Chapter 480

You were just sitting down as Judge Mathews called the ‘court’ back to order. Eric was shifting through his files, readying his arguments for his new Motion to Dismiss in case things went the way that you all were expecting. Sabrina and Gemma, meanwhile, were preparing for the final witness since they were going to handle the objections on this one. You and Eric had taken all of the ‘fact’ based ones, and the girls had agreed to handle the one that was likely to require the most exacting attention to detail.

“May it please the Court, Your Honour, the Plaintiff calls Mr Davis Polk to the stand.”

Sabrina had the dossier for Davis Polk in front of her, and it was fairly large even though he had almost nothing to do with the actual case. Polk was an ex-employee of your clients and, according to the records, had testified twice before against DeLittle Insurance and seemed to be making his own little cottage business doing it.

Polk was being played by Edgar Talbot, one of the associates from the firm, and he mounted the stage and took to the witness stand to be sworn in. Thomas, the short and angry member of the opposition, was the one who seemed to be trying to orchestrate their ‘grand narrative’ strategy against the Insurance industry so it made sense that he was the member of the opposition who got things rolling.

Gemma registered three objections to the first three attempts Thomas made to ask Polk a question.

The first was Leading, as Thomas attempted to bulldoze into his narrative with what would have been the softest soft-pitch question ever. The second was Speculation as Thomas tried to pivot to a different opening that would have allowed Polk to talk out of his ass about the ‘intent’ of DeLittle insurance. The third was Relevance as Thomas tried to pivot again, this time asking about Polk’s interaction with the CEO of DeLittle. That one came out of left field - there was nothing about Polk and your client’s CEO interacting in the files.

You quickly scribbled ‘Hidden Info again,’ onto a scrap of paper in front of Gemma and she grimaced and nodded. Sabrina, on her other side this time, was using a sheet of paper with all the common Objections labelled and pens to point to the ones that seemed relevant to help Gemma keep track. Meanwhile, poor Thomas was starting to turn a little red.

“Your Honour, I need to be allowed to ask questions to conduct the business of defending my client,” he complained.

“I agree, Mr Malberry,” Judge Mathews said. “Perhaps you should consider asking questions that fall within the rules of the court - I don’t believe Miss Anderson is interested in giving you any leeway here.”

Thomas grimaced and shot a look at your table, then turned back to the Judge. “Thank you, Your Honour,” he said, and Gemma echoed him.

Thomas rolled back his aggressiveness and started back up with short, introductory questions. He got about four in.

“Objection, your Honour,” Gemma said, standing up. “Relevance.”

“I’m trying to establish relevance, your Honour if I could have a chance please!?” Thomas whined.