I Know Nothing!
What do you do when a corporation
- Doesn’t do an inspection?
- Doesn’t have any incident reports?
- Doesn’t keep any records?
- Doesn’t know what employees were working at the time of the incident?
- Doesn’t have any document creation or retention policy?
- Doesn’t have any written policies or procedures at all?
Or to put it a Southern way. What do you do when a corporation doesn’t know nuthin’ about nothing?
We’ve all encountered situations like that, both in life and the practice of law. We had a situation of that nature and for a demonstrative exhibit at closing arguments, we had a blow up of Sergeant Schultz from Hogan Heroes.
What kind of person can know absolutely nothing about nothing? One who is purposefully and studiously looking the other way. It’s hard to make a man see, when he makes his living by being blind.
Corporations aren't the only ones guilty. What is a defense attorney to do when a claimant can't remember when he had surgery, or which doctor performed the surgery, or what part of his body was injured, etc.
It seems the practice of looking the other way is employed by those (corps or individuals) who are lazy, have something to hide... or both.
I won't even begin to vent on discovery abuse. We've all seen it. But, I'm never afraid to put an idiot HR Rep, or an idiot claimant on the stand. If they come across as noncompliant and evasive in a deposition, the same will happen at trial.
Philip,
You're right, sometimes claimants play dumb. However, I do workers comp and see sometimes construction people that do the same thing day in and day out and everything runs together.
They don't know what month or sometimes what year things happened in. They aren't playing dumb, they honestly don't know. I can see where that would be frustrating for a defense attorney and can affect their credibility, though.
So when do we get a blog on the new SC Workers Comp law from the Claimant's perspective?
It ought to be interesting how it 'plays out' in the real system.
