BEFORE YOU ASK…
Q. Where did he have the surgery?
A. The hospital on 13 Mile. What do you call it? You know how you’re going towards the Albanian church?
Q. No.
THE INTERPRETER: Neither do I.
Elsa Jorgensen
Birmingham, Mich.
WHICH IS SAFER
Q. Do you have any licenses? Do you still have a driver’s license?
A. Yes, ma’am.
Q. All right. And it’s not suspended or revoked or whatever?
A. No, it no. They took the concealed handgun license, but they haven’t took the driver’s license yet.
Denyce Sanders, RDR, CRR
Houston, Texas
WHEN LAWYERS GET ANTSY
This was from the testimony of an accident reconstruction expert:
A. Well, let me give you the long winded spiel. It goes like this and I’ve got the books that taught me it reaction time can go anywhere from a quarter of a second up to 2 1/2 seconds and based on the stimulus.
And the one I like to give is you’re driving home from a bar convention in San Antonio, whether smoking cigarettes and maybe a couple beers or two, and it’s 2 o’clock in the morning, and on Interstate 10, it’s a little bit foggy
Q. You’re driving with me or Mr. Gary?
A. With you.
MR. GARY: With you. This is you.
MR. HILL: Oh, okay. It sounds more like Gary. Okay. Go ahead.
later on:
MR. GARY: You almost done?
MR. HILL: I’m almost done.
MR. GARY: I need to use the restroom desperately.
MR. HILL: How desperate? Like five minutes desperate or ten minutes desperate?
MR. GARY: Not ten minutes.
Denyce Sanders, RDR, CRR
Houston, Texas
MINOR HOLIDAYS
Q. Remind me again. What month was he shot in?
A. Veteran’s Day.
Q. You have to tell me a month, though. My husband is a veteran and I don’t know the answer to that question.
A. 11/11/14.
MR. JONES: That’s fairly pathetic.
MS. SMITH: I’m a pretty bad wife.
Elsa Jorgensen
Birmingham, Mich.
ALL IN THE FAMILY
This is from a closing argument where Mr. Smith is describing the other side’s behavior in a breach-of-contract case:
MR. SMITH: You’re going to be squeezed out, motivate you to sell. We’ll just keep kicking. The perfect example of this is when you’ve got your son kicking a dog and kicking a dog and kicking a dog and finally the dog bites back. Who gets blamed? The dog. So Mr. Thomas is the dog — I mean is the kid. I’m sorry.
THE CHAIRMAN: You have a very violent family.
MR. THOMAS: But a nice dog.
MR. SMITH: But a nice dog.
THE CHAIRMAN: You seem to involve violence in your family.
ARBITRATOR JONES: Mr. Thomas doesn’t like the example.
MR. THOMAS: I like it.
Laurie Collins, RPR
Brooklyn, N.Y.
DOWNHILL FROM HERE
This was of an expert witness internal medicine doctor.
BY MR. DAVIS:
Q. Did you grow up in Texas?
A. I did.
Q. Why did you end up in Michigan?
A. I got married.
Q. Good reason. What position did you play in football?
A. Wide receiver and a return punt in kickoffs.
Q. You don’t seem big enough to play football.
A. I was 205 back then.
Q. What position did you play in baseball?
A. Center field.
MR. SMITH: We’re really getting to it now.
MR. JONES: Somebody had to ask.
MR. DAVIS: Those are the two most interesting questions I’m probably going to ask all day.
Elizabeth A. Tubbert, RPR
Highland, Mich.
WHERE YOU HEADING?
A 17-year-old was trying to answer a directional question.
Q. Okay. Do you know what direction he was traveling on Haverhill?
A. I have no moral compass.
Q. Okay. That’s not going to come out well. I’m going — I’m going — you have a moral compass.
A. Nope. That was wrong. I have —
Q. That was wrong.
A. I don’t have —
Q. That was very wrong.
A. That was very wrong. Okay. I don’t have an inner compass when it comes to directions; north, south, east, or west. I am a very good person. I swear. I solemnly swear.
Q. All right. We’re going to stipulate on the record that you have a good moral compass.
A. Okay?
MR. SMITH: Dan, are you with me on that?
MR. JONES: So stipulated.
MR. SMITH: That was the funniest thing I’ve heard all day.
Robyn Maxwell, RPR
Royal Palm Beach, Fla.
POWERS OF OBSERVATION
Q. Did anyone from the company, the three people I’ve mentioned, ever state to you that the crane hit the tree branch?
A. It’s like asking if a T. Rex put its head through a room. Everybody in the room saw the head of the T. Rex. Nobody ever said, “Oh, my God, it’s in the room.”
MS. JONES: Just answer the question.
THE WITNESS: Sorry.
Dominique Isabeau
Daly City, Calif.