How to expose a false witness, or the role of tactics in civil proceedings
In the art of advocacy, so much depends on the “game” that an inexperienced person can deal the best cards and then wonder how he could lose. G. HARRIS. School of Advocacy Tactics (ancient Greek τακτικός “relating to the formation of troops”, from τάξις “formation and arrangement”) is an integral part of the art of war, including the theory and practice of preparing and conducting combat by formations, units (ships) and subunits of various types of armed forces forces, branches of troops (forces) and special troops on land, in the air (space), at sea and in the information space.
Tactics covers the study, development, preparation and conduct of all types of combat operations: offensive, defensive, oncoming combat, tactical regroupings, and so on.
Litigation in a civil case, like any fight, also has its own strategy and tactics.
Civil procedural tactics are a system of techniques and means of activity of an interested party, the use of which ensures the most effective implementation of the chosen strategy during the consideration of a civil case in court.
I have always paid special attention to issues of civil procedural tactics, regardless of the complexity of the case, and it has always met my expectations.
But the need for careful preparation for trial and building a line of procedural conduct was revealed in its entirety in one case, which will be discussed. The case is still pending in court.
In fact, the matter is trivial: in winter, snow fell from the roof of an administrative building under the operational management of a State Budgetary Institution onto a car belonging to my trustee. The car suffered mechanical damage. An act was drawn up, the damage was assessed, a claim was filed, which was rejected, and a lawsuit was filed.
The statement of claim states that: The defendant’s argument in response to the claim is that the State Budgetary Institution took all possible measures to prevent harm from occurring - cleared the roof of snow and ice, warned in writing about the prohibition of parking in a dangerous snow melting zone, orally warned about parking in a dangerous snow melting zone - are untenable due to the fact that, firstly, there were no warning signs in the parking area of the plaintiff’s car, no one warned the plaintiff verbally , and secondly, only the absence of snow on the roof, and, accordingly, the impossibility of falls may indicate timely cleaning of the roof. Having received a response to the statement of claim, I discovered that the defendant not only reiterates that the plaintiff was verbally warned, but also refers to the specific person who allegedly did this - the security guard. Moreover, a certain statement (explanation) was attached to the response, without naming the addressee, where the security guard outlined the circumstances of the plaintiff’s warning and indicated that she arrived at the building in the afternoon. The statement is dated the day of the incident.
Knowing from the plaintiff that she works in a neighboring building, and that day, as usual, she arrived at work at 9 am and did not leave anywhere before the incident (until 16 hours 15 minutes), I suffered for a long time in thinking - is it even worth it? in such circumstances, should she appear at a court hearing, and how to bring the security guard to the surface if he testifies in court (I had no doubts that the statement (explanation) of the security guard was unacceptable evidence and I was not worried about this ).
It was decided that I would go to the court hearing alone. At the same time, I had the idea to draw up a written explanation from the plaintiff, outlining the factual circumstances of the case, and also to evaluate the evidence presented by the defendant. And I had already started to do this, but I decided that the defendant did not need to point out the mistakes now and give him a reason to correct them. Therefore, I decided to act according to the situation. By the way, later I regretted that I had not compiled a written explanation, but in a slightly different form than I had intended.
At the court hearing, the defendant explained that the plaintiff was warned by the security guard that this area was dangerous for parking, but she ignored the warning; petitioned to interrogate the security guard who appeared as a witness.
I was all for it!
When asked by the court: “Describe the driver of the car to whom you reprimanded,” the security guard replied: I was in the monitor room when a white car drove up to the porch of the building. I went out onto the porch, and a girl of about 30 years old , of short stature, got out of the car. It was the second half of the day . A couple of hours after this, snow fell on her car. Naturally, to other questions like “what was she wearing,” “what color was her hair,” etc., he answered “I don’t remember.”
It must be said that the court initially took the position of the defendant and the impression was that the respected court was not a respected court, but a representative of the defendant.
After questioning the witness, I told the court that the plaintiff, for a second, is “a little” over 30 - she is about 60 years old and she parked her car at 9 o’clock in the morning, since she works in a neighboring building, and did not leave the building before the incident.
As evidence, I asked to attach a certificate from the place of work, which indicated her work schedule on the day of the incident with reference to the work time sheet, and also to interrogate a witness who appeared - a colleague at work of my trustee, who could confirm this.
This was a complete surprise for the court. After these words, the respected court could not control his emotions. Claims began to be made against me - why the plaintiff did not appear, why she ignored the court, etc., etc.
To which I explained to the respected court that participation in the court hearing is the right, not the obligation of the plaintiff, and that the representative of the plaintiff has the same rights and obligations as the plaintiff, and I can give all the explanations on the merits. It was at this point that I regretted that I had not drawn up a written explanation from the plaintiff on the factual circumstances of the case. At least briefly. I think this would definitely blow the judge away.
In general, the certificate of employment was reluctantly included, the questioning of the witness was refused, and the reasoning for the refusal was strange - “there is no point in questioning the witness without the plaintiff’s explanation.”
Next, the respected court and I argued for a long time about the warning signs, the reasonableness of the plaintiff’s actions and other circumstances in the case. But that is another story.
And to the court’s question, “Why didn’t the plaintiff appear?” I really wanted to answer: “How do you imagine this? Of the two ladies sitting in the office, it would be immediately clear: who is the plaintiff and who is her representative. Then we wouldn’t have had a chance to expose the witness!”
Psychology of lies and deception. How to expose a liarEvgeny Spiritsa, 2020
Introduction
Because of lies, the person that he was disappears, destroying his pride and his dignity.
I. Kant
Without lies, a person will die of despair and boredom.
A. Franz
I've been doing lie detection for a long time. Working in this area allowed me to draw attention to the fact that the number of people who condemn lies, calling it one of the most terrible human inventions, is enormous. It is possible that it is lies that lead people to various unpleasant situations and entail catastrophic consequences. Many philosophers since ancient times have argued that lying is dangerous, it breeds distrust and contempt for the liar. The word “lie” itself is negative. When we utter the phrase “You lied,” we not only give a negative characterization of our opponent’s speech behavior, but thereby even humiliate him. The book of books, the Bible, teaches us that lies led man to the fall. Pay attention to how interesting our brain is: the liars in our minds are always someone else, that is, not you and me. Here the question naturally arises: can we say with confidence that this is so, or does it make sense to understand more deeply this phenomenon that surrounds a person throughout his entire life?
American psychologist Bella de Paulo conducted an experiment that consisted of the following: she asked 147 people to keep a diary in which the subjects had to describe every case when they had to mislead someone, that is, tell a lie. The results of this study showed that, at a conservative estimate, people who took part in this experiment deviated from the truth on average 1.5 times per day[1].
Another researcher, American scientist at the University of Massachusetts Robert Feldman, calculated that people at the first stage of acquaintance manage to embellish something in their speech three times in 10 minutes of conversation[2]. It is this experiment that the character in the TV series Lie to Me, the famous professor and specialist in the field of lie detection Call Lightman, refers to when he tells the terrorist that on average people lie three times in a 10-minute conversation.
Remember how many times we did this, for example, when we looked at a child and said: “What a beautiful baby!”, and at that moment we ourselves thought: “This is an alien!” or “He’s so scary!” What are the reasons for this behavior? Why does humanity always tell lies?
Mark Twain said that everyone lies, every day and every hour: in their sleep, in reality, in their dreams, in moments of joy and even in moments of sorrow. Is lying so bad if we constantly use it? If we look at deception from a different point of view and pay attention to the fact that people are constantly lying, then lying may turn out to be a phenomenon that is not only not so disgusting to our nature as we want to imagine, but is actually the essence of man.
Let's turn to the Bible. One day Eve said the following phrase: “The serpent tempted me, and I ate the forbidden fruit.” We see that while still in the Garden of Eden, Eve lied. Can we then say that the first deceiver is the woman? Or is the tempter to blame for everything? Then the snake should be called the inventor of lies. If we carefully analyze the text and remember the events that took place in Eden, the following will emerge in our minds: God tells Adam and Eve that they will die on the day they break the ban and try the apple. What's next? They ignored the ban, but did not fall dead. Perhaps lying is not a terrible act. If the Lord God himself cannot do without sometimes deviating from the truth, then can mere mortals like you and me live without lies? What would our world be like if we always told the truth? I suggest looking for answers to these and other questions.
