Best money I have ever made

In Birmingham, there must be a lot of lawyers, because they pay folks to attend mock trials and render their verdicts.  The "trials" aren't full-blown things and evidence presentation/summaries are only a couple of hours.  For 3 hours of my time, they hand me a $100 bill on my way out the door.  Not bad. (Unlike megabucks Teo, my highest pay previous to this was a consultant job at $30/hr.)

The company that hosts this "service" also pays people to give their opinions on foods they taste.  Again... good money.  I wasn't available the only time I was asked to do a food tasting, but Grands Biscuits were involved.

I am required to keep silent on details of the mock trials, but the two I have been to have been related to traffic accidents.

I'm going again to a "trial" tonight.

One thing I have learned is Contributory Negligence.  You can be just slightly at fault, say slowly but carefully rolling through a stop sign and get T-boned by kids drag-racing down a residential street, you cannot recover damages in Alabama.

Wikipedia says:

Quote :

In some jurisdictions, the doctrine states that a victim who is at fault to any degree, including only 1% at fault, may be denied compensation entirely. This is known as pure contributory negligence.[1]:85 In the United States, the pure contributory negligence only applies in Alabama, the District of Columbia, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia. Indiana applies pure contributory negligence to medical malpractice cases and tort claims against the state government.

In Florida, it is kinda the opposite:

Quote :

Pure Comparative Fault
Thirteen states recognize the Pure Comparative Fault Rule, which allows a damaged party to recover even if it is 99 percent at fault, although the recovery is reduced by the damaged party’s degree of fault. These states include Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Washington.

The rest of the states seem to have their cutoffs at either 50% or 51%.

Cumerland Law School?

Joanimaroni wrote:

Cumerland Law School?

The first one was at the Cumberland School of Law on the Samford University Campus.  There was a real judge presiding and there were students, about to graduate, presenting the two sides of the case.  It was a learning experience for them.

The rest of them have been at a business park here in Hoover, with real attorneys.  It seems that they were the real prosecutor and defense attorneys and not associated with the Law School.

In both instances, the jury deliberations were videotaped.  Since they weren't real trials, it gives the lawyers insight into how the deliberations go.

I don't mind jury duty at all and have found a new respect for some types of lawyers and more contempt for others.. The same goes for judges, some are great and others stink......

I have done it... was a jury foreman... and don't mind doing my civic duty.

Woe to any ILLEGAL that Jake has the pleasure to judge...

I am a Bad Boy, eh, Jake?

Illegal alien or natural born citizen makes NO difference to the crime the trial is for... 4th generation citizens might break the same law an illegal alien breaks and they should be punished for the crime they are in court for.. :-)

Contributory negligence sounds familiar to me. Last Christmas some idiot lady who was high on drugs with her son in the car pulled out right in front of me... obviously on a snowy, icy road. Plus there was ice fog that day. On top of being an idiot for pulling out in front of someone particularly in those conditions, she was driving a 2WD vehicle with summer tires on it and had no traction, so she was spinning out in the middle of the road. I was only going 15-20 MPH at the time, but I still could not stop and hit her (fiberglass) bumper, which obviously cracked. There wasn't even any damage to my truck. That's how hard I did NOT hit her. But because I hit her from behind and it was *partially* my fault, I was found to be at fault. WTH sort of sense is that?? My insurance guy explained it to me as some sort of Alaskan malarkey... contributory negligence, comparative fault, something like that. Ticked me off.