The $500,000 Telephone Pole : The Cowboy Goes to Court

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This is a three part series describing a series of events surrounding a one-vehicle accident in Santa Fe Springs, California.

Part One: Trucks, Lousy Drivers, Lawyers, and the LAPD

Part Two: The Cowboy goes to Court

Part Three: The Lawsuit Comes to Call =================================================================

My employers wanted me to eat the ticket."You can't win," they intoned solemnly,"Not in an L.A. court."

Watch me.

There were numerous details to handle, even for such a small case. I could beat these LAPD bastards, I knew that--but not if I left a single i undotted, a single t uncrossed. Pam and I sat down, compiled a checklist to make sure we missed nothing. We had a little time, a couple of months...but not a second to waste. See, a fellow driver who'd been shafted big time by the corporation knew the down and dirty truth: This company would always leave a driver swinging in the wind. Back him when he was in legal trouble? Hell, they'd backshoot him if they got the chance.

That's not what the driver recruiter told us when we signed on, of course.

COURT CHECKLIST

1. Get pictures back from boss.

They'd been developed, they were invaluable, but they were not in my possession at the moment. Hopefully those idiots at the Home Terminal hadn't lost them; that would be a kick in the head. In the end, the Safety Supervisor (so-called) did hand them over, but I had to talk myself blue in the face to convince him.

2. Talk to dispatch--need to be in Santa Fe Springs by June 8, layover till June 10 midnight.

Fortunately, this turned out to be the easiest part of the whole deal. Any driver with the sense God gave a soda cracker knows you want to be on good terms with your dispatchers, and I was that. The reason for the layover? I had to be in the Clerk of Court's office the day before the trial just to request a trial instead of simply paying my ticket like a good little criminal.

Even requesting the trial turned out to be tricky. Turned out I had to pay the full amount of the fine before going to court!

Hey, if I won my case (*Snicker! AS IF!*), they'd send me a refund. (*Nasty cackle!*)

3. Talk to Kevin, get him to go with.

Kevin was the gate guard who'd seen Ms. Nascar's SUV bounce off that telephone pole. He'd also seen that my turn signal was blinking when I pulled into the terminal driveway, prima facie evidence that I had not caused the lady's accident by driving my eighteen wheeler in a negligent fashion--which was what the cop claimed when he wrote the ticket.

Additionally, the guard was (a) a Captain with (b) Brinks [a security contractor, not my employer], (c) articulate, (d) handsome, or close enough to it, and (e) African American.

No, I wasn't dumb enough to mention his race to anyone, but it couldn't hurt for this lily white, redneck Montana cowboy to walk into a Los Angeles court with a big black man handling backup. Instant court cred. Or not, but at worst it couldn't hurt. Besides which, we got along well, he didn't like the idea of me being shafted by the fuzz, and he wasn't happy about LAPD refusing to take his statement on the day of the accident.

Payback's a bitch.

4. Purchases: Shoes, briefcase, typewriter.

The typewriter was needed to produce just one letter (see #5 below), after which it was never used again. Best $98.95 we ever spent.

The briefcase was easy, $29.95 at a store in Helena while still on my days off. Brushed aluminum, three inches thick--you know the type.

Shoes were a different matter. I owned an okay outfit for court--a pair of Levi blue jeans that still had some blue left in them, black western shirt with pearl snaps, a fancy painted tie depicting a horse and rider with snowcapped mountains in the background, and a gray western corduroy blazer with black leather elbow patches. Nothing appropriate in the way of footwear, though. My feet couldn't handle cowboy boots any more, so mostly I wore cheap Wal-Mart tennis shoes, ten bucks a pop.

Nor could I find anything in Helena that would work without terrorizing my tootsies.

It was only two weeks before the trial when I pulled my truck into a small truck stop and saw what looked like a strip mall within walking distance of the parking lot. Not a lot of time to spare, but enough: Black Hush Puppies and a pair of dress socks, $55 plus tax.

I was good to go.

5. Pam's letter.

This, my wife and I agreed, might turn out to be unimportant--or it might just as easily turn out to be the hinge pin for the whole case. Witnessing the woman's crash had traumatized my redhead; she was unable to face the thought of climbing back into that Volvo cab for another month on the road with me.

So she and I, together, crafted a letter for her to sign and got her signature notarized. The final product went into my new aluminum brief case along with a yellow legal pad (duh!), the accident photo packet, the original traffic citation that had come in the mail--and a book, just in case.

I don't go anywhere, not even to the restroom, without something to read.

The judge might accept the letter into evidence...or not. We chose to think positively. Pam's written account covered most of two typewritten pages and painted numerous images designed to influence the judge:

--The driver who crashed her Montero had "swooped around to the right like a falcon chasing a rabbit".

--It was outrageous, her man getting this ticket. He always drove safely, had even gotten his annual Safety Award from his employer the previous month.

--The police had literally refused to take her statement.

--Yada yada yada.

Time dragged and flew. My fight-or-flight adrenaline surged and crashed. I rehearsed my own testimony hundreds of times, rounded up Kevin...and it was time to go to trial.

There were forty-six defendants jammed into that courtroom. I know; I counted. The judge was a woman, which could be either good or bad; ask any one of my six ex-wives. The first case was called...and it was mine.

Helps to have a name that starts out early in the alphabet, sometimes.

The cop who'd issued the ticket was there--okay, expected that. The woman who'd wrecked her brand new Mitsubishi Montero, so new it still had paper plates...was not. Better than okay, hoped for that.

After greeting the officer, Her Honor turned to me.

"You're the attorney?"

Awesome! The black dude standing beside me in his work clothes, sans necktie, had already paid off! "No, Your Honor,  I'm the driver. Kevin is my witness."

Mr. LAPD presented his case simply enough: He'd arrived on the scene some forty-six minutes after the accident. The driver of the Montero and another witness (that would be Little Liar Guy, the fella Pam and I figured knew Ms. Nascar personally) stated I was blocking both the left and middle lanes. I was not signalling. When she changed to the right lane, I cut her off by turning my truck cab smack in front of her. She tried to avoid the accident, which was caused by my negligence. I should have seen her coming but obviously had not been using my mirrors.

Uh-huh.

My turn.

The judge didn't allow some of what Kevin and I had wanted to say into evidence...but she did let him tell what he'd actually seen, which included my blinking signal light. She listened closely when I spoke about the dip in the road under the railroad overpass which, combined with her high rate of speed, conspired to keep Ms. Nascar out of my sight until mere seconds before impact. She looked at my photos. She questioned the nice police person again, forcing him to admit the dip in the road and the overpass did, in fact, exist.

She seemed to understand my explanation (with sketch) of straddling lanes as absolutely necessary and also an accepted practice for truckers towing long trailers. She heard me state that I'd been straddling the middle and right lanes while the left lane remained completely clear.

And she accepted Pam's letter long enough to read it before handing it back to me.

Then she spoke the eleven finest words in the entire English language.

"Based on the evidence before me, I find you...not guilty."

The entire process had taken exactly fifteen minutes. Kevin and I were nearly out the door when I heard her speak one last time.

"I apologize to all of you; I had no idea the first trial of the morning would take so long."

Great place for justice, is Los Angeles County. A full year to find a stone killer like O.J. Simpson not guilty was okay, but fifteen minutes to allow an out of state trucker present his own clear evidence of innocence in a traffic case was an imposition on everybody in the courtroom.

Ya gotta love it.

I still owe Kevin a steak dinner.

It wasn't until much later, long after the Clerk of Court really did send me back my $145, that I realized I now qualified as a BCBK--a Bi-Coastal Butt Kicker, having beaten tickets in both Los Angeles County and (get this) New York City. True, the New York citation was only a parking ticket.

But that's another story.