From Shakers To Hummers

They asked me to defend him and I agreed, even though I really didn't have a choice. I was working as an intern investigator for one of over 80 Attorneys at the Public Defender's office early in my career. Unless there was a "conflict of interest"... and that was ascertained through a "conflict check" on the Public Defender's computer. .. the case I was assigned was mine and the firm's.

At the Public Defender's, my least favorite alleged criminal clients to represent.... among the homicidal maniacs, wife beaters, meth heads, parent killer, thieves, robbers, rapists, shooters and cheats... were the Baby Shakers.

When I was a Criminal Investigator, I represented a few Baby Shakers. To my dismay, there was never a conflict of interest revealed through a conflict check when I ran the shaken baby cases through the Public Defender's conflict check system.
So I did what I did.
My job.
Investigated on behalf of the scumbag who shook innocent little babies to death until I couldn't take it any more and switched sides.
For that reasons and a few others, I went to the light.

I left the Public Defender and became a Civil Investigator for Personal Injury Attorneys or the occasional average American who is anything but average.

As a Civil Investigator, I've encountered a few "conflicts of interest" in the area of auto accidents.

I recall meeting one client, I'll call her "Betty", who drove a small 4 door Honda, which was T-Boned by a pick-up that ran a red light. She was alone in her car, no passengers.

Betty's Honda was hit on the passenger side, otherwise she would have died. Her car was towed and totaled. Betty sustained a dislocated right shoulder and a broken hip, plus other right side injuries. As a single mother of two teenage boys and their sole provider, this hit affected her deeply on a physical and emotional level.

The police officer cited the pick-up driver. The pick-up driver and his insurance company accepted liability.
Plenty of insurance coverage was in place.
It was what we in the business sometimes call a "no-brainer." Liability was self-evident.

It was time for me to to meet and interview Betty.
As I drove around Betty's upper class housing community, entered only by a code punched in a box at a gate, I did a slow trawl of the streets. I searched for house numbers often hidden by bushes, paint jobs, or blown-out lights bulbs, all the things that make my job that much harder at night.

I saw the bright yellow Hummer in Betty's driveway before I saw her house number. When Betty answered the door and I said "Nice car," she told me it was the car she purchased after the accident with the settlement from her little Honda... and a sizable loan.

Betty did not call an attorney until 6 months after the accident happened and I asked her why.
She said that was because she was not sure she wanted an attorney. She figured since she settled her P.D./Property Damage Claim just fine, she could handle the injury claim as well.
After all she was an accountant who ran numbers daily.

She said, in the beginning, she couldn't justify giving an attorney a percentage of a settlement she was sure she could get on her own.
It didn't take long dealing with the insurance companies, the Defendant's and her own, before Betty realized the waters she was in were harder to navigate than she thought.

She called the law firm which sent me to her home with a preface:
She just wanted to talk to someone about her case and her rights.
She said she wanted "No pressure". The attorneys called it "attorney shopping".
The person the attorney sent to Betty was me -- an independent, state-licensed investigator who would look out for her interests and the law firms.

While I interviewed Betty in her custom kitchen with marble counter-tops she said were flown directly from Italy ... her two handsome sons, one 16 and one 18... sat on either side on Betty watching me like a pair of Hawks.

After two hours of talking, Betty decided she wanted the law firm to represent her. She signed the documents, I wrote up the case, handed it into the law firm and went on my way to the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year. One injury victim after another.

And then, about two years year after Betty's case settled, I was assigned another case from that same law firm. This one was a death investigation.

Little boy, hit and killed by a car.

As I reviewed the case file and the report, I studied the information about the the DEF (Defendant) who hit the child.
The DEF was 18 years old. He drove a bright yellow Hummer, he was under the influence and currently incarcerated.

I recalled a yellow Hummer in my memory's overloaded database. It was a while back.
I recalled the yellow Hummer in the driveway and checked my old calendar and the police report. Same locations.
An official conflict check revealed what I suspected.
The driver of the Hummer that killed the little boy was the same young man I met in Betty's kitchen, years earlier. The DEF driver was Betty's younger son, now 18.

The irony was as screaming yellow as the Hummer was:
Betty decided to replace her little Honda with a bigger vehicle so she could never be hurt again in an accident.

Betty's son who loved the Hummer... and loved to party... bonded instantly with the vehicle. So about two years after the law firm settled Betty's case, Betty's son killed a little boy riding a bike while under the influence in the Hummer.

The law firm chose not to accept the death case due to the "conflict of interest," which was based on their prior representation of Betty.

They said, among other things, that because I interviewed Betty as a client... and the law firm and I had her private information from the prior case.... and the information about her and her sons.... then I and the law firm would have privileged information that could be used against her as co-defendant in the action against her son. This would be unethical and illegal.

So the dead boy on the bicycle was a casualty again.
His grieving mom was referred to an equally proficient and professional attorney.

Betty was also a casualty again.
Her beloved son was now in jail after killing a little boy who might've survived a hit by a Honda vs. a Hummer.

The only one who gained from this situation was me... in the form of yet another lesson learned as a newbie investigator.
That lesson would be this:

Life is series of ebbs and tides, every flowing, never static. I never do a case now without a conflicts check first.
And if something stirs my memory, I stir the pot to bring that memory to the surface.
In the legal business, it is far better to ask permission than forgiveness.