McLAUGHLIN v. SHINSATO
Insurance Fraud case. This was an example of how some carriers are assigning cases to their SIU units when they aren’t really fraud, apparently because their SIU units are very successful. This was a rear-ender accident involving claimed injury when there was none. I broke my rule against ever allowing a lawyer on the jury, especially a defense lawyer. I allowed a guy to sit even though he had been an unsuccessful candidate for a job that I had interviewed him for years ago with a prior law firm, because he assured me in voir dire that he wouldn’t allow his experience in evaluating cases to be part of the deliberations. He lied of course, and couldn’t help himself. He just had to be the smartest guy in the room, telling everyone that three times the medical expenses was the industry standard. He turned around people who only wanted to give $1,000 and secured a 9-3, $6,000 verdict for the plaintiff when I was about to get under a $3,000 CCP 998 offer.