Speaker: 00:00:06

Welcome to Jersey Justice, a civil law podcast that shares

Speaker: 00:00:09

practical tips and stories about personal and workplace injuries.

Speaker: 00:00:13

Join two of the brightest New Jersey injury attorneys.

Speaker: 00:00:16

Gerald Clark and Mark Morris of Clark Law Firm.

Speaker: 00:00:19

As they take you behind the scenes of.

Speaker: 00:00:21

Justice and civil law.

Speaker: 00:00:23

But first, a quick disclaimer.

Speaker: 00:00:26

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

Speaker: 00:00:31

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

Speaker: 00:00:34

individual case or situation.

Speaker: 00:00:37

This information is not intended to create and does not constitute

Speaker: 00:00:41

an attorney-client relationship.

Speaker: 00:00:46

Hello everyone.

Speaker: 00:00:46

Welcome back to Jersey Justice, and today we're gonna be talking about the

Speaker: 00:00:50

deep scars of not just being injured physically, but the psychological scars

Speaker: 00:00:56

that come along with being injured.

Speaker: 00:00:58

So welcome back Jerry and Mark guys.

Speaker: 00:01:01

Had a great weekend, I suppose.

Speaker: 00:01:03

The weather's been the last couple days in New Jersey by the

Speaker: 00:01:08

Jersey Shore has been better.

Speaker: 00:01:10

You know, I we're, I, I don't think we're supposed to talk politics on this,

Speaker: 00:01:13

on this podcast, but one can't help it.

Speaker: 00:01:16

It's your show.

Speaker: 00:01:17

It's your show.

Speaker: 00:01:17

You're a lot to talk about whenever you want.

Speaker: 00:01:19

Okay.

Speaker: 00:01:19

Well, global warming's a hoax, right?

Speaker: 00:01:21

You know, just kidding.

Speaker: 00:01:22

But it's been really hot around the world and including in New

Speaker: 00:01:27

Jersey, climate change, whatever.

Speaker: 00:01:30

But the last couple days it's been more fall like here in this part of

Speaker: 00:01:33

the world, which is like less humidity, not as hot, but it's been, that's

Speaker: 00:01:37

been beautiful the last couple days.

Speaker: 00:01:40

That's good.

Speaker: 00:01:41

It's good for the weather.

Speaker: 00:01:43

Again, I, I think it maybe it's a fine line between talking politics

Speaker: 00:01:46

and talking science, but the hottest rely on record since they've

Speaker: 00:01:50

been keeping track of that thing.

Speaker: 00:01:52

So yeah, I agree.

Speaker: 00:01:54

I've been talking a lot like friends and family and things.

Speaker: 00:01:57

I can't remember summers like this where you're just stepping out

Speaker: 00:02:01

into an oven, but Jerry's right.

Speaker: 00:02:03

Nice breeze.

Speaker: 00:02:04

Yesterday I saw a leaf come down this morning, got excited.

Speaker: 00:02:08

They get Big Fall.

Speaker: 00:02:09

Was there for Aaron Rogers on the Jets.

Speaker: 00:02:11

Mark Mark's a big Aaron Rogers fan.

Speaker: 00:02:14

I'm a big Green Bay Packers fan, and now that Aaron Rogers is no longer on

Speaker: 00:02:19

the Green Bay Packers, I wish him well.

Speaker: 00:02:21

Oh, okay.

Speaker: 00:02:22

All right.

Speaker: 00:02:22

All right.

Speaker: 00:02:23

Now I, it's funny.

Speaker: 00:02:24

The same thing.

Speaker: 00:02:25

I guess we'll talk politics, we'll talk sports a little bit.

Speaker: 00:02:28

I was a, a diehard Brett, the Green Bay Packers fan.

Speaker: 00:02:31

Growing up my whole life.

Speaker: 00:02:32

Brett Favre was their quarterback.

Speaker: 00:02:34

He was this iconic player and he followed the exact same path that Rogers is.

Speaker: 00:02:39

He was there for, I think he was a starter for 15 years, got traded to

Speaker: 00:02:43

the Jets and Roger, same deal starter.

Speaker: 00:02:46

15 years gets traded to the Jets and there's like a split between

Speaker: 00:02:49

the fan base, second jury.

Speaker: 00:02:51

Brett Green Bay Packers, and I'm like, same thing.

Speaker: 00:02:55

I'm like, I'm a Packers fan.

Speaker: 00:02:57

I'm not a, you know, individual fan.

Speaker: 00:02:59

You know, the, the teams, the collective is, is more important

Speaker: 00:03:03

than the, than the individual to me.

Speaker: 00:03:05

So I wish him well, not too well.

Speaker: 00:03:07

The worse he does, the higher draft pick we get, but he is gotta start 65% of

Speaker: 00:03:11

the the snaps that's part of the treat.

Speaker: 00:03:13

So I will probably try and go to the jet scheme though.

Speaker: 00:03:17

I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker: 00:03:18

I wanna see It's gonna bes.

Speaker: 00:03:21

Yeah, it's gonna be entertaining.

Speaker: 00:03:22

It's good for New York sports.

Speaker: 00:03:24

It's a huge market.

Speaker: 00:03:26

It's good for him.

Speaker: 00:03:27

I wish him well.

Speaker: 00:03:27

I think he, he's probably still got something left in the tank.

Speaker: 00:03:30

I don't know how much Brett Frere had left, had left when he went

Speaker: 00:03:33

to the Jets, but I don't know.

Speaker: 00:03:34

I feel like Aaron Rogers has a little more left.

Speaker: 00:03:37

Brett Favre had a couple, a couple poorly, poorly taken photographs

Speaker: 00:03:41

left in him when he went to the jet.

Speaker: 00:03:44

And then Rogers, I think has another probably two years

Speaker: 00:03:46

of pretty good football.

Speaker: 00:03:47

We'll see.

Speaker: 00:03:49

Were you guys competitive when you were in school com?

Speaker: 00:03:53

Competitive, you mean?

Speaker: 00:03:54

Yeah, because we're talking to lawyers here, you know, so I'm just curious.

Speaker: 00:03:57

Yeah, I, it's something I feel like I've had to try and turn off in aspects

Speaker: 00:04:02

of, of my life because every case, you, you literally have an adversary,

Speaker: 00:04:07

like you're fighting against someone in pretty much every single case.

Speaker: 00:04:11

So my like competitiveness used to come out and like pick up

Speaker: 00:04:14

basketball or like whatever.

Speaker: 00:04:16

And now it's the last, the last thing I want to do a lot of times

Speaker: 00:04:20

is like, compete with somebody.

Speaker: 00:04:22

'cause I'm like, I literally feel like I do that for a living.

Speaker: 00:04:25

Like I still enjoy doing things like that, but I can remember like throwing

Speaker: 00:04:29

a basketball, 'cause you know, my teammate on two verse two was not

Speaker: 00:04:33

good and was trying to like dribble behind his back and lose the ball.

Speaker: 00:04:38

I've been known to be a little competitive, I guess, over the years.

Speaker: 00:04:43

J Jerry?

Speaker: 00:04:44

Kind of, what would you say?

Speaker: 00:04:47

I was never competitive in school.

Speaker: 00:04:48

Definitely not in grammar school.

Speaker: 00:04:51

I wasn't a big fan of school growing up, and I also was not

Speaker: 00:04:57

competitive in high school.

Speaker: 00:05:00

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:05:00

Nor college.

Speaker: 00:05:01

Maybe law school though, but yeah.

Speaker: 00:05:04

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:05:04

With school.

Speaker: 00:05:05

No, I.

Speaker: 00:05:07

Always wanted to do well, but I was like, I'm kind of good at English.

Speaker: 00:05:11

Well, not kind of, I was good at English and history.

Speaker: 00:05:14

I wasn't good at math and I was okay at science and I was like, alright.

Speaker: 00:05:17

I like history, I like English.

Speaker: 00:05:19

Science is okay.

Speaker: 00:05:20

And it's not like, I was like, I gotta do better than this guy next to me.

Speaker: 00:05:24

Get a higher grade than him.

Speaker: 00:05:25

I never felt like that with, with school.

Speaker: 00:05:29

Well, thank you guys for sharing that.

Speaker: 00:05:30

And I wanted to go to law school, but I didn't wanna study for three years.

Speaker: 00:05:33

So now I live vicariously through working with lawyers, but is one.

Speaker: 00:05:36

So let's get down to business you guys.

Speaker: 00:05:38

Today we're gonna be talking about the psychological ramifications of

Speaker: 00:05:42

injuries because it's more than just physical and a lot of times that has

Speaker: 00:05:46

to be factored into a case as well.

Speaker: 00:05:49

What can you tell us about that?

Speaker: 00:05:50

Well, I can tell you.

Speaker: 00:05:52

A story about a case that I was on today.

Speaker: 00:05:56

We had a deposition, so there was a project where a house was being

Speaker: 00:06:01

built and the general contractor in New Jersey has a responsibility

Speaker: 00:06:06

to manage safety on the project.

Speaker: 00:06:08

And there's federal safety rules called OSHA that applied

Speaker: 00:06:11

to all construction projects.

Speaker: 00:06:14

The general contractors required to enforce those rules to make sure the

Speaker: 00:06:17

workers on the job aren't hurt, even if they're not their direct employees,

Speaker: 00:06:21

if they're subcontractor employees on the job, the general contractor's

Speaker: 00:06:24

supposed to make sure that the safety rules are being followed so the workers

Speaker: 00:06:29

aren't, aren't needlessly injured.

Speaker: 00:06:31

So anyway, on this case, the siding installers, and these are

Speaker: 00:06:35

untrained, you know, these, these workers had no safety training.

Speaker: 00:06:39

Their boss had no safety training to speak up.

Speaker: 00:06:42

They were installing siding on a house and they finished the backside of the house,

Speaker: 00:06:47

and the way it's done is with scaffolding.

Speaker: 00:06:49

So they have these two long poles on the side of the house and then

Speaker: 00:06:53

like a ladder or step areas across the thing, and then they crank it

Speaker: 00:06:56

up as they go up and the house is really close to the property line.

Speaker: 00:07:02

But I think it was about 10 feet from the house that was being built there was

Speaker: 00:07:06

high, high tension like electrical lines.

Speaker: 00:07:10

Distribution lines for the utility company there.

Speaker: 00:07:13

And as they finished the, the back of the house, they had to move the

Speaker: 00:07:16

scaffolding to the side of the house.

Speaker: 00:07:19

So they undid the scaffolding pole just attached with two attachment

Speaker: 00:07:23

points to the roof of the house.

Speaker: 00:07:25

And then the scaffolding sits on the ground and one worker attached

Speaker: 00:07:29

at the top and two workers were holding the pole at the bottom.

Speaker: 00:07:32

And as they unattached it, the wind blew and blew the scaffolding

Speaker: 00:07:36

pole into those power lines.

Speaker: 00:07:39

A charge went down the line and killed one of the workers.

Speaker: 00:07:42

Actually killed both of the workers.

Speaker: 00:07:45

One died like that day, and then the other worker died like a month or so later.

Speaker: 00:07:51

So what happened was that whole scenario violated OSHA safety rules.

Speaker: 00:07:55

The workers weren't trained, and there's specific OSHA rules dealing

Speaker: 00:07:59

with scaffolding that are in place to make sure that that workers

Speaker: 00:08:03

aren't electrocuted in this manner.

Speaker: 00:08:07

There's a whole bunch of, you know, rules in place, how far it has to, and the

Speaker: 00:08:10

workers have to have training about that.

Speaker: 00:08:12

And the general contractor's supposed to make sure the line isn't too close.

Speaker: 00:08:16

And then if it is, they're supposed to call the power company to have the

Speaker: 00:08:19

line shut off during the construction, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker: 00:08:23

So this whole thing happens.

Speaker: 00:08:26

The worker dies, other worker dies.

Speaker: 00:08:28

A month later, OSHA comes out.

Speaker: 00:08:31

They, they issue fines.

Speaker: 00:08:32

The police are there.

Speaker: 00:08:33

The ambulance is gone.

Speaker: 00:08:36

And the general contractor knows about it.

Speaker: 00:08:38

Obviously, what happened?

Speaker: 00:08:40

And everyone's upset.

Speaker: 00:08:41

Okay?

Speaker: 00:08:42

So what went wrong here was they didn't have the power shut off to

Speaker: 00:08:47

those lines while the work was ongoing, while that, because they, they got

Speaker: 00:08:51

within 10 feet of the lines and you can't get within 10 feet of the lines.

Speaker: 00:08:55

So after all, this happens two days later now.

Speaker: 00:08:57

Now, I said, There's two poles that attach to the roof, and the one pole was

Speaker: 00:09:03

taken down, which killed the workers, and the other pole was still up.

Speaker: 00:09:07

So two days later, after this all happens, the general contractor still does nothing

Speaker: 00:09:12

about safety, still has no conversations with his contractors about safety,

Speaker: 00:09:18

still doesn't do anything about safety, and goes and has the surviving workers

Speaker: 00:09:25

remove the second scaffolding pole.

Speaker: 00:09:27

The exact same way two days later that killed those two workers two days earlier.

Speaker: 00:09:33

So I don't know how much that's related to, to emotional harm, but this all just

Speaker: 00:09:39

came out today at a deposition we had.

Speaker: 00:09:42

'cause we represent the two, we represent one of the workers in the case.

Speaker: 00:09:46

Well, for the family there's a lot of emotional, I mean, the, the people

Speaker: 00:09:49

are, are deceased now, so they mean they, they can't speak about their

Speaker: 00:09:52

emotional harm, but for the family.

Speaker: 00:09:55

That's major emotional harm, I would say.

Speaker: 00:09:58

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:09:59

Which is crazy in New Jersey because if you think about the harm like

Speaker: 00:10:03

a surviving child has for losing a parent or a sibling, or a parent

Speaker: 00:10:07

losing a child, or you actually can't collect for the emotional harm, which

Speaker: 00:10:11

seems really unfair in New Jersey.

Speaker: 00:10:13

Juries are instructed.

Speaker: 00:10:15

I know it's upsetting, but you can't give any compensation for that

Speaker: 00:10:20

emotional harm in this situation.

Speaker: 00:10:22

So is that a New Jersey thing?

Speaker: 00:10:24

Are you saying in other states that people can, it just, yeah, you, you can

Speaker: 00:10:27

in other states, yeah, you can, you can collect the emotional harm for the loss.

Speaker: 00:10:31

But in New Jersey there's a law called the Wrongful Death Act, which

Speaker: 00:10:36

specifically says you cannot, no one can collect for that, which is weird.

Speaker: 00:10:41

Yeah, but I mean, but we can, we can all agree like when someone's

Speaker: 00:10:45

injured, I mean that the emotional harm can be traumatizing as well.

Speaker: 00:10:49

You know, like if a worker falls, you know, off of scaffolding is in the

Speaker: 00:10:52

hospital for months and all that, that, I mean, those things can cause a lot of

Speaker: 00:10:57

trauma in a person as well, I would think.

Speaker: 00:10:59

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:11:01

I mean, we, we may have talked about in the past, We had a worker that

Speaker: 00:11:04

got backed up over by a utility truck on a public job on the turnpike,

Speaker: 00:11:09

and he was a, he was Portuguese.

Speaker: 00:11:12

He took a lot of pride in the work that he did.

Speaker: 00:11:15

He was, he was a, a mason, I believe, and that was like his

Speaker: 00:11:18

identity was, was doing masonry work.

Speaker: 00:11:21

And he went and saw a psychologist.

Speaker: 00:11:23

I mean, he got catastrophically injured in a, from a physical

Speaker: 00:11:26

standpoint, he was in a coma.

Speaker: 00:11:27

I think he had either like 36 or 42 broken bones or.

Speaker: 00:11:31

Something like that.

Speaker: 00:11:32

But on top of the physical injuries, his emotional injuries where he had

Speaker: 00:11:37

like a total loss of identity 'cause he couldn't do his job anymore.

Speaker: 00:11:40

And he actually went and saw, I think it was his, I don't remember if it

Speaker: 00:11:43

was a psychiatrist or a psychologist.

Speaker: 00:11:46

And in Portuguese he told her, he felt like a nto, I think was the word.

Speaker: 00:11:49

Which translates to non-entity.

Speaker: 00:11:52

Like he's just basically, I feel like a nothing like I used to go

Speaker: 00:11:55

to work, I'd get my paycheck, I'd come home, I'd hand it to my wife.

Speaker: 00:11:58

Not being able to do that.

Speaker: 00:12:00

He is like, I just feel like, like a, nothing, like a non-entity.

Speaker: 00:12:03

And I think slowly, very slowly, but hopefully with some progress,

Speaker: 00:12:10

there's starting to be a little bit more value and a little bit more,

Speaker: 00:12:14

I guess, recognition to how serious these psychological injuries can be.

Speaker: 00:12:18

I think, and again, I guess we're going back to politics, but I

Speaker: 00:12:21

remember hearing something that.

Speaker: 00:12:23

The current administration's thinking about like having insurance expanded

Speaker: 00:12:27

to cover things for, for mental health, because a lot of times it's like

Speaker: 00:12:31

impossible to find a reasonably priced, you know, mental health professional.

Speaker: 00:12:35

But meanwhile you break a bone or something like that, there's

Speaker: 00:12:38

50,000 orthopedists lined up where it's at 15, 20, $30 copay.

Speaker: 00:12:44

So I think slowly society's kind of getting there, but my experience has

Speaker: 00:12:48

been, A lot of these personal injury cases, the psychological harm is kind of

Speaker: 00:12:52

like the, I don't wanna call it like the gravy or the whipped cream, but whatever.

Speaker: 00:12:56

It's like a topping onto the main course.

Speaker: 00:12:59

And I think you'd asked her, I know Jerry started to give an example of something

Speaker: 00:13:02

that's just so shocking to the, the, that's a horrible choice of words, but

Speaker: 00:13:07

something that's, you know, just, just kind of really gets to your conscience.

Speaker: 00:13:11

And one of the few cases that I have had where it's been a heavy emphasis

Speaker: 00:13:15

on psychological harm, Sometimes it's different whether you can bring

Speaker: 00:13:19

a case for an emotional injury.

Speaker: 00:13:21

There's different requirements, like if you have to be in like the zone of danger

Speaker: 00:13:24

where you could have gotten hurt, you have to have a certain relationship with the

Speaker: 00:13:28

person who got injured and case I had.

Speaker: 00:13:31

Where that happened was it was like a routine.

Speaker: 00:13:34

A routine, but it was a rear end collision on the Garden State Parkway

Speaker: 00:13:38

and this mom's in in a car with her.

Speaker: 00:13:40

I think it was her two daughters.

Speaker: 00:13:42

So she pulls over to look at the damage, you know, from the guy that hit her.

Speaker: 00:13:45

And the guy who hit her gets outta the car.

Speaker: 00:13:47

He says, oh, it's not that bad.

Speaker: 00:13:48

Don't call the police.

Speaker: 00:13:49

She's like, well, I need to call the police.

Speaker: 00:13:51

I need to report.

Speaker: 00:13:52

It.

Speaker: 00:13:52

Turns out the guy that hit her had like an outstanding warrant.

Speaker: 00:13:55

It was a stolen car.

Speaker: 00:13:57

So when she goes to get her information, she's like leaning into her car.

Speaker: 00:14:01

This guy gets back into his car and peels off, and when he speeds away back

Speaker: 00:14:05

onto the parkway, he hits this woman, sends her flying into the parkway.

Speaker: 00:14:09

Her two kids are in the car like screaming, banging on the window.

Speaker: 00:14:13

The mom's like laying there.

Speaker: 00:14:14

She broke her hip real bad.

Speaker: 00:14:16

The mom's laying there, like, stay in the car to her kids.

Speaker: 00:14:18

And we brought that case and it was like the emphasis was on the mom's broken hip.

Speaker: 00:14:25

And then the kind of like whipped cream on top of that was, you know, the kids

Speaker: 00:14:29

being in the car, seeing their mom just have gotten like, run over by this guy.

Speaker: 00:14:33

And the mom being there like helpless as her kids are, are in the car.

Speaker: 00:14:36

So, It's kind of wild.

Speaker: 00:14:39

It's just easier, I guess, to comprehend like a broken bone.

Speaker: 00:14:42

You know what that's like because a lot of times, especially with auto cases,

Speaker: 00:14:46

there has to be like objective, credible medical evidence of a permanent injury,

Speaker: 00:14:51

which like what the heck does that mean when you're talking about a broken bone?

Speaker: 00:14:54

But then when you're getting into just psychological injuries, when

Speaker: 00:14:57

you're talking about objective, credible medical evidence of a

Speaker: 00:15:00

psychological injury, I think that can get even more confusing for jurors.

Speaker: 00:15:04

And I think insurance companies might be kind of, Key into that, or

Speaker: 00:15:07

at least think they're keen to that.

Speaker: 00:15:08

But there's, there's ways around that.

Speaker: 00:15:10

There's testing that can be done.

Speaker: 00:15:11

But you know, my kind of hope is that these psychological injuries do

Speaker: 00:15:15

catch up with the physical injuries.

Speaker: 00:15:17

'cause they're, they're very real.

Speaker: 00:15:18

I mean, everything is just what your brain perceives.

Speaker: 00:15:21

Like if you break your leg, it's not, you know, your leg that says you're in pain.

Speaker: 00:15:26

It sends a signal to your brain.

Speaker: 00:15:27

Your brain says your leg in pain.

Speaker: 00:15:29

So the same way, if you know you have some trauma or.

Speaker: 00:15:32

Something like the example of the mom getting hit by a car in front of her

Speaker: 00:15:35

kids, like that's in your brain as well.

Speaker: 00:15:37

Just as real as your broken leg.

Speaker: 00:15:39

So, and Mark, how old were the kids?

Speaker: 00:15:41

Do you remember?

Speaker: 00:15:43

I wanna say like eight and 10.

Speaker: 00:15:45

Like they, it wasn't like they were way too young or, or way too old.

Speaker: 00:15:50

I know that sounds kind of silly, but it's not like they were so

Speaker: 00:15:52

young that they wouldn't have been able to process what was going on.

Speaker: 00:15:55

It's not like they're old enough where they probably have some coping skills

Speaker: 00:15:58

and ways to work through it, like, It was a pretty tough age where something like

Speaker: 00:16:02

that probably going to stick with them.

Speaker: 00:16:04

I think it kind of indirectly factors in is that has like, I don't wanna say

Speaker: 00:16:09

an appeal, but it adds an element to the case that makes it a little bit riskier to

Speaker: 00:16:13

put in front of a jury because if you're undervaluing the physical injury and the

Speaker: 00:16:17

emotional components gonna come into it.

Speaker: 00:16:19

I know Jerry mentioned like with wrongful death, you can't think about the suffering

Speaker: 00:16:23

of the family, but in terms of like intentional infliction of emotional

Speaker: 00:16:27

distress and things like that, if you're.

Speaker: 00:16:29

If you meet some of the elements that I think I talked about before,

Speaker: 00:16:32

you, you kind of can factor that in.

Speaker: 00:16:34

So it just adds like a, a different variable to the case.

Speaker: 00:16:36

But they were, they were young kids and we took their depositions and you

Speaker: 00:16:40

could tell it like affected them a lot.

Speaker: 00:16:42

They both did a really good job kind of communicating everything.

Speaker: 00:16:46

Thanks.

Speaker: 00:16:47

Final question for Jerry or Mark, whoever wants to take this one in court.

Speaker: 00:16:51

How do you guys bring up the, the whole psychological thing when you're

Speaker: 00:16:54

presenting a case in court to the jury?

Speaker: 00:16:57

I think I.

Speaker: 00:16:59

Would've to say about that.

Speaker: 00:17:00

And it's kind of a, a strategy thing.

Speaker: 00:17:01

So when it comes to talking about like psychological injuries in court in

Speaker: 00:17:06

front of a jury, like if I stand up there and I say, I am so sad, I'm having

Speaker: 00:17:12

such a tough time, you know, things are just really not going good for me.

Speaker: 00:17:17

The jury might sit there and be a little suspicious, like, well, of course you're

Speaker: 00:17:20

saying that like you have an incentive to say that, that you could be getting money.

Speaker: 00:17:24

Like, why am I supposed to believe you?

Speaker: 00:17:26

But if I were to, you know, say, hey, Dimple.

Speaker: 00:17:28

What if, you know, let's call you to the stand.

Speaker: 00:17:30

What have you seen about Mark?

Speaker: 00:17:32

And you say, I've seen Mark.

Speaker: 00:17:33

You seem really down.

Speaker: 00:17:34

He is really having a tough time.

Speaker: 00:17:36

Then we bring in Jerry and Jerry says, yeah, you know,

Speaker: 00:17:37

mark, he's just not the same.

Speaker: 00:17:38

It seems like he's really having a tough time.

Speaker: 00:17:40

And then I was to go up on the stand.

Speaker: 00:17:42

I, the jury, I think would be more sympathetic, more accepting of that.

Speaker: 00:17:47

So I think that was a weird example of saying like, putting up family

Speaker: 00:17:50

members, friends, other people that can kind of talk about the

Speaker: 00:17:54

psychological issues that they see.

Speaker: 00:17:57

I think is helpful.

Speaker: 00:17:58

And then there's specific, you know, areas of medicine where you could

Speaker: 00:18:02

have an expert that does, you know, be it like neuropsychological testing,

Speaker: 00:18:05

something that can kind of measure some of the brain things that are going on.

Speaker: 00:18:10

I think having an expert when it calls for it, and I think family

Speaker: 00:18:13

and friends is really helpful to kind of help paint that picture.

Speaker: 00:18:17

Jerry, any thoughts before you have to jump outta here?

Speaker: 00:18:19

No, I think Mark covered it pretty good.

Speaker: 00:18:21

Although I do have the scene picture from that other case I was telling you about.

Speaker: 00:18:26

Oh yeah, share your screen.

Speaker: 00:18:27

We'd love to see that.

Speaker: 00:18:28

Alright, so I was telling you, I was explaining about the, the construction

Speaker: 00:18:33

case you were asking about like emotional damages and, you know, so anyway,

Speaker: 00:18:37

I was telling about that, that case with the, the two scaffolding poles.

Speaker: 00:18:42

So I was telling about that case where the scaffolding poles

Speaker: 00:18:47

came in contact with the pole.

Speaker: 00:18:49

So we have it here in a picture, the one scaffolding pole.

Speaker: 00:18:54

So you can see the pole here is attached to the top of the roof, and the other one

Speaker: 00:18:59

was attached here, and it, and it fell.

Speaker: 00:19:02

It hit this line up here.

Speaker: 00:19:05

And this is the sec, the second scaffolding pole here.

Speaker: 00:19:08

And again, like we talked about, that pole was taken down the exact

Speaker: 00:19:11

same, same way after the incident.

Speaker: 00:19:14

So that's what I wanted to show you.

Speaker: 00:19:16

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:19:16

There the, yeah.

Speaker: 00:19:17

The power still wasn't shut off.

Speaker: 00:19:19

Wow.

Speaker: 00:19:19

Putting the siding on.

Speaker: 00:19:22

Here you can see the scaffolding poles.

Speaker: 00:19:23

These are part of the official police record, and this is the pole here that

Speaker: 00:19:28

killed the worker to the left of the pole, and the second pole is here.

Speaker: 00:19:35

And after all this happened, they still did nothing by way of safety rules.

Speaker: 00:19:39

They didn't contact the utility company to have the power shut

Speaker: 00:19:42

down, and then the workers went ahead and took down the second pole.

Speaker: 00:19:48

Doing the same thing they did before.

Speaker: 00:19:50

This is based on testimony of that.

Speaker: 00:19:52

We got got today in the case and then we actually asked the general

Speaker: 00:19:56

contractor, which is up here.

Speaker: 00:19:59

We were basically asking him, why aren't you following the

Speaker: 00:20:02

OSHA safety rules on the job?

Speaker: 00:20:04

And the question was, it's up here.

Speaker: 00:20:06

It says, if it's not about the money, I said, isn't it true

Speaker: 00:20:08

you're not following safety rules?

Speaker: 00:20:10

Because it saves money and it makes the job go faster and you

Speaker: 00:20:12

can undercut the competition.

Speaker: 00:20:14

He denied that.

Speaker: 00:20:15

So I said, I asked him, I said, question, if it's not about the

Speaker: 00:20:19

money, what is the reason you're not following the safety rules answer?

Speaker: 00:20:23

And by the way, you should know that these safety rules are meant to protect not only

Speaker: 00:20:27

the workers, but anyone else that comes near the job site, like the homeowner,

Speaker: 00:20:31

while their house is being built.

Speaker: 00:20:33

Maybe they want to bring their kids on, take a look at it.

Speaker: 00:20:36

People walking by, people that work for the town, inspectors, neighbors, anything.

Speaker: 00:20:40

These safety rules also protect everyone, not just employees.

Speaker: 00:20:44

A a anyone that comes near a construction site.

Speaker: 00:20:47

So question, if it's not about money, what's the reason you're

Speaker: 00:20:50

not following the safety rules?

Speaker: 00:20:51

And the contractor testified, the general contractor testified

Speaker: 00:20:55

because the contractors are just, it's in a different world.

Speaker: 00:20:58

They're all from a foreign world, and they're all, they're all Spanish guys.

Speaker: 00:21:02

They come up here.

Speaker: 00:21:04

But I have nothing against them.

Speaker: 00:21:05

I have a lot of Spanish friends, so we thought that that was

Speaker: 00:21:09

important testimony to get as to explaining this whole situation.

Speaker: 00:21:14

Yeah, that's crazy.

Speaker: 00:21:15

That is crazy.

Speaker: 00:21:17

Well, thanks for sharing all that, Jerry.

Speaker: 00:21:20

All right, so dimple, we talk about a lot of these cases and how a lot

Speaker: 00:21:23

of times the idea is to try and get people as much compensation

Speaker: 00:21:26

as as possible, but sometimes, and my dad likes, loves this aspect.

Speaker: 00:21:31

What we do is.

Speaker: 00:21:32

Sometimes it makes people change things that they're

Speaker: 00:21:34

doing and and make things safer.

Speaker: 00:21:37

And a case we've talked about a lot is the guy that got backed up over

Speaker: 00:21:40

on the turnpike and the allegation in the case was the truck should have

Speaker: 00:21:43

had a backup alarm, a backup camera, and they said, no, no, no, it doesn't.

Speaker: 00:21:47

We won that case.

Speaker: 00:21:48

We got that worker, millions of dollars.

Speaker: 00:21:50

And now every single vehicle associated with that company

Speaker: 00:21:54

has a backup alarm on it.

Speaker: 00:21:55

Be it like a Toyota Prius, a Camry, whatever.

Speaker: 00:21:59

My friend sent me a video of one of those cars backing up and it beep, beep, beep.

Speaker: 00:22:03

It's a little tiny thing.

Speaker: 00:22:04

So that's a situation where we made a real difference and we

Speaker: 00:22:07

made a company do things safer and hopefully protected other workers and

Speaker: 00:22:11

members of the public from getting seriously injured or or even killed.

Speaker: 00:22:15

Well, thank you for sharing that.

Speaker: 00:22:16

I think that's really important information.

Speaker: 00:22:18

So thank you.

Speaker: 00:22:19

Thanks.

Speaker: 00:22:20

Well thank you for sharing that.

Speaker: 00:22:21

And I guess that's a wrap you guys.

Speaker: 00:22:23

We'll see you on the next episode.

Speaker: 00:22:28

And there you have it, folks.

Speaker: 00:22:29

Another episode of Jersey Justice Podcast.

Speaker: 00:22:32

If you're loving what you're hearing, it's time to hit that subscribe button

Speaker: 00:22:35

on Apple, YouTube and Spotify podcast.

Speaker: 00:22:39

And don't forget to leave us a review online, share this podcast with your

Speaker: 00:22:43

friends, and become their legal hero.

Speaker: 00:22:45

Dive into more episodes@jerseyjusticepodcast.com

Speaker: 00:22:49

or clark law nj.com and check out our show notes for more information.

Speaker: 00:22:56

If you're navigating legal issues and need a guiding light or just a phone

Speaker: 00:22:59

call away, call us at +1 877-841-8855.

Speaker: 00:23:05

Again, 1 8 7 7 8 4 1 8 8 5 5.

Speaker: 00:23:10

Until next time, Jersey Justice Warriors stay empowered and informed.