A cautionary (and entertaining) tale of an attorney who set himself up for ridicule during testimony by way of a false hypothetical.
My client was being deposed, and he had testified that his wife had spent a great deal of time managing an apartment complex that she owned with a partner. Let’s call it the Park Plaza. It was already clear from the testimony that the witness did not spend a great deal of time at the Park Plaza, so it would be assumed that he would not have any direct personal knowledge of what she was doing at the complex.
But counsel, we’ll call him Bill Jones, wanted to nail down how the witness could know that his wife had spent a lot of time performing management duties for Park Plaza, and the witness testified to about half a dozen ways he had personal knowledge that his wife was spending a lot of time on management duties. One of those items was that his wife would bring home a banker’s box full of file folders every night, all bearing the name Park Plaza, and would work on the paperwork late into the night, and get up early the next morning to continue the process.
Ignoring all of the other testimony, counsel seized on the one statement about the folders, and posed the following ridiculous hypothetical:
“So if you saw me with a stack of file folders labeled ‘Park Plaza,’ you would assume that I was spending a great deal of time managing that property?”
I interposed the appropriate objections, and my client then proceeded to answer Mr. Jones’s question beautifully.
“No, I would not assume that just because I saw Mr. Jones holding a stack of folders for Park Plaza, that he was managing that property. First, Mr. Jones does not impress me as someone who would ever be able to own a project like the Park Plaza. Similarly, while Mr. Jones might be a fine attorney, I don’t see him as having the organizational skills to manage an apartment complex, between scheduling repair people, negotiating leases, and all the other things a manager must do. I also don’t think Mr. Jones has the sort of work ethic necessary to manage an apartment complex. For these reasons, if I saw you with a stack of documents labeled Park Plaza, I would not think that you were spending time managing the complex.”
Counsel moved onto a different topic.