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Twists at trial.

Article Excerpt
Sometimes the unexpected happens during a trial: A witness changes her story, a defense demonstration shows more than it was supposed to, a client's truthfulness is suddenly called into question. How you deal with such moments can make or break your case. Here, four lawyers share their stories.

Sandbagged in Seattle

TODD W. GARDNER

"Connie, I think we've been sandbagged," I said to my paralegal as I sat down after receiving a completely unexpected, and shocking, answer from a key scene witness.

We were in the middle of a six-week road-design case against the city of Seattle. We represented Samia, a wonderful wife, mother, and talented computer technology professional who was unable to return to work after she was severely disabled in an auto accident.

One morning, Samia was turning left out of a Costco parking lot to go north onto a 35-mph, four-lane city street. Traffic was backed up in the southbound curb lane as cars waited to turn into the parking lot. As Samia slowly proceeded into her turn, the driver's side of her car was T-boned by a full-size van traveling south at 60 mph.

Both Costco and the city knew that vehicles often backed up in the southbound curb lane, making it extremely difficult for drivers turning left out of the parking lot to see fast-moving southbound traffic in the adjacent lane. In the previous seven years, about 100 similar collisions had occurred at the same spot as the high-speed impact that almost killed Samia.

Moreover, Costco and private citizens had repeatedly put city engineers on notice of the hazards drivers faced as they exited the parking lot. The city had analyzed and evaluated this dangerous condition on several occasions, yet had done nothing to correct the problem.

Although we were able to settle in mediation with Costco and the driver's carrier, the city was unwilling to offer Samia a reasonable amount on her claims. We prepared for trial.

In general, the testimony of the witnesses to Samia's accident was consistent at depositions: Samia crept out slowly from the lot and looked both ways. After she began to accelerate to turn left, witnesses said, they heard the sound of the van's fires lock up as it skidded into her car.

The key scene witness was Linda, who had a clear view of the collision as the driver of the first vehicle in the line waiting to turn into the Costco lot. While the other witnesses concluded that Samia had done everything she could to see around the backed-up vehicles and that it was the speed of the van combined with the hazardous turning situation that were primarily responsible for the accident, Linda's impression was different. She thought it was unfair that after the accident everyone was yelling at the driver of the van and at Costco employees, "when it was clear that it was the lady turning left who was at fault."

During Linda's deposition, we learned that when she was 19 years old, she had hit a dog that had run out in front of her car, and afterward, "everyone was yelling" at her. She always felt that she had been blamed unfairly. From my perspective, it appeared that in our case she had "bonded" with the driver of the van based...

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