Don’t let the defense trip you up on your car crash case — or any personal injury case.
My name is Brian Dettman. I’m a personal injury lawyer in Louisville, Kentucky. I probably have 50 to 75 litigations ongoing right now. I’ve tried 59 cases to verdict. Here’s something that defense attorneys will do to try to trip you up:
They’ll ask you what your pain levels were on a specific day — trying to get you to say something different than what’s already in the record right in front of their face. If you don’t know, your answer should be: “I don’t know. I’m not sure. I don’t remember. That was a long time ago. Maybe the record in front of you has the exact thing you’re asking me.”
What they’ll do is try to get you to say something different, then later argue that you were lying and not telling the truth — when really, you just don’t remember what your pain levels were eight, ten, or fourteen months ago. I don’t remember what I had for breakfast three days ago. We expect you to remember the big stuff: what happened in the crash, what happened afterwards, where you went to the doctor, what was hurt. But the small specific nuanced things? Don’t let them trip you up on that.
