As Abraham said: he who represents himself in a court of law has a fool for a client. Your friend What today made an appearance in small claim's court and was railroaded by a two-bit lawyer with a Karl Malden nose. Let me say this, that smoking gun you think you have: is ****. Don't believe it. I thought I was smart enough to outwit this lawyer, but he beat me on a technicality. Then he used what as his own witness in what's own case. Yeah. That happened. The b*stard. I learned a few things though: if you want to introduce evidence, it better be 1 to 1. Better not be one thing different. Did you know that you can't mention how much your repairs for a car were in court? I didn't. Or that a police report is irrelevant. What's review of the court system is not a favorable one.
Yes.. Even a cheap lawyer is better than no lawyer .. You can use reports and evidence but it has to be authentic and verified.. So a lawyer from a garbage program against someone with no law background.. The lawyer will win just about every time because the lawyer can have everything thrown out if it's not presented correctly. The judge will feel bad (if they're a good person etc.) but will have to side with the lawyer since you didn't follow the local/state/federal Court system's laws/rules etc. regarding evidence. This isn't tv and the court system has made sure a commoner is screwed unless they've read up (a lot)/been in a lot of court rooms. A lawyer who failed out of law school (if they could be hired, they can't) would be better than nothing, even if your case is a guaranteed win you'll still lose if you didn't follow procedures. Tl;Dr , you will lose if you don't have some background in law, no matter how good your case is.
The guy beat me because I couldn't present my most important part of my case. His argument was all narrative and preventing me from presenting my part of the case. I was floored when the judge told me that I could not tell the jury how much they paid to repair my car. I mean I know the law is for the insurance companies all the way, but they have it locked down. If your evidence isn't 1 to 1 (and anally-so) you might as well not present it, it ain't getting admitted. Not without an expert witness, anyway.
I think that Jeremy Bentham quote fits well here: "The power of the lawyer is in the uncertainty of the law". Take it as a lesson, next time just get a lawyer. I'm also agreeing with daywalker here not a big fan of the third person writing(Illeism) unless it's a cultural or religious thing.
Yes it is the federal rule that the fact someone is or isn’t insured isn’t admissible for that plain fact... and it shouldn’t be admissible, it isn’t relevant.
It means that you can't mention the insurance, in most circumstances. That means anything that would indicate that the defendant has insurance coverage. No laws, nothing. It doesn't just mean that you can't make the argument that the defendant had liability insurance. If you even mention insurance in any context your case is a mistrial waiting to happen. I still don't know why the judge told me that I could not mention that my car's repair bill was 4,347.00. That I was bared from saying that. That would seem like information that the jury would need to know. It was a plain fact. But the lawyer can argue from a picture that see his car wasn't damaged: which is plain lying to the jury. Anyway. I'm not a laywer, but I know if I can't mention that, the insurance companies probably had something to do with it. I can't even ask: in voir doir if anyone here handles claims for the insurance companies.
You shouldn’t be able to mention the fact someone has insurance coverage. It had no bearing on the case and is highly prejudicial. You should be able to ask someone in jury questioning where someone works and what their job duties are. I have in both state and federal court nearly 100 times. It is all in how you ask the question. Most lawyers are afraid to go to trial. So I give you a lot of credit for doing it pro se.
It's okay, I made those bastards pay anyway. In hindsight, yeah I probably should have taken the amount they threw at me in judges chambers. I just hope I cost statefarm $2000 to try this case. If I did that it was all worth it.
Yeah, I was idiot enough to think I could win. But again, I think in hindsight, when we were in judges chambers, I should have told that lawyer that I have an expert witness and he is going to testify on my behalf. I bet that would have spooked him. Because the guy had no case, he beat me on procedure alone. He used me to get a Carfax report admitted to the jury, which was good. I give him credit for that. Because by asking me about the report, instead of trying to get it admitted: I couldn't object to it. I had to answer the question. The Carfax report was doctored by statefarm, who reported to Carfax that my car had minor bumper damage. So the jury had that information. But really all of his other case was just trying to slander me and build the defendant up, which had no relevance to the decision and I doubt the jury even cared about that at the end of the day. All they really cared about was that they had no evidence from me that my car lost value because I could not present it.
