tells you to do? Are you doing everything on your behalf to get well as fast as you can? If you are, I'm listening to you. If you're not, I'm not really listening to you. So, if somebody goes to the ER, they tell them to go to an orthopedist, they call the orthopedist office. Next appointment is two weeks from now, and you go two weeks from now, that gap's not going to hurt you because that's a gap that you have no control of. But it is just about the plaintiff doing everything they can.
Pearl Carey (00:36:51):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:36:52):
The problem is people have lives. They depend on paychecks. A lot of times it's hard to keep taking off and going to the doctor even if you're hurt because you're trying to make the money, especially if you missed three or four weeks after the wreck or after the incident, you're behind on your bills. So, the real life issue of trying to provide for your family and the needs to take care of yourself, they fight each other. And so, it can be understandable to me. Client can say, "Hey, I had worked. I could not take time off," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Understand, understand. Here's the truth. You are decreasing the value of your claim every time you do that.
Pearl Carey (00:37:35):
I like that.
Dirk Derrick (00:37:36):
It is the legal truth. Deal with it like you want to. If you're okay with it, if you say, "It's okay. I'm only going to get 70% the value of my case because I'm not doing what the doctor tells me." Okay. It may be 50%, it may be 30% of it. If the reasoning is strong enough for you, you can do whatever you want to do. But me as your attorney, knowing the truth, I'm going to tell you the truth. You don't do what the doctor tells you to do, you're hurting your case.
Pearl Carey (00:38:04):
Right. Absolutely. So, is there anything else that plaintiff should be aware of when it comes to that causation leg?
Dirk Derrick (00:38:10):
Yep. I will tell you, insurance industry does two things when it comes to causation. They try to look back before this incident and see if there's anything they can blame it on. Sometimes they'll send injured people a medical authorization and ask them to sign it if they don't have an attorney yet. That medical authorization allows them to go back and look at your medical history and they're looking for something to blame it on. They'll also run reports on any prior injuries or insurance claims you made. They're looking for a previous injury somewhere to blame it on. What they're trying to do is find something that they can sell to a jury or use as an excuse that this incident didn't cause these problems. After the incident, they're looking at the first thing after the incident to allow them to cut it off, the damages. That's why the gap in treatment, they don't try to cut it off. That's where your damage is in on this case.
(00:39:13):
Also, they're looking for anything you may have done afterwards that they can blame it on. If they see something on social media that you're playing softball, and that doesn't line up with what your doctors say you should be doing, cut it off. There goes proof. The damages are done. If they see anything in the public of a subsequent wreck or anything that indicates that there was another incident or injury, or you were doing something that could have caused an injury, not that you caused it, but you could have caused an injury. They're trying to cut it off. "We don't know that this didn't make it worse. We don't know that, this didn't make it worse." So, if you think from a plaintiff's standpoint, just understand that if you sign a medical authorization, they're going backwards in time to try and find something to blame it on.
(00:40:08):
And everything you do and say from the time of the incident moving forward, they're looking for a place in that timeline to stop causation. Anything after this point is caused by something else.
Pearl Carey (00:40:22):
So, now that we have established that liability has to do with what happened and why it happened, we've also established that causation has to do with linking the incident to the injuries. We're now onto the damages leg. So, tell me a little bit more about the damages leg.
Dirk Derrick (00:40:37):
The damages leg is made up of two kinds of damages. So every time we're working up a case, we're looking for actual damages and we're looking for potential punitive damages. Actual damages, that part of the leg are the injuries that occurred to the injured person. It's medical expenses, loss of wages, loss of enjoyment of life, pain and suffering, changes in lifestyle, permanent impairment, things that happen to the injured person. When cases come in, you don't know the extent of those damages. Those are developed with medical treatment and doctors. And over time, until you either get completely well, you say, "Hey, I'm 100% well. My doctors say I'm 100% well. I am back to where I was before this happened." Or if you never get there, if you have some kind of permanent aspect to your injury, you'll get to a point that's caused a maximum medical improvement.
(00:41:39):
That's when the doctors, they all agree they've done everything they can do to get you better. And what you have now is something you have to live with, maximum medical improvement. That's where your actual damages kind of can be evaluated when the first of those two things happen. You're 100% well or you're at maximum medical improvement. The other part of the damages are punitive damages. Punitive damages don't look at you, the injured person. You look at the defendant, the person who caused it. And punitive damages are awarded if the defendant was not only negligent doing something unreasonable, but they were reckless or willful. They were driving drunk. They were speeding. They were texting. There was road rage.
Pearl Carey (00:42:27):
They've done it before.
Dirk Derrick (00:42:28):
Right. Especially in trucking cases. Somebody's caused wrecks, they shouldn't be driving anymore and it happens again. Punitive damages on the table. Drunk driver, punitive damages on the table. Drunk driver, third offense, big punitive damages on the table. Punitive damages are their mouth that the community, the jury, is going to punish a person or a business for their conduct. And we have found over the last seven years talking to them, it comes down to how bad the conduct is and how often it's happened. In a car wreck cases, a typical car wreck case, you're looking to see was the person on the phone? Was the person intoxicated? Were they speeding? Look at the data. Were they speeding? Were they distracted? That kind of stuff on the individual cases.
(00:43:13):
On the trucking, it is a lot to do with the same things for the truck driver, speeding, intoxicated, distracted. But you also look at the trucking company. Bad driver, they knew it. They didn't train people right. They hired the wrong people. They violated regulations. On premise cases, a lot of times it will come down to a situation, a dangerous condition that they knew was dangerous. They knew it was dangerous and somebody could be killed, then somebody's hurt bad, or killed, and they had prior knowledge. Juries really respond to if they have a dangerous condition and somebody's hurt, and then they don't do anything about it, that second person that gets hurt, they really can increase the punitive damage aspect. So, as we're building these cases, when you start, you don't know how much is there. I mean, if you get a dash cam and there's a drunk person in the back of a cop's car, you got a drunk driver. You don't know if you have a dram shop case yet, but you know you've got a drunk driver.
Pearl Carey (00:44:12):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:44:13):
So, punitive damage is going to be an element of that case. Premise cases, a lot of times you don't know until you file suit and take depositions. Trucking cases, you don't know until you file suit and take deposition and get documents. So, punitive workup is what we don't do in every case. It really comes to that why question.
Pearl Carey (00:44:32):
So, the liability leg.
Dirk Derrick (00:44:33):
Yeah. The why liability investigation will lead to punitive damages or let you know it's just an actual damage case. So, it's important from day one, before we're talking about damages, actual damages, a lot of times you're waiting for people to treat and see what the actual damages end up being, but day one is so important for the punitive aspect to find out why it happened and to preserve all that evidence. If you don't preserve it early, you won't collect it later. And until you have all the facts on all those elements, you do not know the real value of the case. You do not know the real value of the case. If anybody, if any cousin, any uncle, any friend tells you they know the real value of the case before they know the facts, check them. I'm telling you, you cannot know the value of the case until you know all the evidence. What somebody can tell you that's not the real value is they can tell you what they can get an insurance company to pay you if they're going after 30% of the real value.
Pearl Carey (00:45:39):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:45:40):
I mean, you can walk in the door on day one and I can look at your case and say, "I can get you blanked off." That's not the real value. And if somebody's trying to tell you that's what you deserve, but they don't know what the real value is, is that what you deserve? We did not even know the real value of cases when we had all the facts until we started doing focus groups. Even when we knew all the facts, we knew all the liability issue, we knew the causation facts, we knew the actual damage facts, we knew the punitive facts, but the only people who set the real value is a jury, the people in that community. And then we started doing focus groups and I said, "Good Lord, we're getting a value that lawyers think is all you can get from insurance companies just because insurance companies that's all they're going to pay."
Pearl Carey (00:46:30):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:46:31):
And that's all they're going to pay voluntarily if you don't have the leverage and the proof to show them what the real value is. So, proving the actual damages, come back to the plaintiff and their conduct and doing what the doctors tell them to do. Everything they can do. If they do everything the doctor tell them to do, they do everything in their ability to get well, you prove the actual damages with those doctors, the medical records proven that the plaintiff has come to the doctor's office when they're supposed to, follow the doctor's instructions, and then you prove any kind of permanency with the doctors, the experts, and then you prove loss of enjoyment of life, pain and suffering, that kind of stuff, not through the plaintiff because if the plaintiff starts talking about it, it turns jurors off.
(00:47:24):
You prove it with lay witnesses, you prove it with co-employees, you prove it with supervisors, you prove it with people that they go to church with, people who see them and see it without the plaintiff saying anything. That's the evidence you want to be able to show a jury. You need to prove your actual damages with doctors and with lay witnesses and with individuals that they work with and individuals who see them. If you have to with family members, I'd rather it not be family members, but people who don't have a dog in the fight, especially the plaintiff. A lot of times when we're building these cases, the plaintiff, and this is totally understandable, I don't want to talk about this to other people. I don't want to involve other people.
Pearl Carey (00:48:07):
Right. You want to seem like you're okay in front of the people in your community.
Dirk Derrick (00:48:10):
Well, yeah, you want to seem like you're okay, but you also don't want to say, "Hey, you got somebody you can go talk to, Dirk, to prove it." I want to keep it private. And personally, I'm a private person. I don't want people to know my business, so I wouldn't want the people to get involved with my business. But from a legal standpoint, you absolutely need to tell us, your attorneys. He goes to people I was doing things with before. He goes to who I played pickle ball with. He goes who I spent my weekends with. He goes who I went on vacation with. He goes the people who saw me at work. He goes, my supervisors, he goes to these people's names because if you end up with a permanent problem, we would need to get witnesses to prove that to the jury, and it needs to be witnesses other than you.
(00:48:56):
It needs to be people. It's so many people in your life and they can say, "Well, they're friends," or they were this and that. But still, you have independent witnesses talking about your actual damages and you're not.
Pearl Carey (00:49:07):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (00:49:08):
But the whole pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, all those things.
Pearl Carey (00:49:13):
Absolutely. So, we're obviously discussing the damages leg, how do you determine the value of both parts of that leg, including the actual damages and the punitive damages?
Dirk Derrick (00:49:24):
Ultimately, the value is determined by the jury. You have things that have, we call them economic damages, but they just got set values, a medical bill. Part of the actual damages are the past medical bills and the future medical bill. We do life care plans. If somebody hits MMI, they have ongoing problems, they don't have it all their lives, we will get an expert to go out and determine how much it's going to cost them for future medical treatment. That's a life care plan. So, those are called economic damages. So, that's a mathematical number. Past medical bills of $250,000, future medical expenses of $750,000. That's just math. But then on the non-economic damages, pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, that's when you use the lay witnesses to show the jury what those elements of damages consist of, how bad it is, how much does it affect the plaintiff. And then the jury's got to come up with a number for that.
(00:50:30):
We argue, it depends on the degree of damage and how long it's going to last, the lifespan of the damage. So, somebody's younger, they may have 40 years, they got to deal with this. Somebody older may only have 10 years, but the jury has to come up with a damage amount. As far as building the case, we're trying to build it to show a clear, true picture of how it has affected the client. And then argue to the jury and give them some mechanisms to determine that, whether it's a per day value or per week value or per hour value, tell them some things they can use to come up with that number.
Pearl Carey (00:51:11):
Okay.
Dirk Derrick (00:51:11):
Punitive damages in South Carolina also determined by the jury, we cannot give a number. We cannot tell the jury what number that is. We just show them how bad it is and how bad the damages are in this case, but also how bad damages it could have caused. If somebody's drunk and runs into a light pole at an intersection, that's bad. It can cause a whole lot of actual damages. Or if they're drunk and they bump the back of a car because they drunk, not much damages, but the same conduct could have caused a death. And when you're talking about punitive damages, you should be looking at the conduct, not the actual damages. So, we build it, show them what it could have caused from the damages, what damages could have been caused from the reckless conduct.
(00:52:01):
Usually cases involve actual damages and then you're looking for punitives. They can't exist. Sometimes they don't exist. Every now and then we get one mainly punitives. We've taken cases where car was empty at the time that a drunk driver ran into it. It was just property damage, but we're still able to get our clients punitive damages on top of the actual property damage because of the conduct of the defendant.
Pearl Carey (00:52:28):
And because what it could have caused, right?
Dirk Derrick (00:52:28):
Right.
Pearl Carey (00:52:28):
Okay.
Dirk Derrick (00:52:28):
That's right. They hit an empty car, so they're entitled to the value of the car, but they're also entitled to punitive damages because the conduct was bad. It could have hurt somebody.
Pearl Carey (00:52:37):
Absolutely. So, let's say we're at the point with a case where we have the liability, causation, and damages legs all built. How do we know that the case is ready to present to a jury or to an insurance company?
Dirk Derrick (00:52:49):
When we are building cases, here's what we're thinking. In the first 60 days, sometimes it takes a little bit more investigation, but 60 and 90 days of a case, we have determined the amount of insurance coverage there is. And insurance can be... You have to build that part too. You have to investigate insurance coverage. You think about it, when you're building a stool, you got these three legs that you're building, and they got to be strong enough to hold whatever seat or weight capacity you want to have. That weight capacity or seat is the collectibility of a case. Collectibility is two things. It's insurance coverage, personal assets, collectibility against Walmart, huge seat, huge weight limit. It's unlimited almost. So, if we're building a case against Walmart, we build those legs as strong as you can build them. You can hire experts, you can spend money. You're building those things as strong as possible because the collectibility seat is heavy.
(00:53:52):
If you have a case where it's an individual and the policy limits are $25,000, you won't have to fully bill the legs. You may have a hospital bill early on in the construction of the case that eats up all that money. You may be able to send one hospital bill in and get all the insurance coverage. And if that person doesn't have assets to go after, and I can tell you, under South Carolina law, 99% of people are judgment-proof when it comes to going after them in a car wreck, so we don't do it. I mean, I think in the 37 years I practice, we may have got assets from five or six people. Most people with assets got plenty of insurance. Most people who don't have much insurance don't have a lot of assets you can go after, but the collectibility will tell you how strong you have to build the legs.
(00:54:40):
So, just picture collectibility as the seat that sits on top of these legs. So, we start to build a case. We'll find out in the first 60 or 90 days how much insurance there is. If the insurance is low, we don't have to build those legs as strong. Don't have to file a lawsuit to go find out why it happened because what happened is enough to get all the money. Does that make sense?
Pearl Carey (00:55:02):
Yes.
Dirk Derrick (00:55:03):
We're building the case strong enough to get all the money. And if we don't have enough to get all the money voluntarily from the insurance company, then we're building it up to the full value of the case. Build the legs as strong as possible and we don't run it by focus groups to come up with the value. That is done in a situation, let's say we have $3 million worth of insurance. We don't build the legs as strong as possible. The insurance company's not going to offer us $3 million just on us sending them medical bills or lost wages or lay witnesses saying how bad this is affecting somebody. If they don't pay us all the money, we're going to build the case up fully, present it to focus groups and get their opinions. They're the people from the community that's going to end up deciding this case.
(00:55:52):
We focus it. If we don't need to do the focus group to get all the money, everything that's collectible, we'll stop building the legs when we have enough. If the coverage is so high, they won't pay it, our case involves punitive damages or permanent injuries or questionable liability, we'll go to a focus group, focus it, and then leverage the results.
Pearl Carey (00:56:16):
Got it. That makes sense. So now that we've discussed all three legs of our stool, the liability leg, the damages leg, and the causation leg, as well as the seat, which is the collectibility, what can plaintiffs do to help their attorney make all parts of the stool really strong?
Dirk Derrick (00:56:34):
That's a good question. We want our clients to feel like we're on the same team. They're building this case with us. They are active builders of the case because they are actively creating evidence. Everything they do is evidence. They've got to have an attitude that everything they say and do may end up in this case. So, the first thing they can do is to understand we're on the same team. We're trying to build this case. And probably the negative things to prevent or to avoid. Social media post, gap in treatment, not doing what the doctor tells you to do, not being honest about everything. Got to be honest. Be honest with your doctors, be honest with everything, everybody. Also, work with us when we're trying to find lay witnesses. We know how important lay witnesses are. Most clients don't. I mean, we can tell them it's important, but most time they don't understand the importance of the jury hearing from individuals instead of the plaintiff. Talk to us when things change.
(00:57:39):
Here at our firm, we have medical liaisons that talk to the clients once a month and our lawyers talk to our clients. We want to stay in contact. We don't want anything to happen that we don't know about so that we can go pick up that piece of evidence or search down something related to what happened. So, be our teammate. Don't do any of the things that really kill the case. Tell our attorneys to try to get across to our clients. This is not something that you hire a law firm for and then say, "Okay, law firm. Y'all go take care of this. I'm going to live my life. Y'all let me know." That's not our kind of firm. We're going to collect evidence and try to find out everything about this case in the world until we get enough to get all the insurance coverage or build it completely and appraise it with a focus group to try to get you real value as fast as possible.
(00:58:36):
So, if our clients will not mess up any of the legs that we're building, They make sure they report everything in their medical records to the doctor to help the causation leg. They do exactly what the doctors tell them to do to help the damage leg. And then for the seat, they usually cannot do anything for this particular case on the seat, but they can do it for the next case. Just like all of us, when we ride around, we don't think it's going to happen to us. We're not going to go through one of these things. I think God just gives us up in our head. We'd worry about it all the time, I guess, if we think today we don't go home and somebody's going to come across the center line and hit us. But people don't think it's going to happen a second time after it happens one time. For the seat collectibility, because 99% of people you're not going to get assets from, so you're going to be limited by insurance.
(00:59:26):
What our clients can do and what the public can do is make sure you have coverages on your policy that can cover your damages if the person who injures you does not have enough coverage. Quick insurance lesson. Insurance coverage is a totem pole. Top of the totem pole pays first, and then you go down the totem pole to see if there's other coverages that can pay if the top coverage is not enough. Top coverage, insurance on the car that cost, it'd be $25,000. It'd be $2 million, $25,000 and your damages are $500,000, you're out of luck unless there's another layer. The next layer we're looking for is whether or not that top driver, that car was being used as a Lyft or an Uber or something that there's another coverage on it. Or running an errand for an employer and the employer's coverage would come in and have coverage for it.
(01:00:22):
But top driver, just driving his own car, minimum limits, wasn't working, wasn't driving a Lyft car, wasn't driving an Uber, just an individual. No assets. You got $25,000 per person for bodily injury, $25,000 for property damage. So that's all you're going to get unless you've taken care of yourself. And that is underinsured coverage. UIM coverage. Underinsured coverage is not mandatory in South Carolina. It is great coverage to have. It is cheap. It's a lot cheaper than your base coverages that you buy. It is so inexpensive and so helpful for people that our state passed a law that said, "Insurance company, you've got to explain to your customers how cheap this is, how much they'd have to pay and what it would cover. You have to offer it to people and show them how much coverage they can get and how cheap it is.
(01:01:28):
But you need to get underinsured motorist coverage and you need to increase your limits of liability because your underinsurance coverage is covered, it's matched your liability coverage. I have not looked in the last couple of years. The last time I looked, here goes an example of the cost of insurance coverage at the time. Let's say you're paying $500 every six months for minimum limits, $2550 in liability coverage, no underinsured. $500 every six months. The last time I checked for about $550 every six months. So you just raise your price by 10%, you could get $250,000 in liability and $250,000 in UIM, 10 times the coverage on liability and $250,000 in UIM for just $50 more every six months, just a 10% raise. So, you get 10% of the coverage for only one tenth of the increase in cost.
Pearl Carey (01:02:27):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (01:02:27):
And people don't know that. They want me to get 10 times the coverage, I might get 10 times the bill, but your car is in that first part. And the base coverage that you have to buy determines the great majority of your bill. So, add that 10% and get covered.
Pearl Carey (01:02:46):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (01:02:47):
And the three legs could hold up $4 million worth of damages and I got $25,000 worth of collective bill.
Pearl Carey (01:02:55):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (01:02:56):
Sad day. That's a hard conversation to have with people who say, "Well, that's not fair." And it's not fair. But you can either say it's unfair and not do anything about it or you can go buy a lot of underinsured motorist coverage and protect yourself.
Pearl Carey (01:03:10):
Absolutely. So, in that case, you wouldn't hold a focus group event because the collectibility just isn't there.
Dirk Derrick (01:03:16):
Right. And in that case, the insurance companies don't pay me all the coverage early on because they're not going to spend money to defendant because the case is so strong. So, there'll be no need for a focus group. We do focus groups when insurance company offers X and there's punitives, permanency or question on liability. And we go find out what the real value of the case is. And when we say real value of the case, people come and serve in our focus groups. So, we're building the case as strong as possible, but they were saying, "We'll only pay you blank dollars." And they were offering 30 cents and 40 cents on the dollar and they say, "We'll pay you blank dollars." And then we tell our client what the offer was and they would say, "Was that a good offer?" And we would answer, "Well, we don't know what a jury would do. The only way to find out is go try a case. But how long is that going to take?"
(01:04:09):
That's going to take another year, year and a half. Well, you're going to take another year, a year and a half, and you can't tell me if I'm going to get more?
Pearl Carey (01:04:16):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (01:04:16):
No, I can't promise you. I mean, we feel good about the case, but you never know what a jury's going to do. So, guess what the plaintiff does?
Pearl Carey (01:04:23):
They just want to settle.
Dirk Derrick (01:04:24):
They take the dang 30 cents or 40 cents on the dollar.
Pearl Carey (01:04:26):
Yeah.
Dirk Derrick (01:04:27):
And it happens every day. I believe 95% of people are hurt never even know the real value of the case is, much less get it. Now, we do these focus groups. It's then up to the client if they want to fight for that 100% of the real value. If the insurance then goes from 30% to 85%, client may say, "Hey, I want to take that and not try the case."
Pearl Carey (01:04:52):
Right.
Dirk Derrick (01:04:53):
We'll do whatever they want to do. Or if they say, "Heck no, we're going to court." We'll do whatever they want to do. But it's a big difference when you show the real value to your client and to the insurance company. And now we all know what the value of the case is. If we want to go try it, we'll go try it, but we're not taking this 30%, 40% of the value anymore. When we were living in this, and I call it the insurance matrix, and it exists not because lawyers want to take less than the real value-
Pearl Carey (01:05:27):
So, today on The Legal Truth Podcast, we discussed the liability leg, the causation leg, as well as the damages leg of a personal injury case, as well as the collectibility and how important that can be. We also touched on how we can get the real value of the case using focus groups. Thank you so much, Dirk, for discussing this with me today. And thank you so much to our listeners for tuning into another episode of The Legal Truth Podcast. We hope to see you in the next one. And for more information, you can visit derricklawfirm.com/thelegaltruth. Bye.
Voiceover (01:06:02):
Thank you for joining us on The Legal Truth Podcast. If you have questions that you would like answered on a future episode, please send them to thelegaltruth@derricklawfirm.com. If you would like to speak to us directly, call us at 843-248-7486. If you find the podcast valuable, please leave us a five-star review and share The Legal Truth with your neighbor, friend, or family member who is seeking reliable information about a South Carolina personal injury or workers' compensation claim. Dirk J. Derrick of the Derrick Law Firm Injury Lawyers is responsible for the production of this podcast, located at 901 North Main Street, Conway, South Carolina.
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Derrick Law Firm Injury Lawyers has included the information on this podcast as a service to the general public. Use of this podcast and any related materials does not in any manner constitute an attorney-client relationship between Derrick Law Firm Injury Lawyers and the user.
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While the information on this podcast is about legal issues, it is not intended as legal advice and should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a licensed professional attorney in your particular state. Anyone seeking specific legal advice or assistance should retain an attorney. Any prior results mentioned do not guarantee a similar outcome. The content reflects the personal views and opinions of the participants in the podcast and are not intended as endorsements of any views or products. This podcast could contain inaccuracies. The information contained in this podcast does not constitute legal advice and is not guaranteed to be correct, complete, or up to date as laws continue to change. In this podcast, you'll hear information about focus groups. Please note that not all of the firm's cases are presented to a focus group. Additionally, when speaking about juries or jurors in relation to a focus group, we are speaking of focus group participants and not actual trial juries or jurors.