My week in court for my place of business

To my dismay I spent the week after Lauren's birth in court, acting in defense of my place of employment in a wrongful death lawsuit resulting from a May 2006 accident.

[Just as with the accident itself I won't go into details here. Should this survive a decade or more into the future, interested parties can track down my two depositions, insurance statement, and testimony to evaluate the incident and my defense of it. ]

I was on the stand on two different days (during one time on the stand I noted it was exactly one week since Lauren's birth) and was called by both sides of the case.

I was petrified when I testified, to the point of stammering when asked to spell my name, but a mere sentence later felt a strange and detached calm descend on me.

I will not say that I was any star witness, as I'm sure folks have been more eloquent and persuasive on the stand, but I think I did more than hold my own. I got in a few points that were clearly in our favor, and I felt good about my testimony.

On the other hand I dreaded the whole week. Every day was an ordeal, emotionally (for obvious reasons) but physically too as I had trouble sleeping and missed my family.

In essense it wasn't just the business on trial it was my professional reputation too, and I had a lot vested in the case.

Before the closing our lawyer pulled me aside and warned that the closing would be rough. He believed  the opposition would  gouge and rip at my reputation and name to bolster his case.

What wound up happening was this: in the closing the only two times the plantiff's lawyer mentioned me was to comment on my role as a family man and as someone of intelligence and honesty.

I'm sure he didn't buy a letter of what he was spewing, but I think he knew I'd connected with the jury. He didn't want to lose the jurors by attacking someone they viewed positively.

IMO, at least.

In the end we won, and just having it over was a blessing.