Karen Koehler

View Original

Deposition - helping a deponent put foot in mouth

The plane lands in the Tri Cities.  Am on way to rental car.  Defendants pull up in a work truck.  They are picking up Doug - the defense lawyer.  They motion for me to come on over.  They want to give me a lift.  How sweet is that.

Pull self into smelly dirty diesel.  Am wearing jeans so doesn't matter.  All good.

They are being very kind.  Charming.  Yucking it up with me.  Hoping I'll be sweet and kind during deposition.  Yuck it up right back.  Arrive at the office of friend lawyer, Jay Flynn.  We're going to conduct the depositions there.

Our client, Candelario is a quadriplegic.   He fell on a job site in the middle of nowhere.  There was no safety anything in place at all.  To make matters worse, he lay on the ground for hours waiting to be rescued.   These fellas bid a job, subcontracted it out, and thought all they had to do was rake in the profit.  Didn't realize that under the Stute case, they actually had an obligation to make sure the work site was safe.

Here are some excerpts from a deposition that proves yet again - honey works better than vinegar.

safetydepo.pdf