Washington Trial Law : Washington State Trial Law & Litigation Lawyer & Attorney : Robert M. Boggs : Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, Yakima, Vancouver

Are your personal injury cases drying up? Do you settle your personal injury cases for less because the insurance companies have done a good job tainting jurors? Then try business litigation. The cover storey in the June issue of Trial suggested that there are many plaintiff opportunities in the business world to fight for the little guy.

I was reminded of this when I saw this article recently - a real David v. Goliath case complete with visuals of the Biblical characters. A bag boy, Jonathon Johnson, had worked his way up in a grocery chain to management. In addition he created four of his own stores in the inner city of Richmond which provided quality food at lesser prices and provided many services for the inner city residents.

Then he bought 51% of one of the stores from Rich Foods, the chain where he originally rose to management. Unfortunately another entity known as SuperValu bought ought Rich Foods and he found himself having to deal with them.  They were not nice people. According to a whistleblower that worked for SuperValu they had a plan to run him out of business and replace his four inner city stores with their stores, Sav-a-Lot. They were successful.

But not so fast. In comes attorney Verbena Askew and sues on behalf of Mr. Johnson. The jury returns a verdit of $500,000 for intentional infliction of emotional distress and $15.5 million for negligent infliction of emotional distress for a total of $16 million.

I wonder how many times this kind of stuff happens every day which means I think this is an untapped area of the law. It would also seem to present challenges for trial attorneys to simplify the evidence and come up with creative ways communicate their story to the jurors - in other words a trial attorney’s dream come true.

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I read all the time.  When it isn't law it's history or philosophy.  My wife thinks I have too many books. She can't figure out why I keep bringing books home when I haven't finished the ones I already have.  My answer is why have a library if you've already read all the books in it.

In any event, reading history often times confirms my belief that we our profession is in fact very noble.  For example, the art of rhetoric died out during the Middle Ages.  It was resuscitated during the Italian Renaissance in the late 14th and early 15th centuries.  Humanism was alive again and the leaders of the Renaissance began to uncover all of the old texts from Greece and Rome that were harbored in monasteries all over Europe.  Among those texts were volumes on rhetoric like Quinitilian's (a lawyer by trade)  Institutia Oratoria.  During the Renaissance it was believed that men knew the difference between the good and the bad and had the capacity  to do the good.  But, they needed to be inspired and motivated to do the good.  That is where rhetoric came in.  It was seen as the means by which the leaders would inspire the people to do good.  So when you are in front of a jury think to your self that like lawyers of old you are there to inspire the jury to do the right thing, to rule in your client's favor because it is just and good.

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