EP01 S04: Your Injury Lawyer is NEVER Allowed To Talk About THIS
Do You Know The Number One Thing Your Personal njury Lawyer is Not Allowed to Talk About at Trial
Pick Your Favorite Channel: Apple Podcast | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | RSS
Full Transcript:
Hi everybody. My name is Arkady Frekhtman and I’m a trial lawyer at the F&A Injury Lawyers here in Brooklyn, New York.
I wanted to talk about something that I’m not allowed to talk about when I’m on the trial. And that is insurance, right? Because all of these personal injury cases, whether they’re car accidents, trip and fall, even medical malpractice, the defendants are covered by insurance. And you’re never allowed to say the word insurance before a jury because it could be so prejudicial, right? You’re also never allowed to violate the golden rule, which is to put the jurors in the same position that your client is in.
So if my client got rear-ended by a truck and they have a brain injury, I can’t say, “Imagine you had a brain injury. How much money would you want if you had a brain injury and you wouldn’t be able to recognize your wife or understand what your kids were saying and you couldn’t hold your job anymore.” I’m not allowed to do that because it’s so prejudicial.
So I wanted to talk about something that I kind of thought about as a different way to approach it. And I wanted to get your opinion on it. So a feel free to drop me a comment. So basically it’s like this. Imagine a society is being started, right? A new society, like in the Wild West somewhere. And a few people move in and then they do things in this society. Like they opened up a store where you can buy milk and bread and they have a school.
And then a few of the wealthy people may be in the society, a few of the senior leadership people, maybe like five of them get together and they say, “Why don’t we do this in this society? Why don’t each of you,” if there are a hundred people living in the society, “why don’t each of you pay us like $5 a month, something nominal. And what we’ll do is we’ll keep a pool for you. We’ll keep all that money. And then if anything happens, like if you get hurt, if anything happens as a ceiling falls on you, what we’ll do is we’ll take this money and we’ll use it to compensate you, to make sure that you’re whole because we understand that accidents happen, right? Sometimes for whatever reason, things happen, people get hurt, and we’re going to use this money to help you.”
But then when something actually does happen. Let’s say people buy-in. If people send their $5, and years go by, and then that pot grows. And now it’s like, whatever, millions. And then something happens. Nothing happens for years, but then something happens. Somebody falls because somebody else was mopping and they left the puddle, so it’s clearly negligence, or a ceiling collapses on somebody. Right? So it’s clear negligence. And somebody makes that claim and says, “Well, hello. I’ve been paying my $5 and my ceiling just fell on my head. Can I please have … I have medical bills. I can’t go to work now. I work at that store and I sell milk to people. I can’t go to the store so the rest of the community can’t get their milk. Can I please have something reasonable? Can I have my medical bills, something for my pain and suffering?”
And then the elders get together and they say, “No. No. You’re not entitled to that. Do you know what we’re going to give you? We’re going to give you just like you put in $5. Maybe we’ll give you like $1,000, but we don’t care that you can’t work. You’re just a faker anyway. You’re just a liar, a cheater, and a fraud. And we’re not going to give you anything reasonable. If you want anything reasonable, hire somebody, hire someone else here in this community. Sue us. And if a jury of your peers tells you that you are entitled to anything more than what we’re offering you, then maybe we’ll think about it. Maybe not. Maybe we’ll appeal that decision. But maybe then we’ll think about it.”
What do you guys think about that kind of model? Because I think that in reality, I think that’s exactly what insurance companies are doing. And I think it’s very important to be able to discuss it openly and honestly, and get everyone’s opinion, especially now, because trials are paused, we can’t go to trial and there’s a lot of change happening. So maybe this is one of the changes we can effectuate. Okay everybody, have a great day and Happy New Year. Bye-bye.