La Lettre

Last night, when my husband brought up the mail motzei shabbos, there was a nice fat package from our lawyers. Silly bird that I am, I actually thought that maybe they had managed to reach a settlement. But no, it turned out instead to be a set of forms I had to sign to authorize release of all kinds of medical records. I then remembered that after the deposition there was mention of making records available to the opposing counsel and the insurance company. Ah well, what can you do?

But then I read the accompanying letter. That's when I noticed two things. First, the opposing counsel and insurance company made errors in their requests, requests that resulted from their conflating information I gave during my testimony. So that was vaguely disconcerting- was nobody checking the transcript from the deposition?But second, and what most raised my blood pressure was the the thinly veiled impetus for the requests, namely an attempt to defame me. That is when all bets were off, as they say.

I promptly left a voicemail with our paralegal, and followed up with emails to both her and the deposition lawyers. It is bad enough that I was an innocent bystander impacted by an accident that has so far irrevocably compromised my quality of life, but to stoop to immoral tactics in an attempt to plant blame on me for my injuries- well, that I refuse to tolerate. Thankfully the deposition lawyers responded and concurred that that the requests were outrageous, premature, and would be contested. A minor victory perhaps, but given how agitated I was from motzei shabbos until I received that email Monday afternoon, it was a significant victory for morality.

All of which is a way of saying, B'H', I now have an even greater appreciation for the Torah's requirement that the judicial system exemplify the highest degree of morality. Now if only the rest of the world would catch on...