Attorney Doubles Down on Stupidity

In any personal injury case, there is one person who is in charge of how a trial is run.

That person of course is the trial judge.

An attorney may not like the trial judge. She may think the trial judge is stupid or biased against her.

But one thing is for sure.

When the trial judge makes a decision on a legal issue the attorneys had better follow the order or they will suffer the consequences of disobeying the order.

Apparently that’s what happened recently in a Philadelphia mesh case lawsuit.

The judge made a decision that NO evidence about the FDA later approving the pelvic mesh device would be permitted in the trial.

So what did the defense attorney do?

She asks a witness on cross-examination whether he was aware that the FDA later approved of the pelvic mesh device.

DING DING DING.

That was a direct slap in the face of the judge.

Suffice it to say the judge was not a happy camper.

That was mistake number 1 by the defense attorney.

Then instead of admitting her mistake and apologizing to the court, the defense attorney doubled down on her arrogance.

Incredibly, she tried to say she thought the judges RULING just pertained to testimony in the courtroom and not deposition testimony which was later going to be used in the court room.

If you asked 100 trial attorneys whether her argument gets past the laugh test not a single one of them would say yes.

No one likes to get yelled at by a judge. Every trial attorney has been on the receiving end of a rant of an upset judge.

But boy this defense attorney seemed to have it coming to her.

Check out part of the article below from the legal intelligencer.

The trial judge overseeing the ongoing pelvic mesh trial in Philadelphia had harsh words for a defense attorney during a sanctions hearing, after the attorney was accused of asking a key witness “poisoning” questions in an alleged attempt to sway the witness’ testimony.

The defense attorney’s conduct eventually led the judge to issue a sanctions order Tuesday barring the defense from introducing any portions of its videotaped cross-examination of the witness.
The defense attorney asked the treating doctor in the case during a videotaped cross-examination about whether he was aware that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the pelvic mesh device at issue. However,the trial judge had previously barred attorneys from making any mentions of the FDA.
A sanctions hearing was convened Tuesday after the plaintiff’s counsel objected to the attorney’s line of questioning.
According to a transcript of the hearing, the trial judge began the proceedings with some harsh words for the attorney.
“Poisoning a witness is one of the most vile things you can do as an attorney, as an attorney who is competent and has questioned other witnesses in this case, and I know you can do cross-examination without violating orders, and trial counsel took it upon herself to step outside the bounds of my order and to ask questions about the FDA,” the judge said.
“What you did was so far out of bounds that it’s astounding to me. Having seen you try this case or a piece of this case or the most of this case, I can’t believe that you did this,” Powell said later in the hearing.
The attorney said she believed the order did not apply to depositions.

And how was your day?

Bernie the attorney