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20 Ark. L. Rev. 11 (1966-1967)
Personal Injury Cases: Proof of Damages

handle is hein.journals/arklr20 and id is 13 raw text is: Personal Injury Cases: Proof of Damages Phillip Harrington* The proof of damages in a personal injury case is a broad structure with many facets; it is impossible for me to cover them all. I do have a few ideas about the presentation of proof of dam- ages in personal injury cases that I thought for a long time were original with me, until I began to associate with really good trial lawyers and found that they were old ideas that had filtered down. I believe that in providing damages you have to take the attitude when you go into the courtroom that this is what you go for. Litiga- tion, without damages, is purely a forensic exercise. Damages is what the litigation is all about, the reason for all of the preceding substantive and procedural preparations. There is, after all, a cer- tain amount of predictability in a lawsuit. We are all familiar with the substantive and procedural rules which will be imposed at the trial. We also know that certain issues will be allowed to go to the jury by a particular judge. Often liability will not even be a major issue. But when it comes to the value of the case in money damages all the odds change, because it is at that point that the legal giants and pygmies part company. , You have the average lawyer who goes into the courtroom, al- lows the jury to flounder around, to lose themselves in generality and platitudes. He is vague and imprecise about exactly what the damages are that he is trying to prove. On the other hand, you have the lawyer who really knows what he is doing and what the lawsuit is all about, who is going to present this case to the jury and persuade them to his point of view, if he can himself believe what he is talking about. The good lawyer will embrace the burden of proving damages and recognize it for the keen advantage that it really is to the plaintiff. He will go to the jury and persuade them that his client is entitled to the money that he claims without apology and without giving anything off from a sizeable verdict. We are again led to the proposition that the reason why the case is being tried is for the jury to evaluate damages. I believe that there are three things that a good lawyer trying a case on damages must do; there may be more, but these three are absolutes. The first is that he has to understand thoroughly the law on damages. Second, he has to assume the right attitude for damages. And third, he'has to know what the injuries are, he has to know what the damages are, and he hag to be able to project that whole package across the rail and into the lap of the jury. The lawyer has to know and be able in his own mind to distinguish be- tween his client's right to recover and the amount to which his client is entitled. *Member of the firm of McArdle, Harrington, Feeney & McLaughlin, Pitts- burgh, Pennsylvania.

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