If you have ever been a juror on a personal injury case, or wondered what happens in a personal injury trial, you can bet on one thing. There is an Insurance Company involved.
The Insurance Company represents a modern day Goliath. Its mission and goal in every personal injury case is to give the injured person the least amount of compensation possible. These corporations have only one focus – the “bottom line”. Their objective is to save as much money as possible, typically without compassion or regard for the plight of the injured person. The Insurance Company seems invisible, yet its presence is felt everywhere. The Insurance Company pays the defense lawyers. The Insurance Company decides how much the defendant will pay, when it will pay, and why it will pay. The defendant himself is often irrelevant in the grand scheme as the Insurance Company works quietly behind the scenes.
The defense lawyer and the defendant are merely pawns of the Insurance Company, who play this dirty little game thousands of times a day, in courthouses around the United States. Rather than reasonably compensating the injured or having a fair trial to decide what really happened, the Insurance Company orders its lawyers to confuse the jury. Like the octopus that spews black ink to escape, these defense lawyers throw up smoke screens in court, attempt to confuse the jury about the facts, and often even attack the injured person’s character. The Insurance Companies and their army of lawyers do not play fair, and they mock our system of justice.
The ugly truth is that Insurance Companies are greedy bullies. The reason for the high number of personal injury cases in our courts is that the Insurance Companies consistently “low ball” injured people. These injured victims are presented with a stark choice – accept a quick but unreasonable offer now, or file a lawsuit and wait many months or years for a fair offer or jury verdict.
Many people cannot afford to wait months or years to get compensation. They are in pain, and their bills are piling up. Already beaten down, they simply cannot bear a long and drawn out fight with a seeming Goliath. So they settle for the peanuts thrown at them.
Others, insulted by the Insurance Company’s offer, take the only other option available – file a lawsuit. Yet they face an uphill battle. The Insurance Company and its army of lawyers will stall, delay, deny, and defend. The Company will go to all extremes to outspend, outlawyer, and outlast the innocent victim. It is a war of attrition, and the injured person is often not up to the fight. They need a warrior who will do battle on their behalf. The vast majority of the population cannot afford to hire a lawyer and pay by the hour. The good news is that our system of justice allows these lawyers to be hired on a “contingency” basis – the client pays nothing up front, and the lawyer only gets paid if he or she recovers a settlement or judgment. If not for this system, only the rich could afford justice. Our Founding Fathers would be rolling in their graves.
The halls of Justice must be open to anyone, regardless of financial abilities. Our great nation is a nation of laws. And those laws have no teeth unless they are enforced and respected. As a juror, you have a power that no one else in this country has – not the lawyers, not the judges, and not the politicians. You can ensure that the victim is compensated for his injuries. You, and only you, can set things straight.
