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Welcome to Jersey Justice, a civil law podcast that shares

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practical tips and stories about personal and workplace injuries.

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Joined two of the brightest New Jersey injury attorneys, Gerald Clark

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and Mark Morris of Clark Law Firm.

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As they take you behind the scenes of.

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Justice and civil law.

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But first, a quick disclaimer.

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The information shared on this podcast is for general information purposes only.

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Nothing on this site should be taken as legal advice for any

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individual case or situation.

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This information is not intended to create and does not constitute

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an attorney client relationship.

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today we're gonna be continuing the conversation about construction

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accidents and also the litigation process and what happens.

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And I'm here with Jerry and Mark, and we're gonna be continuing this talk.

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And today we really wanna dive into some aspects of what happens.

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For example, if, let's say, Clark Law Firm, accept your case.

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Like what can a client expect, you know, in that procedure and that

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process of what's gonna happen.

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So Jerry, start us off with that information.

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Thanks, dimple.

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So the, the way it works, we talked about the intakes and the

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intake process in a prior episode.

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So if we accept the case and decide to move forward with it, we'll do some

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investigation that could take, you know, , it's hard to say how long that

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takes because all cases are different.

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It could take days, weeks, months, sometimes longer If we decide to

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then move forward with the case.

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Basically we'll start by sending claim letters out.

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To the contractors on the job that we think were involved.

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The different parties that we think were involved, generally, they'll send

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them to their insurance company and then the insurance company will start

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to be, corresponding with us, asking us questions, that kind of thing.

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In our experience, these cases pretty much never settled before

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a lawsuit is filed, usually often because there's a lot of parties

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involved, the injuries can be severe.

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And the insurance company wants to conduct like a full investigation, which they

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can often only get through litigation.

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So more times than not, we're gonna actually put the case in court.

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And what that means is we file an actual complaint with the court,

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which is a pleading that names the parties that we think are potentially

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responsible or did something wrong.

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And we say in the complaint, you know, we talk about the injuries and what the

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damages are and what we're looking for.

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In New Jersey, we don't put a dollar amount that we're looking for.

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There's a rule against that because in New York you are allowed to put that in

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and then someone puts in, we're seeking 10 million, and then they get these

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headlines and in the news that say, oh, fell on sidewalk suing for 10 million.

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You know, it's just kind stupid.

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So in New Jersey, We don't put dollar amounts in there that, that we're seeking.

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But anyway, that gets the case started, and then once the case

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has started in court, the complaint gets served on the parties.

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And then the litigation starts, and then the parties are supposed to

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file an answer to the complaint.

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And then once they've answered the complaint, then discovery is

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served on the parties, and discovery is basically written questions,

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you know, what are your injuries?

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What happened?

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And then we ask written questions to the other side as well.

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And then we also do demand for documents, which is, it's like a court caption

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document that has a list of the documents that we're looking for in the case.

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And then, you know, it's funny, in this episode we're talking about like

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the litigation phase and an overview.

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You could literally give a course on the litigation phase.

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You could give an entire law school course on just one

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aspect of the litigation phase.

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So we're doing this at a super kind of overview way, and then the process starts

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and the process can take anywhere from.

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A year, three years, six years or more, the wheels of justice run

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slow, but they do run, they do turn.

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And with Covid it's made things even slower.

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And this is all just the, the basic litigation phase.

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And then you go through like this discovery part that we talked about.

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And then depositions are often done where we'll take depositions of the

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people, the contractors and and the people that are running the job.

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And then they'll take the deposition of the plaintiff and then they'll

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send the plaintiff for a medical exam.

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And then we'll serve medical reports and then, We'll often get reports from experts

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like engineers or safety officials.

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And then will the insurance companies and these, these corporations

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fight these cases very hard.

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So often the documents that they're supposed to turn over and the questions

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they're supposed to answer the first time, they won't actually answer until

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we get several court orders and motions.

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And that's all part of the wear down process where.

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The insurance companies and the corporations with all this

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money try to wear people down.

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And then often they will insinuate that the plaintiff is a liar, a cheater,

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a fraud, and they're faking it all.

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They do it in almost every case.

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They, they insinuate or suggest that the plaintiff is exaggerating their injuries

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or that they had some injury before.

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Often trying to trigger the worst in people.

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The worst, you know.

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Things that people think about.

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People like, oh, you're a fraud, and you're like, this happens.

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So if you do this and you get into the litigation process, they don't pay

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money easily and not in these cases.

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So you really need a lawyer that's experienced with this stuff that

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has thick skin cuz they're gonna fight the cases really hard.

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It's gonna take a long time and a long process, but in our experience,

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it's usually been worth it.

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People will come to us and if we don't accept their case, cuz sometimes we

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don't accept a lot of the cases that we look at, we, we look at many, many

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cases, but accept the small percentage.

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But a lot of times we won't accept the case because the

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injury is not not good enough.

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And we always tell the client that that's good news because you don't

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want your case accepted because the injury is good because there's nothing

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more important than your health and your, and your life in that regard.

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So it's a long process, but we find more often than not, it is worth it, you know?

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There's never a guarantee in these cases.

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There can never be a guarantee.

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So like another little piece of device for this litigation phase, and it's a little

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bit related to the intake process, is like if you go ever go to a lawyer and they

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say, sign here, I guarantee we're gonna get you money, run and run far and run

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quickly away from that lawyer because.

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The truth is no lawyer and a third party contingency plaintiff's case

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can ever guarantee a recovery.

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We can only you, you can only manage the case.

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You can work real hard on the case and do everything you know reasonably.

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That you can to do good, but you can never guarantee a win.

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You can never guarantee a recovery because there's like too many factors.

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It depends on what judge you get.

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Often, it depends on what jury you get.

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It depends on the facts.

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And even if you have like.

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Great facts and great witnesses and great documents.

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The law can change right in the middle of your case.

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That can turn a great case into a bad case.

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So the best can be done as we can manage it and try to position the

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case for the best recovery possible.

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But there's never really a guarantee in these cases.

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Yeah.

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Thank you so much for sharing that, cuz there's so many different

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variables when it comes to that and you know, nothing can be predicted.

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It's just, you know, you can handle the case to the best under the evidence

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that's there and the circumstances.

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So thank you for sharing that.

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Mark, any thoughts on this?

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Yeah, Gary's right and I think I've said that after pretty

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much everything he said, but.

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The amount of times, you know, we've done an initial client meeting and

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the client will ask like, you know, what do you think my case is worth?

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They're like, are we gonna win?

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I could probably count on half of one of my hands the amount of

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times I've even given a range that I think the case is worth that an

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initial meeting you just, like Jerry said, there's way too many factors.

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You know, what the coverage is gonna be, what the liability issues are.

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And Jerry said sometimes too, the law could change.

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What do you mean the coverage mark?

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What does that mean?

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Yeah, so with coverage, we may have said this earlier on in one of these

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episodes, and if we haven't, pretty much in talking to a younger attorney

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that comes to work here, or sometimes even discussing with clients, there's

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three main components to any personal injury case, which is liability.

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Who did what wrong?

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The damages, what are the injuries, and then what is the insurance coverage?

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Because a lot of times there's policy limits.

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You know, say you get rear-ended by somebody.

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They're a drunk driver.

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You need a fusion, and if they have a hundred thousand dollars insurance

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policy, that's usually gonna be a limiting factor in your case, having a certain

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policy that you need to work within.

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So when I say policy, I'm talking about the insurance policy limits.

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And when I'm talking about coverage, I'm talking about the insurance

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policy limits that are available.

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So that's always something that kind of gets, gets factored into to cases.

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And I think early on, Jerry said that we could make a law school

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class out of the litigation phase of these construction cases.

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And he, he's absolutely right.

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He kinda gave a very macro view, and I'm more kind of a big picture guy.

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, you know, I'm, I'm gonna kind of jump in though, and, and, Be the micro

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guy here because even sometimes the simple thing as filing a complaint

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and getting the defendants to answer can be like pulling teeth.

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And it happens more often than not with these construction cases.

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In New Jersey, you've got 35 days to answer a complaint.

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A, a lot of times, you know, general contractor or someone in the construction

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industry will get served with one of these complaints and think, you know, maybe one,

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they didn't do anything wrong, so they're not gonna let their insurance company.

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Know about it, or two think that if they just ignore it, we'll we'll go away.

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So there's steps that we can take through the court system to get them to try

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and wake up and answer the complaint.

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And sometimes they just, they just don't.

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But that alone, that simple aspect of you file a complaint, you file a

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pleading with the court looking for relief, and defendants file an answer.

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That in and of itself can take months and months and litigation cycle after

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litigation cycle, and you have to unfortunately get a judge involved

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sometimes just for someone to file an answer to a simple complaint.

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So, mark, you know, it seems like a really lengthy process, obviously.

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I mean, is it, is it really worth it for a client to, you know, to file a case and

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for it to go to litigation in New Jersey?

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Dimple again, we, we've said there's, there's no guarantees

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with anything, but based on our experience, yes, yes, it is worth it.

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Again, you don't want to be one of those plaques on the wall of, look at this

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great recovery we got, or this, you know, big jury verdict because that means

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that you've been pretty badly injured.

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But a lot of times when people get injured on these construction

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sites, it's a bad injury.

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It could be a fall from, you know, 40 feet or something that results in catastrophic

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injuries and it's a life-changing event.

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And in our society we don't have a time machine.

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We can't rewind and go back and stop that thing from happening.

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The best kind of solution our country has come up with and it's a lot better than.

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I guess most of the world is to compensate that person for

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what's been taken away from them.

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So while they've had a life-changing injury, we talk about how it can be

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a such a dog fight and a slog going through this litigation, the whole,

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like good things come to those who wait again with no guarantees, but

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the light at the end of the tunnel.

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Oftentimes, if the injury warrants, it can be life-changing money that if

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they didn't go through this process, it just, it just wouldn't happen.

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Yeah.

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Thank you so much for sharing that.

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I'm gonna ask Jerry similar, which is there's a lot they have to go

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through in this process, right?

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And it is a lengthy process.

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Why is it worth it for them to go through that?

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Because it's almost rehashing the pain that they went through, the family.

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Why is it worth it?

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Because you have dealt with so many cases and what's your experience been?

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Well, It's worth it because like Mark said, if the injury's bad and all cases

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are different, it's never a guarantee, but it can often be life changing money

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and not money in the sense of, oh, you know, I'm gonna make a buck on this.

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It's money in the sense of compensation, like just, it's kinda like.

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When we were kids, you were playing stickball and you

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broke the neighbor's window.

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You know the responsible parent might march the kid

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over to the neighbor's house.

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And get the kid to admit I broke the window, I apologize for it.

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It won't happen again.

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And probably most importantly, I'm gonna pay for the window.

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So when we talk about getting money in these cases and, and compensation,

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it's really just paying for the window.

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It's not like lottery money or, oh, now I got money to buy 10 windows.

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No.

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We've gotten hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars for people.

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And I can say that in my career I have never seen a case where I

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would, me personally, would ever trade the money for the injury ever.

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You know, no matter how little money we got and how minor the injury

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might have been or how severe the situation was, it's, it's like never.

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The money's never worth it in the sense that you would trade

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it, but it's always worth it.

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Not always worth it, but it's, it's worth it to try if we accept the case.

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The other kind thing on this, in answering your question, well

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why is it worth and all that?

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And it's true, it is like kind of can be like warfare on paper and it is a slog

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and it is a lot of work, but it's not.

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It's the lawyers that have to do that.

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Not the client, the client's not in the office writing briefs or.

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You know, filing motions or fighting with the other side, we're doing that.

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So we have like a little saying sometimes like, you know, you focus on your

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life, you focus on healing and getting better, and we'll focus on the case.

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Cause sometimes people will come in, like if they're like a type A personality,

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oh, we gotta do this, we gotta do that.

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We try to tell them generally like, Hey, relax.

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You know, we'll handle this for you.

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Again, never, never guarantee that we'll win, but we handle all that stuff

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and we're the ones that go through it.

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So it can definitely be stressful for the clients in the sense of

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just having to like think about it and knowing that the, they're gonna

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like pry into their personal, like, oh, what's your medical history?

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And they're gonna have to give a deposition.

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But we always tell our clients it's most important in these

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cases is to just tell the truth.

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From the beginning through the case, and if you tell the truth early

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on, We can then deal with the case accordingly and say, okay, it's worth it.

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It's not worth it.

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So that's really important because if you tell the truth, then we tell us that

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because one of the more stressful things for the clients is to give depositions.

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And we always tell them, just sit back and tell the truth and, and

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then that way you don't have to think, well, what's the right answer?

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What am I supposed to say?

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Well, what you're supposed to say is what's the truth?

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And if you tell the truth from the beginning, it makes

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things generally a lot easier.

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And we can tell if there's a case or not, and then go accordingly.

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So the work is done by the lawyers.

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And the other thing too is, well, why would we go through

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this and why do all this?

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Well, because of the injury.

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And here's the biggie on this.

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If you get in an accident in New Jersey, generally speaking, you only

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have two years to file a lawsuit.

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There's exceptions to that, you know, if you're under 18 and

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there's bunch of exceptions.

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So basically everything we're saying here is generally, so generally you.

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So if you, if you have like a back injury and, and you feel, you know, it's not that

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bad, it's getting a little worse and now two years has passed and then suddenly.

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The disc blows out from an accident in your spine that happened over two years

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ago and you didn't do anything about it.

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You can't come back now and say, well, the injury got a

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lot worse, so I'm gonna do it.

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We've also had people, like, they'll come into the office for intakes and

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they'll come with a family member, and the family member will be like, severely

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injured and we'll ask him about it.

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Are you okay?

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Like what happened?

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Yeah.

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You know, it happened six years ago and I never did anything.

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I thought it would get better and they're kicking themselves like.

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Years down the road that they never did anything about it.

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And the other part of it too, you say, well, is it worth it?

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Is this like a moral thing to do?

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Should I just turn the other cheek when I get harmed?

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You know, I suppose that's a personal decision for people, but what they

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should know is that in almost all cases that we handle, In the injury

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area, defendants have insurance.

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So they have an insurance company that will hire the lawyers and pay any

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judgment or settlement under the terms of the policy within the policy limits.

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So while the cases are brought against the individuals, In reality, the real party

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in interest is almost always in these cases that we file an insurance company.

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And the insurance companies generally we find they, they

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want to collect the premiums.

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You know those monthly payments where you have to pay your insurance every

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month, but they don't want to pay claims and that's why they fight them

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really hard and do all this stuff.

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But again, it's definitely worth it to try if the lawyer will accept your case.

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Yeah, it's worth it for sure.

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Yeah, I, I've got a couple war stories I feel like I gotta, I gotta throw

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in based off some of the things that, that you said and some of they're not,

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I keep saying war stories makes it sound like there's a clash and it's

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this horrible evil thing going on.

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But some of them are, are good stories with, with happy endings.

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I had a client come in and like we talked about liability damages.

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What's the insurance coverage?

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She came in, it was a rear end hit, so liability was great.

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There were really bad property damage photos.

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I think she was on like the parkway got hit from behind, hit into a guardrail.

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The car was, it was like a can that had gotten stepped on, looked real bad.

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There was good insurance coverage, but her main injury was the seatbelt

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had cut the back of her head.

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She said her neck was sore.

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She went to the hospital for the neck.

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But the main thing was that she had gotten a cut from the

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seatbelt, and we've looked at it.

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And we, this was one of those, we said, you know what, we'll investigate it.

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We'll see if, if anything changes.

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And she was, uh, I think she, she cleaned houses.

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She was a, a tough, tough worker.

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And down the road where we're kind of on the fence like,

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are we gonna keep this case?

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Are we gonna reject it?

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We call her to check in.

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And she scheduled for surgery on her neck from injuries to the disc from that crash.

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So we ended up filing that complaint and that ended up being a policy

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case, the case where we got the entire defendant's insurance policy.

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That was one where we were like, are we gonna keep it?

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Are we not?

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So Jerry talks about the importance of if you're injured in a crash and you're

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like, I don't know if I'm, if I'm hurt, if you don't do something within those

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two years, you could be barred like this.

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This woman could have been barred from getting just compensation for needing

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surgery on her neck from a very bad traffic accident or traffic crash.

Speaker: 00:19:05

That's a turn of phrase there sometimes There's no such thing as an accident.

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Like there's incidents, there's crashes.

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You know, an accident means somebody made a mistake, someone

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did, did something wrong.

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They could have done differently.

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So we try not to use that phrase too much.

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With these things like we're talking about two years, you don't want to go to

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the lawyer, alright, it's a week before two years now let me go to a lawyer.

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The lawyer would like to have as much time as possible before

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that two years to do the work.

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So it's often hard to find a lawyer to take your case depending

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on the facts and circumstances.

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You know, some people say, oh, there's too many lawyers out there.

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There may be a lot of lawyers, but not all lawyers are necessarily good lawyers and

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there's a lot of demand for good lawyers, good, good injury lawyers, and you know,

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one lawyer can only handle so many cases.

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So if the lawyer can take your case, the better chance they'll take your

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case the earlier you go to that, to that person so that they have as much

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time as possible to look into everything and to consider your case file.

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So you should go to the lawyer like.

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You know, quickly after things happen.

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Well, what's interesting is I think that a lot of times, like these clients are

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influenced by, you know, their employers.

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And their employers might be misleading them to say, oh no,

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you're fine, or No, you don't need to file, like you don't need a lawyer.

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And because they don't know better and they don't know the process,

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they don't know they can be compensated for their injuries.

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I think they're being influenced by other people.

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I mean, do you see that a lot?

Speaker: 00:20:34

Yes, yes, absolutely.

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There's.

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A lot of times on construction sites especially, there's kind of like a

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tough guy attitude and like I rub some dirt in it, like shake it off.

Speaker: 00:20:47

The amount of times that someone's had a catastrophic fall and they're really

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injured and the foreman for the job will just have 'em hobble across the job site

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and get into someone's truck and go to the hospital rather than call an ambulance.

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I'd say that happens, you know, more, more often than not.

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And then, yeah, I think there is a lot of pressure, especially too if there's,

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you know, maybe a family connection or it's a friend that they were working for.

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That's where I think we talked about, you'll get the, Hey, no,

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we'll, we'll make this right.

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We'll, we'll pay for it, just don't sue.

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We'll pay the medical bills.

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And then lo and behold, when those medical bills come due, which is oftentimes many

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months later, be the guy that said he'd cover those bills has nowhere to be found.

Speaker: 00:21:29

So I think there is a lot of pressure to not bring a suit in some of these cases.

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People might be concerned about what happens to their employment down the

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road if they do, but I think, like we've talked about, a lot of times the people

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who are kind of steering the injured worker one way might not have their

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best interests in mind, which is how are they gonna provide for their family?

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How are they gonna be able to continue working with their new reality, which

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might be with the catastrophic injury?

Speaker: 00:21:57

Yeah, the employer doesn't wanna pay.

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Workers' compensation is very expensive in the construction

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industry, so some employers will just not pay it, try to get around it.

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Have employees on the payroll or, well, they, a lot of 'em don't have a payroll,

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not a traditional payroll anyway.

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It's just cash at the end of the day.

Speaker: 00:22:14

And they won't tell if they even have workers' compensation insurance.

Speaker: 00:22:18

They won't tell them how many employees they have, cuz that's how they

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determine how much it costs in part.

Speaker: 00:22:24

So we just got a, we heard back from one of the workers' compensation

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lawyers that we work with on cases and that she reviewed the case

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and she ended up not taking it.

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And she notes in here that the worker's boss told the worker that his company did

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not have workers' compensation insurance.

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He offered to cover his medical bills and get him through until

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he was able to return to work.

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So what we often see is , they'll make good on that for a little while.

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Maybe for a month, maybe two months if they're lucky.

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And then after that, they'll just abandon the worker.

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They'll stop paying, they'll walk away from him, and then they'll, but they

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tell them that so that they don't go to a lawyer, Hey, I can take care of this.

Speaker: 00:23:05

And then the more time that passes that they don't go to a lawyer, the more

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the employer can cover their tracks.

Speaker: 00:23:11

Start taking steps to not get held responsible in court.

Speaker: 00:23:16

So yeah, we do see that.

Speaker: 00:23:17

Thank you for sharing that.

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And I think that's why it's important for clients to not wait

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too long to actually look into this matter and speak to an attorney

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or speak to a couple of law firms.

Speaker: 00:23:27

I think that's important.

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So thank you guys so much.

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See you guys next time.

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Thanks.

Speaker: 00:23:34

And there you have it, folks.

Speaker: 00:23:35

Another episode of Jersey Justice Podcast.

Speaker: 00:23:39

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