One of the most crucial issues in a products liability action is whether the jury will hear evidence of other incidents involving the same or a similar product. Few issues will strengthen a case for the plaintiff like evidence that the defendant was on notice of injuries caused by their product. Therefore, a good defense attorney will make every effort to prevents the admission of other similar incident evidence.1 In every products liability case where other similar incident, accident or injury evidence arises, the ruling of the court on this issue has the potential to significantly impact the outcome of the case.

Today there are approximately 500,000 carriers operating as interstate carriers and numerous more operating solely as intrastate carriers. Most all of these carriers are governed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR). Of the 500,000 interstate carriers approximately 70% of them have less than seven (7) trucks. There are approximately 8 million drivers in this country that have commercial drivers license (CDL’s). All of the CDL qualified drivers combined for approximately 2 billion miles traveled in 2002. Approximately 2.5 fatalities occur for every 1 million mile driven by these carriers.

Many people outside of the legal profession have the misconception that a case is won or lost solely because of what happens in the court room. A good attorney knows, however, that the work that goes into drafting the complaint, deposing witnesses, discovering documents and choosing experts is every bit as determinative of the outcome of a case as anything that happens at trial. Adequate preparation in all these phases helps guarantee success at trial.

How many times has a prospective client walked into your office and informed you that he just discovered that the used vehicle he purchased had previously been wrecked? He informs you that he specifically remembers asking the sales person if the vehicle had ever been wrecked, and the sales person had responded that it had not.

Focus groups are more important to civil litigation than you may think. Dr. Richard A. Krueger, describes focus groups as: “(1) people, (2) assembled in a series of groups, (3) possessing certain characteristics …, (4) providing data, (5) of a qualitative nature, (6) in a focused discussion. “ Focus groups were designed for attorneys to test their case theories and strategies on a sample “jury.”