On my first and probably the last proceeding where I was the defending side lawyer, I had a strange experience. This was an incident of Pasco County and a middle aged man was hit on right clavicle by some metal piece which flew out of a truck he was driving behind.
It resulted in nasty injury and surgery had to be carried out. But the good thing is that within a short time period signs of recovery were eminent and normal activities like walking the dog, mowing lawn and lifting small weights were resumed by the person which he even stated in the deposition.
But on trail day there seemed to be something different about this man. He acted as though the arm was completely useless and all the tasks had to be done by left hand only. It was clear that this act was to impress the jury and earn good reward from defending party.
However things did not quite go according to the way he had wished. The cross questioning done by me put him into all sorts of trouble where he had to admit that tasks could be done by the right hand which he was showing as useless.
The result was that, jury presented the plaintiff with nothing at all. So it is my piece of advice to all every young lawyer that the jury should not be thought of as a group of unintelligent people with no sense at all. Every case should be presented based on actual facts and not fictional stories.