The Sun was in my Eyes
The teenage Defendant driving a Lexus SC 400 rear ended my client. He claimed the car wreck was caused because the sun was in his eyes and suddenly blinded him. We hired an expert in sun positioning to re-create the accident scene including the position of the sun at the time. Our expert witness disproved the Defendant’s arguments.
The taillights weren’t working
The twenty something Defendant driving a van told the police officer he looked down from the road to pick up a cell phone just before he crashed into the back of my client’s car. After the lawsuit was filed, he couldn’t remember whether my client’s car’s taillights were on before the wreck. We hired an engineer to examine the client’s car. The Defendant also hired an engineer. Both engineers looked at the client’s car’s taillight and agreed it was working at the time of the accident.
The “He tripped over his own feet” defense
In a serious fall case, a homeowners association’s President stated that his eyewitnesses (who all happened to live there) clearly saw that my client had tripped forward before falling down a flight of stairs that had no handrail. We hired a biomechanical engineer to examine the injuries sustained in the fall. He determined that the method of the fall suggested by the defense was inconsistent with the story told by the Defendant.
All of these defenses required us to hire experts to disprove arguments. This costs thousands of dollars but illustrates the lengths that some insurance companies will go to avoid responsibility for serious injuries. Good lawyers have to do their homework to find experts to disprove these frivolous defenses.