1 in the circuit court of the fifteenth … in the circuit court of the fifteenth judicial circuit...
TRANSCRIPT
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IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE FIFTEENTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT IN AND FOR PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA
CASE No.:
and his Wife,
Friend of and Plaintiffs, -vs-
and INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendants. _____________________________________________________
VIDEOTAPED DEPOSITION OF
Friday, January 2, 2015 11:52 a.m. - 12:11 p.m.
658 W. Indiantown Road Jupiter, Florida 33458
Reported By: CSR, RPR, CLR, FPR
Notary Public, State of Florida
West Palm Beach Office
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West
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APPEARANCES: Co-Counsel on behalf of the Plaintiffs:
MICHAEL C. KNECHT, ESQUIRE MICHAEL C. KNECHT, P.A. 658 W. Indiantown Road Suite 211 Jupiter, Florida 33458 Phone: 561.745.2110 e-mail: [email protected]
Co-Counsel on behalf of the Plaintiffs:
STEPHEN DEUTSCH, ESQUIRE (Appearing via phone) DEUTSCH & BLUMBERG, P.A. New World Tower - Suite 2802 100 N. Biscayne Boulevard Miami, Florida 33132 Phone: 305.358.6329 e-mail: [email protected]
On behalf of the Defendants:
MICHAEL BALDUCCI, ESQUIRE KUBICKI DRAPER Northbridge Centre, Suite 1800 515 North Flagler Drive West Palm Beach, Florida 33401 Phone: 561.640.0303 e-mail: [email protected]
ALSO PRESENT:
, Videographer
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There's only one space after the "phone" colon, but two spaces after the "e-mail" colon
West
"E-mail" should also be capped to be consistent with "Phone"
STEVEN
North
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P R O C E E D I N G S
- - -
Videotaped deposition taken before
Registered Professional Reporter and Notary
Public in and for the State of Florida at Large, in
the above cause.
- - -
THE VIDEOGRAPHER: We are now on video record.
This is the beginning of media unit number one, in
the deposition of Today's
date is January 2, 2015, and the time on the record
is 11:52 a.m. The style of our case is Richard
and his Wife, Individually
and as Parents and Next Friend of
versus
Our court
reporter today is
and the videographer is with
.
At this time please could I please have
counsel in the room and remotely on the telephone
identify themselves for the video record.
MR. KNECHT: Mike Knecht on behalf of the
Plaintiffs.
MR. DEUTSCH: Steven Deutsch on behalf of the
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Plaintiffs.
MR. BALDUCCI: Mike Balducci for the
THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Thank you. Have our court
reporter please swear in our witness so we can
begin our deposition.
THE REPORTER: Please raise your right hand.
Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are
about to give will be the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth?
THE WITNESS: Uh-hum, yes.
Thereupon,
Having been first duly sworn or affirmed, was
examined and testified as follows:
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY MR. BALDUCCI:
Q Stay away from those uh-hums.
A Okay.
Q Tell us your name for the record, please?
A
Q And what's your address?
A Road North, , Florida.
Q Do you know the ZIP Code there?
A I have no idea.
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uncap
no ?
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Q It's a fair answer. I'm going to ask
you, like your sister, to keep your voice up.
A Okay.
Q Because your voice is a little soft, too and
that's fine. I'm going to give you the same
instructions you heard a half an hour ago.
I'm going to ask you a series of questions.
It's important that you answer verbally, out loud, yes,
no, I don't know, I don't care, whatever it may be. As
long as you answer out loud so that our reporter,
can take down what you're saying and the video can hear
your response. Try to avoid just nodding your head or
saying uh-huh or uh-huh, all those types of responses,
and please avoid the texting response like LOL or OMG or
everything else I hear in my house all the time, as I'm
sure your mom does.
Let me finish my question before you begin
your answer, that way we get a nice clean record and
I'll try to be careful to not ask a question until you
finish your answer.
There may be times I'll ask you a question
that will require an approximation from you. If you
could approximate, please do. On the other hand, I
don't want you to guess or speculate about something
that you really have no idea about. If that's the case,
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then just say I really don't know or I have no idea and
that will be fine.
If you answer my question, it will be assumed
that you understood the question. So again, if you have
any uncertainty about what it is I'm asking, please let
me know, I'll be happy to repeat the question or ask it
in a different way to make sure we're understanding each
other.
Do you understand all those instructions.
A Yes.
Q All right, I appreciate that. The address on
Road North, how long have you been living there?
A Almost a year.
Q Okay. And is your family renting there, if
you know?
A Yes.
Q Do you know who owns that house?
A No.
Q Okay. All right. The house, is it a ranch,
meaning a one level?
A Yes.
Q How many bedrooms in the house?
A Three.
Q Okay. Do you have your own room or do you
share a room?
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A I share a room with my sister.
Q Okay. And I'm going to guess that your, your
folks have their own room and your brother has one?
A Yes.
Q That's why I went to school all those years to
figure those things out. Okay.
Your sister told me about all the people in
the house and all the pets. Was she accurate on all of
that.
A Yes.
Q So I don't have to go over that. And
obviously you were sitting here listening while she was
being questioned?
A Yes.
Q Okay. Alrighty. Where do you go to school
dear?
A .
Q All right. Is that a high school?
A Yes.
Q What year are you in?
A h.
Q What's your date of birth?
A 9.
Q All right. So you' 5 going on 16?
A Yes.
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Note: Missing commas at the end of lines can be easy to overlook!
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Q Thank you. How do you like and
tenth grade in particular?
A It's okay. I've been slacking the past nine
weeks.
Q Why have you been slacking?
A It's getting harder.
Q Is it?
A Yes.
Q Any particular classes?
A History.
Q What kind of history are you doing this year?
A World history honors.
Q Do you have mostly honors classes?
A No.
Q Any honors besides history?
A No.
Q What kind of grades do you get in general?
A As Bs and Cs.
Q How about your little sister, how does she do?
A She does good.
Q Okay. I know it's pretty early but any
thoughts about what you might like to do for a living
some day?
A Not sure just yet.
Q You got plenty of time to figure that out,
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Note: We don't know for sure if this is the official name of the class or not. It's usually better to error on the side of less capitalization if it's not definitive. BGGP Capitalization.5 says to only capitalize the names of classes only when the word is always capped or when they have a course number with them.
Note: Only use apostrophes in plurals to make things easier to read. In this case, "As" could be very easy to confuse with the word "as." If it was just "Bs and Cs," the apostrophes would be unnecessary.
A's, B's and C's.
add ,
one word
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thankfully. How long are you at High
School?
A I've been to that school for two years.
Q So you did start high school?
A And I'm go going to finish, yes.
Q I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you.
A Oh, sorry.
Q My fault. You started there in ninth grade?
A Ninth.
Q Yes?
A Uh-huh.
Q Okay.
A Yes, sorry.
Q Okay. Thank you. Any particular favorite
classes?
A I like geometry.
Q Oh, good for you. Are you pretty good in
math?
A Yes.
Q All right. Any particular activities that you
get involved in at school?
A Not for school.
Q Any activities you do outside of school?
A I do, I used to do cheerleading during the
summer to teach little girls.
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Q When's the last time you did that?
A It ended in Oct -- on October first, I think.
Q This past October?
A Yes.
Q You were actually working with younger kids?
A Yes.
Q Is that something you're going to still be
doing in the future?
A I hope I can do it --
Q Good for you.
A -- for the next years.
Q Not something you do at school?
A I do it for community school hours.
Q Okay, good for you. Anything else you do for
outside activities, whether at school or outside of
school?
A Not really.
Q How about your little sister, what does she
like to do?
A Nothing that I know of, she just goes to her
friends a lot.
Q Gotcha. She talked about playing on her
Instagram account. Do you have one of those, too?
A Yes.
Q You do that, too?
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1st
service or sic??
's Note: Could also be "friends' " plural possessive if she has more than one friend.
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A Sort of.
Q Do you do the Facebook stuff?
A I have one, I don't use it.
Q You don't use it much?
A No.
Q Okay. I'm sure mom's happy about that.
Anyway, let's talk about your dad. Do you remember when
he had his accident?
A I don't know specific dates.
Q Okay. What sort of injuries are you aware of
that he had from that accident?
A Lower back, neck and shoulder.
Q Before that accident, do you recall your dad
having problems with any of those parts of his body?
A Not that I could remember.
Q Do you remember him ever having surgeries
before this accident?
A I remember there was one.
Q Okay. Do you know what that was for?
A I don't remember.
Q Okay. Your sister mentioned something about
your dad and your brother starting a lawn cutting
business, do you know about that?
A Yes.
Q How long have they been doing that?
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A I think they started after my brother
graduated.
Q Okay. When did he graduate?
A May 20th last -- of last year.
Q Of '14?
A Yes.
Q s, is that what they're calling
themselves?
A Yes.
Q How busy are they with that business right
now?
A There is not much business right now. I know
they still do a couple of yards. I don't think there is
much any more.
Q Okay. And who does the actual lawn cutting?
A My brother.
Q I'm sorry, you said they just have a couple of
customers right now you think?
A Yeah.
Q The property that you guys live on now, is it
a big piece of property or is it small?
A It's small compared to our old property.
Q Okay. Does anybody cut the grass where you
are at now?
A My brother.
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Q I asked your sister this, she told me about
the trip to Colorado where you have family. You guys
have any, outside of obviously your family within the
house, do you have any other family in Florida?
A No.
Q Uncles, cousins, anything?
A Ut-ugh, no.
Q Okay. The trip out to Colorado that your
sister told me about, when did you guys make that trip?
A For Thanksgiving.
Q And what sort of a vehicle did you use?
A A Dodge Ram, I think 1500.
Q And who did the driving?
A My mom, my brother and my dad.
Q And did you more or less drive straight there?
A Yes, but we stopped.
Q Took some breaks?
A Yes, most of the times.
Q But you didn't take a overnight break or
anything?
A No.
Q Any idea how long it took to get there?
A Twenty-four hours.
Q Okay. All right. You're midway through tenth
grade, so I'm thinking you haven't started with driving
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unless she made a G sound...Huh-uh,
an?
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yet?
A No.
Q Okay. I'm sure mom is not in a rush for that
either.
A I'm waiting.
Q Okay. Alrighty. So for Christmas you guys
were home together?
A Yes.
Q Let's talk about you and your relationship
with dad. How do you guys get along?
A We get along well.
Q Glad to hear that. What sort of things do you
do with your dad?
A Long conversations, movie, my dad helps me
with my geometry homework for some things that I don't
understand. That's about it. That's all I can think
of.
Q Is he pretty good with the geometry?
A Yes.
Q When you say you have long conversations with
him, I'm not trying to get too personal, but what sort
of things do you talk about?
A School, friends, people. Just conversations.
Q Is he a good shoulder to lean on when you have
something that you want to talk about?
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A Yes.
Q Glad to hear that. What sort of movies do you
like to watch with dad?
A Scary, comedies.
Q Is your sister usually part of that?
A Yeah.
Q How does he spend his day most of the time?
A Well, I'm at school most of time. But during
breaks and stuff he's normally on the couch.
Q Now, he's helping out your brother, your
sister said she believes with paperwork and stuff with
the lawn cutting business; is that right?
A Yeah, for the most part, that I know of.
Q That's what I was going to ask you, what do
you know about what he does with that?
A I just know he takes the phone calls when
people want it and he basically gets my brother the job.
Q Gotcha. Is your dad doing any other work
right now?
A No.
Q Do you know if he's looking for any other work
right now?
A I know that he's not.
Q He's not. Okay. Does he complain about
anything now, physically, does he say oh, my knee hurts
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or anything at all?
A A lot, yes.
Q What does he talk about?
A This morning he was talking about his
shoulder.
Q Which shoulder is that?
A I have no idea.
Q Okay. That's okay. And he just said -- what
was he saying, my shoulder is acting up this morning
or --
A Yeah, he says --
Q -- something like that?
A -- that he has a hard time. He said he had a
hard time getting up this morning and then he says, ah,
my shoulder.
Q When you see him around the house, do you see
him having difficulty doing any sort of things?
A Yes.
Q Like what?
A Just sitting down on the couch he'll have
trouble sitting.
Q Okay. I mean in terms of helping around the
house, do you see him having problems with anything?
A On the occasion he won't tell anyone and he'll
pick up something off the ground and he has trouble
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Whenever something just plain looks weird, don’t spend time trying to figure out what it is, just highlight it and move on.
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getting, like, standing straight back up.
Q Gotcha. Do you know if he's seeing any
doctors right now?
A I don't know. I know he's seeing doctors but
I don't know which ones.
Q What I'm asking is, do you know that he's
going to doctors now or --
A Yes.
Q -- going for therapy or anything, if you know?
A I know he's going to doctors, yeah.
Q Okay. Have you ever gone with him to a
doctor's appointment for him?
A No.
Q Do you know the name of the roofing company
that he used to work for?
A Peterson Dean.
Q Do you know what happened to that job?
A No.
Q Your dad had told me about boats and jet skis
he had in the past. Do you have any of those any more?
A No.
Q How often would he go out on the boat or a jet
ski in the past?
A Before the accident, we used to go out almost
every week.
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PetersenDean
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Q Where would you go?
A The inlet r. He'd go fishing in,
like, deep sea fishing, I guess.
Q What about you guys?
A I don't do the fishing because I get sea sick.
Q Okay.
A But we used to go inner tubing, which he'd
drive the boat around for us and sometimes he'd do it
before the accident.
Q How often would you do that?
A About every weekend.
Q Over the summer months you mean?
A Yeah.
Q All right. Is your dad still smoking?
A Yes.
Q Are you yelling at him for that?
A I yell at both of them for that.
Q Good for you. Okay. This house that you're
in now, when you moved into this house, how did you guys
orchestrate the move? And by that I mean, who moved all
the furniture, how did that go?
A Me and my brother and my dad -- not my dad.
Sorry, my mom and my sister, my dad drove.
Q Did your dad move any stuff at all?
A No.
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Q Do you feel you have a good relationship with
your dad?
A Yeah.
Q Do you love your dad?
A Yes.
Q Does he love you?
A Yes.
Q Has this accident he had sometime ago changed
any of that?
A No.
Q Is he still as good a dad to you?
A Yes.
Q Mr. Knecht, was he a neighbor of yours?
A No.
Q Did you know him before your dad had this
lawsuit?
A No, I didn't.
Q Okay.
MR. BALDUCCI: That's all the questions I have
here. Thank you for your time.
MR. KNECHT: Steven?
MR. DEUTSCH: No questions.
MR. KNECHT: Okay.
MR. BALDUCCI: All right. We're all done.
THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Stand by. Going off media
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number one. This concludes the deposition. The
time off the record is 12:11 p.m.
MR. BALDUCCI: Mike, are you going to waive on
her, too?
MR. KNECHT: Yes.
(Witness excused.)
(At 11:52 p.m. the videotaped deposition was
concluded.)
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12:11
Did you find this one? HUGE error. Bravo if you caught it :-)
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CERTIFICATE OF OATH
STATE OF FLORIDA
COUNTY OF PALM BEACH
I, the undersigned authority, certify that
personally appeared before me and
was duly sworn on this 2nd day of January, 2015.
Dated this 15th day of January, 2015.
____________________________________
RPR, FPR, CSR, CLR Notary Public - State of Florida My Commission Expires: 10/19/2018 My Commission No.:
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the
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C E R T I F I C A T E
STATE OF FLORIDA
COUNTY OF PALM BEACH
I, RegisteredProfessional Reporter and Notary Public in and forthe State of Florida at Large, do hereby certifythat the aforementioned witness was by me first dulysworn to testify the whole truth; that I wasauthorized to and did report said deposition instenotype; and that the foregoing pages numbered 3to 30, inclusive, are a true and correcttranscription of my shorthand notes of saiddeposition. I further certify that said deposition wastaken at the time and place hereinabove set forthand that the taking of said deposition was commencedand completed as hereinabove set out.
I further certify that I am not an attorney or counsel of any of the parties, nor am I a relative or employee of any attorney or counsel of party connected with the action, nor am I financially interested in the action.
The foregoing certification of this transcriptdoes not apply to any reproduction of the same by anymeans unless under the direct control and/or directionof the certifying reporter.
Dated this 15th day of January, 2015. _____________________________________ RPR, FPR, CSR, CLR
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