Real-Life Decision Making -- Solution
You take the case -- they are paying clients and you are a professional.
You need to show this jury that that ride is dangerous and that Kendra Brown could indeed have suffered a bad injury from that ride. You decide to use a video.
You produce a video of the Twisted Twister zipping by. Some good graphic work makes it look really thrilling, but also scary: there is a shot of the coaster coming right at the camera. This cuts to several shots in quick succession of the upside-down loops of the coaster.
Because the cuts are fast, it looks like the coaster is going fast. You have loud rock music in the background. Then a shot of the last loop is slowed down as the train reaches the upside down mark. The music is slowed in perfect timing with the image.
Then the image is still, with the coaster frozen upside down. The music becomes a droning, eerie sound. "This was the fateful moment for Kendra Brown," says the voice-over.
It would be perfect if you could now cut to a picture of an insubstantial safety harness, but unfortunately, the Twisted Twister has belts as well as a mechanical arm that descends over riders' shoulders and lap. These are checked regularly.
You show instead some pictures of safety harnesses on other coasters. "Sometimes," says the voice-over, "safety harnesses don't do any good." You hope it isn't obvious that some of this footage of safety harnesses is 20 years old.
The other side has a video too. They show a wide shot of the coaster going through its entire trip, at its usual speed. Then they have close-up shots of the safety belt and the mechanical arm. They show an employee checking the safety belts of all riders before the mechanical arms descend over the shoulders of riders and the Twisted Twister is off on another trip around the track.
They also enter into evidence a real safety belt and mechanical arm from the Twisted Twister. They have the maintenance reports showing how often these features are checked, including that they had been checked that morning.
Just when you thought it couldn't get worse, they brought in the safety belt that Kendra Brown had been wearing. The tear in it sure looks like it was made with some kind of knife.
Your client loses the case. Your business drops off.
"You have to be an ethical person," says trial consultant Patrice Truman. "I think that if there is a case that you don't feel right about, I don't think you should take it."