Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Did you ever get lucky enough to catch a defendant altering records?

You can go years and years, through thousands of cases and hundreds of trials without catching a defendant altering records. You may think they altered records, be highly suspicious of it and even hire an expert to opine on the issue.
But how often do you actually catch a defendant altering who admits it on the stand at trial in open Court "under oath". Well ladies and gentleman, in a nursing home negiligence case[no bedrails-fractured hip] which I tried in Superior Court, Bergen County, the triage nurse admitted to records being altered. I almost fainted! I continued my cross for an hour before the Judge had to call in the "cut man" to clean her up.
As is every trial lawyer's God given responsibility , I summed up on it for almost 2 hours, pounding, and pounding and pounding!
Result : plaintiff's verdict $330,000.
Moral of the story; If you get ahold of something good, never, ever let up. Because I guarantee you, your adversary won't!

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