Description
Give Jurors What They Need to Award Substantial Pain and Suffering Damages
The legitimacy of pain and suffering damages is challenged every day in our society. The insurance industry uses advertising, media innuendo, and manufactured economic crises to prejudice the public against personal injury attorneys and plaintiffs. The defense will blame the plaintiff for lack of personal responsibility, describe their client’s negligence as an “accident” or “mistake,” and characterize the plaintiff’s lawsuit as frivolous, regardless of the facts.
To obtain the damages your client deserves, you need to neutralize these “myths” and misconceptions. As plaintiffs’ attorneys, you speak first. Seize this opportunity to define the terrain on which the battle will be fought. In Proving Pain & Suffering, N.Y. trial attorney Paul Cutrone draws on his three decades of experience to teach you how.
Learn to answer the “why” of pain and suffering damages in ways that jurors find persuasive. For example, you will learn to:
- Turn Defendants’ Weapons Against Them, §1:04
- Make Defendants Personally Responsible for Your Client’s Pain, §1:06
- Enlist Jurors as Protectors, §1:14
- Shine the Spotlight of Fault on Defendants, §1:16
- Use the American Cultural Bias of Payback to Your Advantage, §1:24
- Precondition Jurors, §3:04
- Get Prospective Jurors to Admit They Cannot Be Fair and Impartial, §3:36
- Take the Soft-Tissue Weapon Away From the Defendant, §4:17
- Describe the Emotional and Psychological Impact of the Injury Through Those Close to the Plaintiff, §4:23
- Fill in the Before and After Picture With Stories, §5:17
- Counter Jurors’ Incorrect Beliefs About Pain, §6:02
- Educate the Treating Physician, §6:07
- Use the Treating Doctor to Explain Chronic Pain, §6:19
- Fight the Malingering and “Working the System” Insinuation, §7:10
- Anticipate the “Jackpot Justice” and “Lottery” Language, §7:11
- Identify Jury Leaders and Speak to Them in Closing Argument, §7:12
- Identify Evidence That Causes Jurors to React and Speak to It in Closing Argument, §7:13
- Turn Defense Issues to Your Advantage With Catchphrases, §7:14
- Frame the Argument So That Favorable Jurors Will Advocate For You, §7:27
- Get Jurors to Listen by Giving Them Jobs to Do, §7:33
- Help Jurors Gauge the Value of Pain and Suffering, §7:41
