HIRED GUNS
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By Gregory C. Maaswinkel, Esq. Esquire Legal Group, P.A.  | Published Oct 2007

We have all heard that frivolous lawsuits are clogging the courts and causing insurance premiums to sky-rocket. However, we do not hear about frivolous defenses clogging the court and causing insurance premiums to sky-rocket. Frivolous defenses are cases that should have settled without going to court but the insurance company knows it can get an expert to testify favorably for the insurance company. Therefore, the insurance company offers little to no money to settle and that forces the plaintiff to seek justice through the court. While there are some plaintiffs that exaggerate or fake injury in the hopes of winning a large verdict from a jury, there are a lot of defense experts who get paid a lot of money to convince jurors that legitimate plaintiffs should receive nothing.

In most personal injury cases, jurors are not told that a big insurance company stands behind the defendant and finances the entire defense. This includes paying the defense attorney and their experts huge sums of money. Unfortunately, these so called experts are typically nothing more than a hired gun that will testify that there is either nothing physically wrong with the plaintiff or that their current pain is related to the natural aging process instead of the accident. Plaintiff and Defense lawyers often know the opinions of these hired guns months before the expert has even examined the injured Plaintiff. These hired guns are paid thousands of dollars
per case by insurance companies and their lawyers because they are extremely good at convincing jurors that the plaintiff’s pain is due to the natural aging process. Often times, the hired gun has little to no active practice other than providing “expert” testimony to defense lawyers and the insurance companies.

The next time you hear that frivolous lawsuits are clogging the courts, stop and ask yourself, “is it frivolous lawsuits or frivolous defenses that are clogging our courts.”