TO-WIT: WARRANTY WORK
Recently I purchased a new car, a really spiffy one, German, very fast, very expensive. This spiffy car came with a spiffy phone system, built in and integrated with the radio. I could store lots of numbers, dial them with the push of a radio button, scroll through a l l the names and numbers and see them displayed on my radio and even operate it by voice command. Of course, I can't see the road while I'm doing it, but that's a small price to pay for so much technological wizardry.
It is really spiffy, or rather it would have been really spiffy if it had worked. You see, it didn't work.
I took the car back the next day and the radio unit was replaced. That didn't work. I took the car back a few days later and this time the phone system was replaced. That didn't work either. I took the car back a few days later. This time the factory authorized the dealer to put in, for free, the CD player I didn't order, figuring that somehow the CD player was needed to make the whole shebang work right. It didn't.
Well, to make a long story short, after about five or six visits , one of which required me to leave the car overnight, the system was fixed. Turns out the wrong radio had been installed from the get-go and once the correct model had been installed, the phone worked flawlessly. I am now happy.
But as I left the dealer on that last occasion, it struck me as funny how here I was, having purchased a very expensive car, and yet I had to take the thing back again and again until the work was done in a satisfactory manner, work that, quite
honestly, should have been done right the first time.
Now, generally, I have less patience than a man who has just taken his very last Viagra pill. But, when it comes to the concept of warranty work, I apparently readily acquiesce in this wearisome and frustrating process. I have, I guess, come to realize that some things are fairly complex and thus may take a while to get done properly. In fact, all of us routinely accept the notion that providers of goods and services don't always get
it right the first time and we often patiently wait until the work finally gets done correctly - under warranty, of course.
How odd it is that our profession has no such opportunity. When mechanics don't get a car repaired properly, we give them another chance. When a manufacturer's product doesn't work, we think nothing of returning it for a new one. When neurosurgeons accidentally slip with the scalpel, we ... well, maybe that's not a good example.
The point here is simple. Sometimes, try though we may, we just don't always do our best work . Why can't we , the, at the end of a trial that turned out badly for our clients, simply have a do over? Why can't we simply replace the product with one that
works. All we should have to do is advise the judge that, OK, we didn't get it right that time, but how about we come back in a few days to give it another try?
It all brings to mind the very first jury trial I ever tried, back about 1971. It was a simple intersection accident. The defendant had failed to stop at a stop sign and T-boned my client who had the right of way and was driving along, minding his own business. The litigants each blamed the other for the accident, but there was an independent witness. My client had his name and number and told me that this witness could absolutely verify that the defendant had run the stop sign.
Now, I can't explain why, but I never contacted the witness. I went to trial with only one witness, my client. Now, maybe it was because I was young and inexperienced. Maybe it was becauseI was timid and shy. Or maybe it was because my client turned down a really good offer of settlement and I pretty much wrote him off as a greedy pig. Whatever, the jury came back with a verdict for the defense.
Now, I ask you, why couldn't I just say to all those assembled, "Gee, I don't think I did this the right way, but what say we all meet here again next Thursday, at 9:30 and I ' l l have another go at it?"
What would be the harm? Oh sure, another judge would have
to try the case again, but judges' salaries are fixed. It wouldn't cost the state a dime to have them try the case again, and with a second chance there's always an enhanced possibility they might get it right. It would be kind of like a new trial but without the expensive and tiresome need to trouble an appellate court.
And sure, another jury would have to be assembled, but it does get the jurors out of the house for the afternoon and they can always tape their soap operas for viewing at a later time.
I have given the matter much thought, and I can see no practical reason why we lawyers shouldn't have the same opportunities society so willingly grants our mechanics, or manufacturers and our dermatologists.
So that's my grand idea. I'm all for instituting it at once. At the end of every trial, if you aren't happy with the outcome, simply stand up and say, "sorry, sorry, this didn't work. I have time in my book to do this again next week. Does that time work for everybody else?"
Not convinced yet? Well, concider this . If my plan gets put into effect, just think of how it would nullify all those pesky malpractice claims you're always fretting about.
Now then, all those in favor, raise your hands.
© 2002, S. Sponte, Esq.