A Picture in Your Case is Worth a Thousand Words

A potential client contacted me yesterday asking about a slip and fall case involving leased residential property. He reported the walks in front of the apartment building hadn't been shoveled all winter. He'd fallen and broke a bone. Obviously that's not a good thing for landlords to be doing. Someone has a duty to shovel the walks and it's likely the landlord, unless of course it's noted otherwise in the lease.  I answered the tenant's question about whether he has a case by asking if he had photographs of the conditions of the sidewalk on the day he fell and for any time previous to his fall. Both would be helpful to prove liability or to show me he has no case.

Then my friend and colleague Mike Bryant forwarded a story that included a video of a man being arrested and who died from choking during the arrest. The video, while shocking clearly demonstrated the power of pictures, photographs and especially video imagery in any case. So let's take a look and I'll demonstrate why that is. The original story line is from Perez Hilton's blog.

Here is the report. Florida police responded to a disturbance and the subject of the investigation swallowed a bag of something thought to be "weed" which caused his airway to become blocked. The officers not appreciating in time why the man was resisting their attempts to subdue him and the man not being able to talk, he chocked to death right on camera. One more instance of the Taser being substituted for communication skills.

Interesting enough a video crew filming a reality TV show was nearby and caught the entire incident on film.

This is disturbing so I warn you to consider not watching the video. Even if you choose not to watch my point should be obvious. Just remember that juries in cases don't have a   choice on what they watch; if offered and allowed by the judge into evidence they don't get to close their eyes. So it there was a part of the evidence in any case the jury would have to watch it.

And then let's consider what lawyers today have to face in terms of their own client's making admissions to the world that, yes are even available to opposing counsel and perhaps jurors. Both Michaels and Zoo Productions have Twitter accounts and postings. Zoo has a Facebook page with short film clips. I watched the one titled "Nokia "Time" which was quite good and another Freixenet "El Coor Reserva", also very interesting. But interesting or not clients need to appreciate what they put on the Internet isn't off limits in a lawsuit. If you posted it then it can be used as an admission; which will require an explanation.

I have to wonder if reality TV shows aren't giving people the wrong idea about life, moral values and how to live your life. With the dilution of individual privacy are we also losing a sense of right and wrong? What's there on the Internet isn't just in the virtual world. It's real; real in the sense of telling us what went on over time.

The man that died was Dustin Michaels.

(Twitter Account: http://twitter.com/dustinMichaels)

The production company was Zoo Productions. ZP is or has produced shows listed on the site as Speeders, Are You Smarter Than A 5^th Grader?, Redneck Dreams, Speeders Fight Back, Busted and Spring Break. Titillating stuff as you can see.  Executives include John Stevens, Barry Poznick, Richard Valenzuela and Rachel Brill Stella. Casting calls are currently underway for three shows that include: Are You Smarter Than A 5^th Grader, Phobias and How'd You Get So Rich?

Zoo Productions is in the Lombard Building in Hollywood and on Twitter. (http://twitter.com/zoofilm)  

I wonder which reality TV show they were shooting that included the gay porn star that died. And were the cop a part of this reality show's cast? Do they become a part of reality TV because they were doing their jobs and ended up in the shot? Only time will tell, but one thing that is for certain is that Mr. Michael's died, he was shot with a Taser and the images say more than a thousand words could make you visualize. I note that Taser has it's own blog. A search did not produce any blog posts about Dustin Michaels.

So back at the ranch the point remains - do you have photographs of the conditions?