Goodcases News by Ian Zimmerman

San Francisco jury has awarded $210,000 to a man struck by a Municipal Railway bus whose driver had an earlier accident that cost the city $850,000.

The Superior Court jury’s verdict against the city came Friday after a four-day trial on the lawsuit by Lyle Johnson, 50, of San Francisco.

Johnson was hit at Second and Howard streets May 16, 1996. His attorney said yesterday that the Muni driver, Jacqueline Williams, acknowledged under questioning that she had been looking toward the bus zone at the moment her 15 Third Street articulated bus hit Johnson.

Johnson suffered “a non-repairable tear in his shoulder and continues to be in pain to this day,” said his attorney, Ian Zimmerman. “He is significantly limited in the kinds of work he can do now and is currently looking for work.”

Zimmerman said the verdict was $70,000 more than the amount recommended by a mediator who heard the case late last year. The city’s Public Transportation Commission, which reviews all proposed settlements involving the Muni, had rejected the proposed $140,000 settlement, he said.

“When you figure in court costs and interest, the commission’s decision not to take the mediator’s suggestion resulted in the city spending approximately $100,000 more than it would have otherwise,” Zimmerman said.

Welton Flynn, president of the Public Transportation Commission, did not return a phone call.

Neither Williams nor her attorney was available for comment. Muni officials had no comment on Williams’ current driving status.

In April, the Board of Supervisors approved an $850,000 settlement for a 16-year-old girl, Victoria Lee, who was dragged 100 feet on O’Farrell Street by a bus that Williams was driving May 6, 1996.

Ten days after that incident, Williams was in the accident in which her bus hit Johnson. Muni officials have said Williams was disciplined in 1996 but decline to say what the punishment was.

Police records show that in addition to those two accidents, Williams was in another bus accident on December 29, 1998, in which her bus hit a bicyclist on Kearny Street. The bicyclist received cuts on his left elbow and complained of hand pain.

Williams was in a fourth accident as well between Jan. 1, 1997, and Jan. 31 of this year, records show. Her name was on a list of 236 drivers with two or more avoidable accidents in that period. The Muni, citing privacy laws, declined to give details of the accidents involving Williams or any of the other drivers.

The Muni’s general manager, Michael Burns, has said he is making it a high priority to reduce the Muni’s accident rate, which is considerably higher than that in some comparable cities, such as Boston and Seattle.

Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1999/09/09/MN38356.DTL

Some men are heterosexual, and some men are homosexual, and some men don’t think about sex at all. They become lawyers. Woody Allen

After more than 30 years of practicing personal injury law I have a four (4) tips for clients who have been injured and are working with an attorney. No matter who you are working with there are some “dos” and “don’ts”. Obviously you don’t want to undermine your own case or in any way thwart your attorney’s ability to effectively represent you.  When it comes to matters of personal injury litigation this is especially true because mistakes are costly-and the money will come directly out of your pocket!

It’s important to understand how your attorney’s brain works. It’s not so much that attorneys think differently than the average Joe or Mary. Rather it’s a question of emphasis.

What is that emphasis?  What is the focus that personal injury lawyers usually bring to bear on any given case?  How does your lawyer think?  What are his or her priorities?

1.The Facts.  Obviously a personal injury lawyer, like any good lawyer, is trained to follow the facts.  Good facts, bad facts- it doesn’t really matter. Your lawyer wants facts.  All of them.  Personal injury lawyers generally don’t like surprises.  They don’t want to be caught off guard.  No one likes to feel stupid and this is especially true of lawyers who have spent many years in school and have learned lots of big words-even Latin ones. No lawyer wants to appear before a judge and be embarrassed that what he or she says is categorically or demonstrably false.

So the first tip I have for you is to tell your lawyer as much as you can-both the good and the bad-and restrain your impulse to edit or abridge or shade or color the facts.  The best lawyers are very good at asking questions.  Indeed,  even those lawyers that got C’s in law school are very good at tearing apart “editorials” and getting to the fundamental and critical facts.

In the everyday world “facts” and “opinions” blend often indistinguishably into one another.  You know the old joke about everyone having an opinion. Save your opinions.  I can guarantee you that your lawyer is not concerned about your opinion. Not because he doesn’t care about you as a person but rather because his job is -first and foremost- to get to the heart of the matter.  He wants to know what happened, when it happened, how it happened, who was there, who wasn’t there, what happened next, which emergency room did you go to, what tests you received, whether you admitted or discharged; did you follow up with a subsequent medical appointment, what surgeries or procedures you underwent or are scheduled for, how much time you missed from work and how much time you are likely to miss in the future.

I could go on and on with similar type of questions the lawyer wants to have answered but I trust you get the point. Try your best not to spin the facts.  Spin or what lawyers call “argument” has a place but that place occurs much later on in the litigation.  Don’t muddy the waters upfront.  Keep it clean.  Listen to your lawyer’s questions and give the lawyer what he asks for.  Plus, if you don’t know, say so.  Resist the temptation to sound smart or to conjecture or to opine about this or that.  Leave the arguing to your lawyer. Let him earn his fee. If you don’t know some fact tell your lawyer you don’t know.  If you can’t remember tell the lawyer you can’t remember.  Don’t guess.  (This is especially true during your deposition but I will cover that subject in a subsequent article).

2.Listen. This brings me to my second piece of advice.  Listen very carefully.  Everyone I have ever met thinks they are a good listener. No exception. “I have ears, don’t I?” WRONG!! Most people are terrible listeners. Most people “think” they heard the question and then go on by responding with some self–serving platitude or clap trap. To make matters worse they not only fail to respond directly and sharply to the question but go on talking about something that was not even asked. This is especially true for smart people. They love to show how smart they are. They love to go on and on about things that haven’t been asked and volunteer or “anticipate” answers to questions that have not been asked, may never be asked and don’t need to be asked.  It would be comical or entertaining except for the fact that it wastes time and pours money down the drain. Your money. In this post-therapeutic world we all know the value of “feeding back” what you just heard. You don’t have to go to that extreme but you do have to keep in mind what your teachers called the “call of the question”. Listen to the question. Assume there is a reason why the lawyer asked it. Answer the question. Listen intently on exactly what was asked of you. Listen to the words. Answer the question first. Resist overblown explanations. If you must say more do so but do it only after you have directly answered the lawyers questions. If your lawyer asked you “where” you were going at the time of the accident don’t do the following” “Well I just had lunch and a friend asked me to drive him back to his office so I told him I would do so but then we stopped at another friend’s  house and got in his car. We were just talking and stuff and then my friend said he had to go to the bathroom so we stopped at the “7-11” and then we met another guy and I wasn’t  feeling too good so I asked them to take me home and then we got into this argument because my friend said he was late and  ……..”

Which brings me to a sub-point. Realize that the Attorney–Client initial interview and subsequent meetings are not therapeutic sessions.  Working with the lawyer is not some touchy-feely free-for-all but rather a direct, fact-based and law driven process. Yes, of course there are human emotions at stake and many lawyers are good at counseling but try to restrict yourself from going into areas that you haven’t been asked to go into.  Realize that this isn’t Oprah or Dr. Phil

3.Tell the Truth. My third piece of advice is to tell the truth.  Everyone tells you to “tell the truth” so you would be justified in being suspicious about whether this is really the case.  It is.  Lawyers can work with good facts and bad facts.  Lawyers can work with terrible facts.  Horrible facts. Egregious facts.  But lawyers get tripped up when clients lie. Whatever an initial or superficial advantage you think a “white lie” may give you I can assure you that in the end it will come back to bite you.  A “little” exaggeration here, a “little” exaggeration there, “minimizing” a fact here “dodging” another fact there, “forgetting” an important point all will come back to haunt you.  Lawyers are very good at making mountains out of molehills.  Even little lies can be amplified in a good lawyer’s hands to make you out as an outright liar and perjurer.  Be careful about your little “molehills”.  Tell your lawyer everything.  Tell it straight.  Your lawyer is not there to judge you or second-guess you or psychoanalyze you or any such thing.  The lawyer is there to take what he has and make the very best case he can.  I have many times been given “bad” facts and yet I have prevailed on behalf of my clients.  I can work with bad facts.  I can’t work with a lying client. Defense lawyers lick their chops when they catch you lying. It’s more satisfying than sex.

4.Stay Active. My last bit of advice is to stay as active as you can while your case moves from stage to stage.  Most lawyers are diligent.  This is especially true when it comes to personal injury lawyers who don’t get paid until the case settles.  But, lawyers a human too. Sometimes their caseloads are too large and they are juggling too many balls in the air.  There is great truth to the expression “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”.  So squeak!  Without being tedious or obnoxious find a way to stay in continuous contact with your lawyer.  Let him or her know that you are serious about your case and concerned about it moving forward.  Express appreciation for the fact that the lawyer has other matters but remind your lawyer that this is your only case and it is important to you.  E-mail is an excellent vehicle.  It’s short, quick and to the point.  It doesn’t require great wordsmithing or even eloquence.  A simple e-mail “May I please have a progress update from you?”  will often do the trick. A written letter also helps not least of which because it creates a written record and lawyers are very sensitive to the written record.  So squeak and stay on top of your case and remind your lawyer from time to time that you are paying attention-and more importantly that you are paying him ( ultimately) so he’d better be paying attention too!

After more than 30 years of lawyering I can tell you flat out that following the four little pieces of advice here will help to maximize your case’s value and better your relationship with your lawyer. He’ll appreciate it and you’ll benefit.

Ian Zimmerman
Personal Injury Attorney 

Activist’s mom files $30 million wrongful death lawsuit

A $30 million wrongful death lawsuit has been filed in San Francisco Superior Court by the mother of Dr. Dan Kliman, a pro-Israel activist who died when he fell down an elevator shaft in 2008
Filed on Dec. 1, Edith Kliman’s lawsuit seeks damages from the building owner, manager and elevator company.

Dan Kliman, an Alameda physician, was known in local pro-Israel and LGBT circles for his staunch activism. He died sometime around Thanksgiving 2008 when he tumbled down an elevator shaft in a building at 55 New Montgomery Street in San Francisco.

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Should I Handle My Own Personal Injury Case?
As a personal injury attorney I am often asked “should I hire an attorney or handle the case myself’? Like almost everything else in the law the answer depends.

if your injuries are not too serious and if you have medical bills that are less than $1000 and the issue of who is in the right and who is in the wrong is not significantly in dispute you may very well be better off handling the case yourself.  Why?  Obviously you can save a legal fee (which will often be approximately one third of the total settlement amount) and you might even resolve your case faster than a lawyer would acting on your behalf.  Obviously, with yourself at the helm, and with no other cases to distract you or divide your interest, you can focus on resolving your one and only a matter.
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