Do you like magic? Bluewire debunks their tricks.
All successful magic tricks work because they have one thing in common–misdirection. Misdirection is a strategy used by a magician to direct someone to the wrong place or cause someone to focus their attention in the wrong direction. The Reptile Theory, like a magic trick, also uses the strategy of misdirection to levy a nuclear verdict. That is why it is so successful
Now before we go any further, we want to be clear. We're not comparing Lawyers to Magicians.
...that simply wouldn't be fair to Magicians.
We're sorry. We couldn't resist.
The Reptile Theory works because our trail lawyer opponents rely heavily on the strategy of misdirection. For them, the strategy is simple. A representative of a Trucking company thinks they are serving in a deposition or going to trial to defend themselves against a single instance, a crash. The Plaintiff's lawyer, using the Reptile Theory, doesn't care about the crash at all. Their goal is to destroy the reputation of the motor carrier and the industry at large by uncovering systemic failures in safety, all the while inflaming the jury to respond to this extremely negative perception in a very emotional and punitive way.
What is "reptilian" about all of this? We're glad you asked.
This is where psychology comes into play. The "Reptile" represents our old-world reptilian brain that prioritizes self-preservation, safety, and reproduction, over everything else in our life. We'll skip over the topic of reproduction for now, and tell you that "the reptile" references the part of our brain that fuels our fight or flight response when we feel we are in danger of any kind.
The reality is, both the Plaintiff's Attorney and the Defense choose from a pool of available jurors, often interviewing 100s of people, simply to find 14 they agree upon. Both sides know the average person doesn't live primarily in the reptilian part of their brain. The average juror understands that an accident is a single instance, often rooted in a single mistake, and it is counter-intuitive to punish someone for making a mistake. And, if you're reading the same data we are, 80% of the time, the accident involving a motor carrier is caused by the plaintiff, not the motor carrier.
So, while you show up to trial to tactically defend yourself against the facts of a specific accident. The Plaintiff's Attorney relies on the strategy of the Reptile Theory to awaken the reptilian parts of the juror's brains, as they use emotion and fear to convince them your company operates in a matter that is so egregiously unsafe, that you represent a systemic failure in the trucking industry. The jury becomes convinced that their safety, their self-preservation of themselves, their family, their friends, and their community are at stake, and the Trucking company, and the industry as a whole, needs to punished. Then, when it is time to levy a verdict, they believe their only recourse is to levy the most punitive monetary awards known to humankind.
The Reptile Theory works because of misdirection. Plaintiff Attorneys use a strategic approach to destroy your reputation, and motor carriers are focused on tactically defending themselves in a crash. Time and time again, we lose.
It sounds like we need a new approach.