Client Testimony that Touches Your Heart: An Interview with Jim Lyons
In this episode, I’m sharing an interview with my good friend Jim Lyons in which we talk about his recent post-COVID trial and the things that he did to connect his client to the jury. We talked about several different ways to do that.
For the past 20 years, Jim’s practice has been in the litigation arena, concentrating on personal injury cases. He also does business litigation and just about any other type of litigation of significant size.
As lawyers, one of the biggest things we forget is that, while our clients hire us, we really should be thanking them for opening up. Therefore, it’s essential to gain their trust so they also gain confidence in us.
When people hire a lawyer, they’re most likely going through a life-changing event, especially in a significant injury or death case. These types of events are extremely tough on them. You have to trust them to be able to tell their stories and tell them well.
Jim highlights the importance of understanding how people express love in a relationship, especially in wrongful death cases where we’re talking to juries. You have to trust that your clients are going to get there and be themselves. Even if the way they get to be themselves isn’t perfect, as long as people are being authentic, jurors will respect them.
In this episode, you will hear:
- An overview of Jim’s case
- How to facilitate a relationship with your clients
- Changes and challenges in the courtroom after the pandemic
- How Jim prepared his client (a deceased husband’s wife) for trial
- How to do witness prep
- What Jim brought out of his client’s testimony and used for his closing
- The results of the case and what Jim could have done differently
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Episode Transcript:
Hello, my fellow podcast listeners. I’m excited to share this interview with my very good friend, Jim Lyons, where we talk about his recent trial post COVID and the things that he did to connect his client to the jury. We talk about several different ways to do that. So let’s jump right in.
All right. Well, I am very excited to introduce everyone to my dear friend and fabulous attorney, Mr. Jim Lyons. Jim practices up in Arkansas and it’s been doing that for a little while. I’d say I made a little bit 40 years or more. So Jim, if you wouldn’t mind, just tell us a little bit about yourself and what you practice.
Sure. I practice primarily in the litigation arena, concentrating on personal injury cases, but I also do business litigation, just about any type of [00:01:00] litigation of significant size I do. I have been doing that primarily for the past 15, 20 years. I used to do more transactional work in business, but I’ve gotten away from that.
I’ve got a partner that handles most of that now. Primarily personal injury, but I still do a good bit of business litigation because we handle a lot of business litigation So awesome, and you know you and I met probably Been about five or six years ago through doing some continuing legal education classes together with At the time it was called the reptile now.
It’s the keen and edge I think did we was it a I want to say it was a seminar maybe we met at for the first time. I think that that’s correct, but I wouldn’t swear to that. Might have been, might have been a course, but I think it was probably a seminar. Sure. A lot of things we’ve done together along the road, so I’m really excited to have you join us here today because you have.
Absolutely. You have gotten [00:02:00] to actually go back into the courtroom after COVID. And I know a lot of us are super curious about your experience and you know, maybe things that you did a little differently or maybe the courtroom was positioned differently. So I’d like to us to talk a little about that, but I also want us to know, get everybody, you know, what we’re going to talk about also today is really the.
direct exam that you did of your client and the things that you used to have her and her story connect with the jury. But before we jump into that, let’s talk a little bit about, give us a quick synopsis of the case that went to jury so we can follow along with the story. Okay. Well, I’ve had two cases, but the PI case that I had, it was a case involving a trucking company where a trucking company ran Through a railroad crossing.
And it was in a railroad yard, [00:03:00] so they were shoving cars backwards. And my client was riding on the back of the train, and caused, the truck caused the car to derail, and it fell on top of him. And literally landed on his head. Alright, and you have, I mean, this is a case, I remember when we kind of talked about it before, you’ve had this case for a while.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We started, it occurred in 2017. We started the litigation late 17, early 18. Uh, got postponed for over a year because of COVID. And just recently in Arkansas, they’ve started jury trials. My first one was in May, and then this one was in October. Okay. And, uh, you know, as far as, kind of, You know, introducing who your client was, tell us a little bit about who your client was in this particular case.
My client was a [00:04:00] personal representative of the estate. Her name is Marla Melton. She and her husband had been married for over 40 years and, uh, salt of the earth people. Just a wonderful, wonderful family. And that made the case that much more enjoyable. Awesome. And I know, uh, along the way you guys became fairly, uh, uh, tight knit, good relationship.
What are some of the things that you did to help facilitate that relationship with your client? Well, the main thing that you have to do in order to do that is do two things. One, you have to spend a lot of time with your client and I don’t mean like a few hours. I mean, hours and hours and hours, and you have to spend it on their turf, not coming into your office and just sitting.
I’ve been to their home, I’ve been to their kids home, I’ve [00:05:00] met them at places to go out to eat. They’re from near Little Rock, and I’m in Jonesboro, which is about an hour and a half away. And so, there’s no telling how many times I drove down there and met with them. But a lot of times, and spend a lot of time with them.
And that’s essential to gaining their trust and them gaining confidence in you. And that’s what you gotta have, to try a case and try it well. Gotcha. And when this case came in the door, did you kind of already know when you’re meeting with them, when you’re learning about this, this is going to be a case that’s, that’s going to trial?
Or did you think that there was a possibility of settlement? No, I really thought that there was a possibility of settlement. But they did have a decent defense to the case because my client was partially at fault. And so that’s what they were banking on. They thought they could prove that he was equally or [00:06:00] more at fault.
And therefore, it was a case that Originally, I didn’t think was going to trial, but the more I learned about their defense, the more I understood why that they thought it should go to trial and why we had to go to trial. So there was, uh, no offer case until just a week or two before trial. And then during trial, trial did not go as well for them as they wanted.
And so they made one significant move, but it wasn’t nearly enough. And so my clients, main point was to prove that he was not the one who was primarily at fault. And so that’s what we accomplished. Gotcha. Okay. And just to kind of unravel the story just a little bit so that our fellow podcasters listening understand you had in this case, the, the truck driver, the truck driver company, and also the employer, the railroad [00:07:00] company of the deceased husband, right?
Right. They were all defendants. There were actually two trucking companies involved. Then the Little Rock Port Authority and the driver were the four defendants in the case. Okay. So you’re juggling kind of a lot of preparation on top of kind of weaving the story and liability all at the same time. Yes.
Yes. And the Little Rock Port Authority was not a primary defendant because that’s a FILA claim for those of you who are familiar with that and your damages are severely limited in under FILA and so from the outset we knew that and our intent was to put as much fault as possible on the trucking company and the driver as possible and to minimize the fault of the uh, Little Rock Port Authority.
Okay. And at the same time, you said the [00:08:00] defendants had a really good kind of hold on liability or kind of a defense, which would be blaming the deceased husband, right? Yes. My client was riding on the back of the train, which he, where he was supposed to be riding, but he also, he was the foreman of the railroad crew.
And under the Federal Railroad Administration rules and regulations, as well as under the rules of the Little Rock Port Authority, the crossing was supposed to be covered, as they call it. And there was no traffic for a while, and so the crossing was not covered, because they didn’t see any traffic until the last few seconds, but there’s no excuse for that under the Federal Railroad Administration regulations.
Okay, so you got four defendants in the case. They’re all blaming your deceased husband and you got your, your client is the, the widow. [00:09:00] Let’s talk a little bit about before we jump into kind of her and, and helping her get ready and what actually happened at trial. Tell me a little bit about, you know, going into this courtroom, like you said, it’s your second trial after the pandemic, you know, Were there any modifications to the courtroom, to, you know, masks, and I know a lot of people are super curious about your experience in going back in the courtroom after the pandemic.
Can you talk a little about that? Sure. In both of the cases that I’ve tried, it was done fairly similarly. In the first one I tried, we actually chose, uh, voir dire in a gymnasium. And so that was an experience. That was the first time I’d done that. And then, in this case, we, they didn’t have a place nearby.
And so we had to do them in groups. And we did groups of 18 in the courtroom. Everybody had to be masked. But, when you were speaking, [00:10:00] You did not have to be masked. And so we would have jurors stand up, take off their masks, and then answer questions. And same thing for me. When I was questioning, I could take off my mask.
When defense attorneys were questioning, they could take off their masks. And so the witnesses on the stand also, if they’re on the stand and answering questions, they could take them out. Okay. After Gwadir, when we got into the trial, the witnesses were allowed to take off their masks. And that was true in both of the cases that I’ve tried.
Did you have any kind of concerns about You know, missing any body language from the jurors after they were seated in the box? Oh, absolutely. Because all you can see is essentially from here up, because they were required to wear their masks throughout the trial. And so it’s much tougher to read them when you can’t see their entire face.
So that was one of the things that’s a challenge. in Arkansas right [00:11:00] now in regard to COVID. So, it’s something that, that you have to work at. Uh, but it’s hard, it’s something that becomes much harder because I’m used to been trying cases for 40 plus years and have read body language for a long time, have studied it, feel like I’m decent at it, I’m not great by any means, but it makes it much tougher to do that when you can’t see the person’s entire face.
And were they spread out six feet or were they still sitting in the box together? No, they were spread out. They actually had them, and we had, in this case, we had half of the jurors directly in front of you were, as, The podium was already set up and it was not one that you could move because it was a good size.
And but then I had half of the jurors sitting to my right and so I would have to turn to them [00:12:00] to talk to them for a while. Then I would have to turn back to the jurors who are in the box. And then we also had alternates who were sitting to My left and what would be the right side of the box if you’re sitting in the box.
So we had jurors on both sides of the box and you had to try and be sure you were addressing everybody. And so that’s a challenge. It’s fairly easy to make eye contact with people if they’re all right in front of you. It’s hard to do that when you’ve got to turn this way. And then you’ve got to turn this way and then you’ve got to turn this way.
So did you practice that at all? As far as knowing where they were going to be seated, did you, you know, if you’re practicing opening or questioning, did you kind of do that body movement to get used to it? No, because unfortunately, uh, we did not know we were going to trial in this case until the Friday before.
The judge was not as good as he should have been in my estimation [00:13:00] in regard to telling us whether we were going or not. And uh, We could not even get into the courtroom to know what the setup was going to be. And we didn’t know literally until we walked down that morning to see what the setup was in my other case, everybody was seated in front of me.
They just added a row in front of the box. And so I. I could face everybody straight on, which was much more normal. I was just farther away. But in this case, we had them spread essentially on three areas of the courtroom. And so it was tough for, in this case, to do it and to communicate with them and much tougher to talk to people over here and here and here, as opposed to just those in front of you.
Absolutely. And, you know, we talked about finding out late at, you know, it’s really kind of a common problem that we have with most people that are, [00:14:00] you know, judges aren’t letting people know until, you know, two or three days ahead. But I know from having talked to you about this case before you guys had done a lot of preparation, you know, as far as focus groups and having, you know, the pieces opening those kinds of things done in leading up to October.
So you guys had actually really tried to be prepared In the event of trial, right? Yeah, and unfortunately another thing that this judge did was to postpone the pretrial hearings until the very end. And so we were focus grouping it one way, and then we found out the judge was going to keep out.
Significant amount of evidence because he would not let us pursue a direct negligence claim against the trucking companies and we had 45 minutes of video clips and of those 45 minutes of video clips from one of the owners of one of the [00:15:00] trucking companies, I was only able to use 20 minutes and 22 seconds because he Prevented me from using the rest of that, which that, that was the thing that substantially reduced the value in the case because the personal responsibility of my client.
Became a non factor when you got in all the evidence against the trucking company because the trucking company was so bad but when you kept out the trucking company information trucking company evidence and trucking company admissions from the One of the owners of the trucking company then it became a much much closer case Because now you’re just comparing the driver To the guy who’s on the back of the train, and they both essentially had close to equal duties, although trains do have the right of way.
So that substantially changed the case, how we had to try [00:16:00] it, and the value of the case. Gotcha. Yeah, and I remember we, uh, when we did that focus group together, we definitely had in mind that those things would be able to come into the jury, and that made quite a bit of difference in our, in our adversarial focus group.
Right. Right. Gotcha. Gotcha. And that’s actually one of the things, you know, as far as in Texas, that’s one of the newest things that we have going for us as there’s a big change in the law, you know, no, we can’t have direct actions against a trucking company. So, you know, that’s something that we’re going to be facing here, you know, in the next few months, how to pursue those and waiting for one of those to go to trial, uh, to see what happens.
So, well, let’s talk a little bit about your client, Marla. Let’s talk a little bit about getting her ready, but really I’m curious about what were things that you saw in her story that connected her to, to jurors? Well, she, I mean, the people who are old enough to remember Ozzie and Harriet. [00:17:00] If you don’t, it was a story of raising kids, but it was a perfect marriage.
And You know, even though my parents were very much like that, I was very lucky. There’s wasn’t perfect, but it was near perfect. But I mean, this, if there was ever a perfect marriage, perfect marriage between Marla and Donald Melt, they’d been married, they were high school sweethearts, got married when she was 17 and he was 18, married for 40 plus years.
He’d worked two jobs in his entire life. He worked at, uh, General Electric until that plant closed and then worked, uh, went to work for the Little Rock Port Authority and worked for them for the rest of his life until he was killed. And so what were some things you wanted to bring out on direct exam for her to talk about?
Well, we brought out the [00:18:00] length of their marriage. They did literally everything together as a family, including their two adult children, uh, and grandkids. Donald was a huge hunter. Uh, his son went, grandkids went, The whole family went plus friends. That was something that was the highlight of his life separate from Marla.
That was really about the only thing that he ever did separate from her besides go to work. Uh, so, and the rest of the time they spent. everything together. Growing up in the Bible Belt, they were religious, and so they did everything at the church, essentially, that you could possibly do. And so, as a result of that, they literally I mean, she was absolutely, positively one of the best clients I’ve ever had as far as the [00:19:00] defense not being able to even touch her.
In fact, they did not even cross examine her at trial. They didn’t even cross examine any of the kids at trial. Because There was absolutely nothing that could be said about Marla Melton that was bad. Nothing that could be said about either of the children that were bad. So, that part made it extremely easy for me.
Okay, and that was actually one of my questions. Were you ever worried about cross exam questions when it came to Marla? I was never worried about that. Uh, we’d spend a good deal of time with him. Uh, knew she was fully prepared. I also knew the defense attorney for the Leroy Port Authority. And I were more or less on the same side, even though technically we weren’t, because I had told him from the very beginning, I’m not after your client, because Anything I get from y’all is going to be so substantially reduced [00:20:00] that I don’t want any fault on you And he saw enough that he believed me and he knew that I was going to be truthful about that and I wasn’t pulling the wool over his eyes and so He said after we met with them.
He said he and the other defense attorney talked and they were like, oh We can’t Touch these people and we’re not going to touch these people. So I knew that the likelihood of anything, unless there was some surprise at trial, uh, that they weren’t going to be able to do anything with them. So it made, it made it easy.
Usually you don’t have it that easy with, uh, Sure. Sure. What were some of the things I know, you know, wrongful death cases can present unique challenges when it comes to damages and having people talk about the damages because you’re kind of riding that line between, you know, sympathy and empathy. What were some of the things that you [00:21:00] had her either talk about or give examples or stories about when it came to, you know, the grief she experienced in the loss.
Yeah, the main thing we did to her so she didn’t come across as boo hoo, woe is me, because that generally doesn’t sit too well with jurors, uh, was to simply tell her, Story and their, I had them tell their story through a lot of pictures, and they took pictures at everything Donald attended every birth of every child and every grandchild and their family, and so it was very easy to do that.
Because they had taken pictures for years and years and years. I mean, back when all you had was a Polaroid camera. Uh, and so that made it very easy for us to tell their story. And [00:22:00] then we were able to tell his story through his work records, his commendations at work. He had joined the military just because he felt like he needed to.
And he joined when he was 34, and which was light. He was in the National Guard. He was not actually in active duty, although he was selected to be in active duty and was actually getting ready to go, uh, overseas to the Middle East. And a day or two before that happened, he ended up, they ended up canceling those orders and stuff.
But it was interesting because he competed against, uh, 18, 19, 20 year olds and everything and virtually every medal that you could possibly get he got it. Gotcha. So you guys really used photographs to [00:23:00] tell stories and then you know was there anything in that you used from after he was gone to help kind of contrast that?
Well, we used before and after witnesses. Uh, we used people who were witnesses who knew them beforehand and then knew them afterwards. They objected to a couple of them. The judge overruled them and allowed those witnesses to testify. But we didn’t call 20. We had about five or six of our best ones. And Uh, that worked well as far as I was concerned because they, they were not able to do much cross examination of, of, uh, before and after witnesses.
And they had some excellent before and after witnesses for us that, that Marla was able to get. So, that part made it easy too. Okay. And was there any particular stories that stick out to you that the before and afters could tell that maybe your family [00:24:00] clients couldn’t talk about? Yeah. I mean, it was the loss that we didn’t want Marla talking about and how it’s affected her.
And how she’s become depressed, and how she used to be always happy, always talkative to these people. And now she just kind of makes her way through. Now, certainly, she’s still trying to get on with her life, and we wanted to portray that as best as possible. But, with the, through the before and after witnesses, you could tell that there was a significant loss to her.
And when you lose a partner, and I mean truly a partner for 40 years, it’s a significant loss. Absolutely. And did you, um, we talked a little bit about demonstratives as far as using pictures. Were there any other demonstratives that you used with, you know, either Marla or the other family members? [00:25:00] Yeah, the two main things that were used with Marla besides pictures and Donald’s medals were.
We had his lunchbox and we had a chain. He was, uh, past retirement age, actually. But he had agreed to stay on at the railroad through the end of the month of June, and he was down to eight days, and somebody in their group had made a chain with a circle for every day, and they were connected. And when he would get home every day, he would cut.
One circle off. And so he was literally counting down the days until he was fully retired because I had plans for travel. We threw their financial planner, who also was in their church, were able to tell about their, their plans for travel. And we let him tell about [00:26:00] that. The other thing that we used that I thought was powerful, certainly hit home with Marla and hit home with several of the jurors was his lunchbox.
And when I say lunchbox, I mean, the true lunchbox that most of the kids had growing up. He took a lunchbox to school. It’s the true lunchbox. It was black lunchbox, had a thermostat, thermos in it. And she had packed that for him every single day that he went to work throughout their entire marriage, which was 40 plus years.
She knew that we had that. She didn’t know for sure we were going to use it. Don’t prepare them for that sort of thing because you want the true emotion coming out. And that was actually what a lot of times when I talk to lawyers and, you know, in, in, we’re teaching witness prep, we get excited. Sometimes as lawyers, we have this really cool, you know, [00:27:00] demonstrative.
And we want to just, you know, slap it out there to really have a shock factor and any of this emotional, you know, impact to the client while they’re on the stand. But I appreciate you kind of pointing out that the client knew that you had it, that she knew that it was a possibility, but that you guys kind of reserved whether or not to actually put it out there, but she had the knowledge that it was going to, that it could come.
Yeah, that was correct. And of course when she pulled it out, or when we pulled it out, then what happened was of course she immediately laughed and then just started crying. And there were several of the jurors who were crying too. And that, you know, that’s kind of the, it’s one of the things we always want to do is make sure it’s authentic.
And so did you really feel like you guys had gotten true authentic reaction to her instead of, you know, trying to pull heartstrings and being sympathetic? Oh, absolutely. I mean, she did an excellent job of [00:28:00] testifying strong testimony because there were parts of it that were lighthearted. where she would be laughing about things that she remembered, but then there were parts of it where she would be crying.
And so you try to balance that because you don’t want her sitting up there, live, just crying all of the time. Uh, I think that the juror thinks, Oh, well, they’re doing this for purposes of sympathy, and these are crocodile tears. With her, You could tell they were real. Is that something, you know, like you said, you’ve really studied body language and people, and I know we’ve talked a lot about, you know, psychology of all, you know, people and clients and that kind of thing.
Did you know pretty early on like, The Marla that you were talking to was, you know, the true Marla, you know, there wasn’t any putting on any airs and she was, she was just kind of a really authentic person. Yeah, I mean, it didn’t [00:29:00] take long to figure that out, you know, because first time I met him, I spent a long time with him and then try to spend a good length of time with him every time I’m with him.
You know, go out to eat, do things on their home turf where they’re comfortable, and then you get to know a person. If they’re coming in, sitting in your office, and that’s all they ever do, you don’t get to know them that way. And so you, you have to spend some time. You’ve done that for me in the Med Mal case, and spent two days with one of my clients.
And that’s actually learned on I knew that but I saw it through you and so it’s something that you do extremely well. Well, I appreciate you saying that that’s one of my one of my favorite times spending time with her was such a wonderful. Like eye opening experience. Um, so I appreciate you let me [00:30:00] spend some time with her and of course, you know one of the biggest things I think we forget is You know, they hire us But we should really thank them for opening up because it you know People are going through a life changing event when they have to hire a lawyer, you know Sure, and and especially when it’s a significant injury or death case So when you have that occur, that’s extremely tough on them And you have to gain their trust.
And then you have to trust them to be able to tell the story and to tell it well. Right. Absolutely. And that’s one of the things that I always try to convey to other lawyers is, you know, do you trust them? Do you trust they’re going to get there and be themselves? And just because maybe the way that they get to be themselves isn’t what you, it’s not perfect, you know, but as long as people are being authentic, juror will totally, you know, jurors will respect that a hundred percent.
Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. [00:31:00] So was there anything else that you, you know, we talked about the lunchbox, you know, were there any other things that you felt or stories that while Marla was on the stand, you could kind of see the jury connecting with her? Yeah. The, the, the one thing that, that I think I connected with was his entry into the military.
You know, because he felt a calling to do that and so he felt it was his obligation and so I think that that helped connect one of the things I’ve also done here is, you know, what did you choose and what did you kind of bring back to the jury from Marla’s testimony and using closing? Well, primarily it was about their relationship and.
You could tell that through a lot of the pictures, and you could also tell that I used the lunchbox. We kept the lunchbox after, uh, [00:32:00] we used it, it stayed on council table, so it was there for the jury to see every time they came in, and then I carried it with me to the podium and kept it on the floor, and then put it up on the podium.
When I got to that point in my closing where I wanted them to see it and to recall, because it did bring back so many memories to her because it epitomized 40 plus years. Right. You know, one of the things that I always talk about with, especially in, you know, wrongful death cases is when we’re talking to the juries, it’s really helpful for people to understand how.
You know, in a relationship, how people express love and so many times it comes down to service and making someone’s lunch every day for 40 years, you know, wow, 40 years and oh man, that’s love, you know, that’s service because there’s got to be days you don’t want to do that. Oh, absolutely. There’d be days where [00:33:00] I wouldn’t do it.
And I’d say, honey, you’re going to make your own lunch today. Sorry. Exactly, exactly. Well, awesome. Well, I really want you to tell everybody what ultimately what the results were with with the case. The results were that we had, there were four questions that jurors had to ask or answer. The first question was whether, and the trucking companies were not on there from the standpoint of the trucking company’s fault for failure to monitor, failure to train, failure to supervise, failure to qualify, et cetera, which we had a ton of information on, which.
Totally inflamed the jurors and made archives work for them. If that evidence had come in without that, then we’re left with simply showing, uh, what the trucker [00:34:00] did wrong, and we couldn’t explain that so much of this. He became the bad guy rather than the trucking company. And if you make the trucking company the bad guy, as well as the trucker, but it’s not the trucker’s fault, then they’re going to be a hell of a lot madder at the trucking company than they’re going to be at an elderly gentleman who’s driving a truck and still trying to make a living at his age.
And so that. reduced to from the focus groups and I went back and checked just to see in all the focus groups we did, and I probably did between 15 and 20 focus groups for this case, in all the focus groups we did, we averaged about 1. 7 percent fault on my client. Um, in this case, they answered 12 0. That it was the fault of the [00:35:00] truck driver.
Uh, then I answered 11 to 1 that Donald Milton had some fault in it. They then Answered out of order the damage question, and then they sent a question out to us in writing, as they’re allowed to do under Arkansas law, where the bailiff brings out a question that jury asks, and I said, they wanted to know what the effect of Posting fault or putting fault on Donald Melton would be on their verdict.
Arkansas is one of those states, unfortunately, where you don’t get to tell them. I know in Florida, you get to tell them because it’s in the jury instructions and tell them exactly what happened. Uh, they had already determined the amount of damages that they wanted to award, which was 4 million. But then, because they didn’t get the answer to that question, [00:36:00] unfortunately, they put 40 percent of fault on Donald.
And so in Arkansas, that reduces it by 40%. And so we ended up with a verdict of 2. 4 million. And the defense attorneys knew that they had skated. In fact, one of the defense attorneys said, Well, I guess we’ll get to try this case again. Because he knew the judge was wrong, because there’s strong Arkansas law showing that it’s wrong, because he did allow punitive damages to go to the jury.
But he didn’t let me put any of that evidence in on punitives. And so, had that come in on punitives even, then we would have, got a large punitive award, I anticipate. But because he kept all those things out, it really hurt our case from a damages standpoint. And at one point in time, the defense attorney had actually opened the door to The training issue and so the first question that I got up after her [00:37:00] direct was I asked about training and the judge says counsel approach.
He had us approach the bench and he said I thought we weren’t getting into this and I said judge I agree. We weren’t supposed to but she’s the one who opened the door and She said I did not and he said ma’am you did I heard you and she turned to her Cohort and he said well, I don’t I didn’t hear her say that and he said young man I’m not talking to you.
You shut up. And so this was judge that did not put up with anything but he said I’m not gonna spend four or five more days now trying this on punitive damages and get all this evidence in. And so he said, we’re gonna finish this case and, but I’m going to tell you. Talking to the defense attorney, if you [00:38:00] mention another word that opens the door at all, it’s all coming in and we’ll stay here as long as it takes and she had enough sense to be extremely careful to not even go close to that.
And so that was something that really, really, really hurt us in this case, because I mean, there was just no fault placed on Donald Melton. I mean, I say none, I mean, less than 2 percent fault placed on Donald Melton, unless you just compared the truck driver with Donald Melton. But when you compare the trucking company and the truck driver to Donald Melton, then Donald Melton’s failure to cover the crossing paled in comparison because we had tons of admissions from the trucking company, one of the owners of the trucking company, and that just completely covered over Donald Melton’s.
personal responsibility or negligence in the [00:39:00] case essentially compared to all. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you kind of in wrapping up and I appreciate your your time and I just want to ask, you know, as far as looking at a post pandemic trial and wrongful death, a pretty big employer a little rockport authority And trekking company.
Was there anything different that you did in approaching? The trial knowing it was a post pandemic journey Yeah, I did. I mean one of the questions that I asked in wadir Was to ask about how COVID had affected them because I knew that many of them would say, I haven’t been able to see somebody in their family or somebody that they’re close to, but either because they’re susceptible to.
They have some sort of [00:40:00] complications that are going to cause them. They’ve had been treated for cancer. They have something that if they got COVID, it could really, it could very likely kill them. And so there were several jurors who said something to that effect. And I think that that’s a good thing. An excellent question to ask or something like that.
It doesn’t have to be worded just like that but has covid affected your family because There’s still a lot of people who are affected by it and my family’s affected by it because my sister Has had cancer and said treatment for it. And so she’s just super super super cautious, even though she’s vaccinated To assure that she’s not around people who might give it to her Gotcha.
Um, awesome. Well, is there anything you want to add as far as getting Marla prepared or her direct exam, you know, as far as helping other lawyers kind of preparing their clients for trial? Well, and [00:41:00] you haven’t asked me to say this, but, but, um, what are you going to say? I’m going to say that if you want to learn how to focus group something, use you.
You, one, I’ve seen you prepare witnesses, you do an excellent job at that. I’ve seen you conduct an adversarial focus group all day, you did an excellent job at that. I’d say, I’d be texting you, hey, what about this? And you say, well, we can’t ask that. And there’s always a tendency, even if you’re trained, and I am trained, not to do that.
But sometimes you just can’t help yourself. And that’s why it’s good to have somebody that’s removed at least one or two of your focus groups for a case to make sure you’re not putting your finger on the scale at all. Absolutely. And that’s [00:42:00] sometimes one of the hardest things when you, you know, it’s easy where you’ve got a real big vested interest in making sure that we win.
And sometimes it’s hard to take off our advocate hat and, and put on our researcher hat and ask research questions. So, right, right. Absolutely. I actually, that leads me to a kind of a different question. Did you focus group Marla or any of the family members or before and after witnesses at I really did not, you know, Certainly, if you’ve got, and I would strongly suggest it and recommend it, if you’ve got a client that you’ve got any questions about.
You’ve got questions that you’re going to ask them that you don’t, not really sure whether that answer connects, but I mean, this was one of those cases where you had, the family was so near perfect that. I knew that they were never going to ask [00:43:00] them a question. And the before and after witnesses, they did ask maybe one or two questions and did object and try and prevent us from using some of them, but the judge allowed those in.
And so they really didn’t lay a glove on anybody on that. So, uh, knowing that going in, because I was kind of befriended. And I was befriending to one of the defense attorneys. I learned a little bit about their side, and I knew that they weren’t going there. And, or if they were, they were going to make things a whole lot worse for themselves.
And they at least had enough sense. I don’t give defense lawyers a lot of credit, but they, they had enough sense to know. We’re making a big mistake if we’re trying to attack anybody who’s on the stand talking about this family. Gotcha. Absolutely. Well, awesome. Well, Jim, I really appreciate your time and [00:44:00] jumping on, uh, this podcast to talk about your trial and getting ready, you know, post COVID and then also talking a lot about getting Marla ready and how you helped her tell the story with demonstratives and connecting the jury to her.
Well, thanks. I appreciate you having me and I always enjoy it. Absolutely. Awesome. Thanks so much.
Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Trial Lawyer Prep. We had a great interview with my dear friend, Jim Lyons. We talked about different ways that he used tangible demonstratives to connect his client to the jury. And also made, you know, having testimony be just a little bit more fun and interactive.
Talked about using the lunchbox, photographs, and even medals from the husband’s prior time in the army. I hope everybody enjoyed this episode. If you did, [00:45:00] please subscribe. Or hit a like on whichever podcast app that you’re choosing to listen to on Apple, Google, Stitcher, Spotify, whichever one is your favorite.
Also, if you like the episode, please leave us a great review or just share it with somebody who you feel like might enjoy it. Thanks a bunch.