Whatever you feel about the rest of this, a 17 minute video cannot “prove” anything about a person’s relationship with their Tourette’s. That’s just raw misrepresentation, and the utilization of a statement that baldly false should be a red flag about any account you are otherwise tempted to take at face value. Learning from those times where we have accepted or shared blatantly inaccurate information is how we protect ourselves from becoming useful idiots.simple schoolboy wrote:
I had a student whose Tourette’s became deeply exacerbated after a bike accident. His symptoms would calm or temporarily cease during periods of prolonged concentration (as is common). If you’d filmed him while he was taking a test, you could have captured 30-40 minutes of symptomless (or near) video and used it to falsely demonstrate that he was “faking his injuries.”
The fact that the defense only delivered one 17 minute video to the court, steadfastly refused to provide any other information, and the judge’s reaction was “eh what can you do,” is certainly not a description of how I would want to be treated on my day in court.
This case also presents issues related to violations of the discovery rules. After the collision, Thompson’s defense team hired the private investigation company Probe Northwest Inc. to conduct surveillance on Henderson. The defense identified a Probe employee named Tyler Slaeker as an expert witness who “took video recordings of the surveillance.” When Henderson issued a subpoena duces tecum for documents regarding surveillance, the defense produced only Slaeker’s resume and a 17-minute video of Henderson taken in March 2015.
When deposed, Slaeker equivocated about whether and how much documentation or other video existed. He believed Probe conducted surveillance on Henderson for about 9 months following the collision, though he followed her only on the day of March 11, 2015. Initially, he said he watched her for over 4 hours and recorded video for about 1 hour; then, he said he recorded for only part of that time. Slaeker also said he had sent surveillance notes via text message to his supervisor, which she used to write a report. But he had no record of the messages, and Thompson’s counsel told him the report was privileged. He said he prepared for the deposition by reviewing the 17-minute video and some “notes” for 3 hours, but he equivocated about whether they were his original surveillance notes, the Probe report, or new notes he took while reviewing the video.
Henderson made numerous attempts to obtain more information about the surveillance on her. The court denied her first motion to exclude Slaeker as a witness or compel him to produce responsive documents under the subpoena duces tecum. The court did order Slaeker to produce the notes that formed the basis of the report, but he never did. When Henderson issued interrogatories and requests for production regarding the surveillance, the defense produced a single responsive document indicating that Probe billed $5,833.68 for 78.83 hours of surveillance on Henderson between July 2014 and March 2015. They claimed the only other person who conducted surveillance on Henderson was the Probe owner, who drove to Henderson’s home at one point but took no notes. They provided no information about who conducted the other 70-some hours of surveillance or what they observed.
Over a year and a half of litigation, despite the court order and Henderson’s various attempts to obtain additional information through the discovery rules, the defense never turned over any notes or additional video.
At trial, the 17-minute surveillance video was played for the jury, and Slaeker was permitted to testify about his day of surveillance. Neither Slaeker nor Thompson could provide any relevant testimony regarding the document calculating 78.83 hours of surveillance work, the rest of the surveillance, or any withheld evidence. The court eventually ruled that it would not instruct the jury on spoliation, even though it “share[d] Plaintiff’s deep suspicion that there is other video out there.”
