Mock Trial Part Five; Defence Opening Statement

“May it please the Court, Your Honour,” Gemma said, kicking off the Opening Statement for your Defence. “My name is Gemma Anderson, representing the defendant DeLittle Insurance in this matter. The case before you should be a simple misunderstanding of the finer points of contract law. The Plaintiffs have brought this case forward because they do not agree with the terms of the contract they signed with our client DeLittle Insurance, and refute that they broke both the spirit and the letter of those terms.”

Your girlfriend spoke evenly and paced herself, not rushing through her points or making anything sound urgent. It was exactly how you had practised with her, and because she was giving herself space to breathe she also had time to make eye contact with the Judge and keep him engaged.

Gemma went into her overview of the case from the side of the insurance company. A business transaction was arranged to benefit the Jacobs, and due to the price point the Jacobs wanted to pay for the arrangement strict guidelines and fine print were part of the contract. The Jacobs were in an unfortunate accident, made a claim on their policy, and due to the intricate nature of the claim in the multi-vehicle event an investigator was sent to assess the claim. The company investigator found two primary breaches of the contract, one of which was that the Jacobs’ were transporting oversized goods (lengths of two-by-fours) inappropriately with the back of their vehicle open and not properly secured, and the other that they had attached several cosmetic additions to their vehicle, one of which was the cause of the accident.

Moving through her overview took time, and you could feel the energy in the room slow to a crawl. It was the opposite of the Plaintiff’s opening - Gemma didn’t get into great detail, since it wasn’t the time to present evidence, but she hammered the broad strokes in a way that made it feel like they were mountains that the plaintiffs would need to overcome.

“In short, your Honour, the Plaintiff needs to prove that our client has acted in bad faith in their investigation of the event,” Gemma continued. “And that their findings are untrue. Our clients would be happy to honour the contract if this proves to be the case, but we firmly believe in the findings of the investigation.” This pushed into the introduction of witnesses, and what their key testimony would be. We had a list of ten witnesses prepared, each giving a different piece of the puzzle in terms of highlighting the breach of contract on the part of the Jacobs before and during the day of the accident, and that they had been made aware of the terms they had agreed to.

Gemma was winding down, and she’d been speaking for almost half an hour straight when she paused, coming over to the table. You had already poured her a cup of water and she smiled at you with her eyes as she took a long sip. As she set it down Sabrina spun her notepad around where she’d written, You’re killing it!

“In conclusion, you Honour,” Gemma said, turning back around and taking a few steps toward the bench before planting her feet solidly. “This is a civil case and the Plaintiffs must prove their case by a preponderance of the evidence. Based on the information gathered, we believe that the Plaintiff will be unable to do so and that they will attempt to turn this case on its head to try and make it into something it is not. This is a case about breach of contract; nothing more and nothing less. The Plaintiffs may wish to make this into a spectacle - an indictment of the system they wilfully engaged in, or of our client who dealt with them openly and fairly. No one is refuting that there was a legal contract made between the Plaintiff and the Defendant, and therefore for these reasons, after you have heard all the evidence, at the end of their trial we will ask you to return a verdict in favour of DeLittle Insurance. Thank you.” Gemma nodded respectfully, and then turned and came back to your table.

You couldn’t help raising a hand and patting, and then squeezing, her shoulder in congratulations even if a couple dozen lawyers were watching from behind you.

“Perfectly executed,” you murmured to her.

“Thanks,” she smiled, just a little, to you. Eric whispered something to her from her other side and she turned, thanking him as well.

“Alright,” Judge Mathews said. “That wraps up opening statements. Plaintiffs, it’s your floor to make your case.”

There was a brief exchange of words over at the Plaintiff's table, and for a moment you wondered if you were really that lucky that they hadn’t come up with a plan of who would present what parts of their case. Unfortunately, it seemed more like it was just finding the right notes, and Tucker stood up. “May it please the Court, Your Honour, the Plaintiff calls Mr Fred Garland to the stand.”

You frowned and raised your eyebrows, surprised that they were starting with the Insurance Broker. It made sense if they were going to make a linear timeline of events as the core of their case, but you couldn’t see how that would serve them the best in making their case - if anything, it leaned more into your version of events because it was a much more factual way of tackling the issues. Unless, of course, they had put together the same issues that you had found on the weekend in regards to the Insurance Broker - that Fred Garland was the brother-in-law to the Plaintiff, Randy.

One of the lawyers from the other firm, a younger guy so you had a feeling he was an Associate and not one of their Partners, came up onto the stage and made his way to the witness box. He was carrying several papers which would be the script he was supposed to work from when playing his role - depending on the Mock Trial format the competition provided witness actors, or sometimes the competitors had to find them if they wanted to bring them to the stand. In this case, you had to assume most of the witnesses would be Paralegals, Associates, or even Junior Partners, volunteering or getting pressed into it if they were free.

The monetary investment by the firms into what was essentially a game, hiring out the hall and giving folks time off of their regular duties, kept growing and you had to wonder how it was worth it. Maybe Garrison and some of the other Partners had laid out a bet or something? Which, of course, was just even more pressure.

The Associate was ‘sworn in’ and then Tucker was free to begin his questioning. It started reasonably enough - entering anything into evidence for the case required it to come in through a witness. That meant that the Insurance Contract that the Jacobs had signed had to be entered in and validated, so that was the first order of business. ‘Fred’ did so, checking over the document and agreeing that it was the right contract. Then he confirmed a record of the Jacobs’ policy, that until the incident in question, they had never missed a payment or made a claim against the policy.

And then Tucker showed their hand. “Now, Mr Garland,” the tall, athletic blond said with a smarmy smile. “Would you consider the policy you set up for the Jacobs to be of a typical type for the vehicle type and make, and their driving records? Or did it lean more towards an… atypical, modified policy?”

He’d found the familial connection.

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