Talking shit

I was filling in for a solo practitioner by doing a treating doctor’s deposition yesterday. The case is a simple factual pattern: Plaintiff ate something, got sick shortly thereafter, and proceeded to die.

Kidding.

Seriously though, the deposition spent a lot of time dealing with the symptoms of food borne illnesses. That is: Nausea, Vomiting, and Diarrhea.

Now here I am, still a newbie attorney, talking about food poisoning and all I can think of is a Scrubs episode where Dr. Cox says something like ‘its only food poisoning if its firing out both ends.’ I am thinking to myself, no matter what, don’t say firing out both ends on the record.

I’ve got this issue where I formulate the question in advance of when my mouth starts moving and by the time I actually am talking the question I had planned, I’m already thinking about my next question. The issue with this is that my brain tends to meld the first question into the second question and the whole thing goes to hell. So a simple question turns into a complex question that confuses me and I can’t actually say what I am trying to ask in the first place.

Back into the deposition and I am questioning the Doctor and my brain-mouth issue strikes: “Doctor, the Plaintiff was admitted with the symptoms that we have been discussing, that is he was firing out both...strike that…the Plaintiff was suffering from a condition that had his spouse worried for the safety of the carpet…strike that again…Doctor, the Plaintiff was besieged by violent urges to void his digestive tract by any means necessary.”

Mouth 1, Brain 0