Recently, in Wyatt v. Keyspan Corp., a Brooklyn jury denied any award to a 12 year-old girl who suffered serious personal injuries, including scarring, after being dragged by a backhoe.

Given what you may have heard about the Brooklyn courts, this result in a child injury case sounds rather surprising, doesn't it?

It turns out that there's more to the story.

Apparently, the defense in this case had witnesses who came in and testified that this 12 year-old girl was far from innocent in this accident; according to these witnesses, the girl sustained her injuries while trying to jump off of the backhoe that she had voluntarily - and foolishly - climbed earlier.

Given the facts of this case, I don't blame the jury one bit.

But what still puzzles me is how this case ever got to trial. My guess is one of three (3) things:

(1) the client(s) were unreasonable in their settlement demands;

(2) the attorney was unreasonable in his/her settlement demands; or,

(3) a combination of (1) and (2).