Lawyers Share Their Favorite “Gotcha” Moments In Court

The law is a confusing thing, and what lawyers do is nothing short of sorcery in some cases. They can make sense of strange terms, and some are very good at crafting the perfect case. It’s hard for a lot of people to envy a lawyer’s job, because it all seems very complicated.

When lawyers go to court, they typically know ahead of time what both they and the other side are going to present. But every now and then, a new piece of information or a new strategy rears its head, and this can leave a lawyer with a real “ah ha!” moment. Check out these satisfying encounters where lawyers reveal their favorite “gotcha.”

She Wasn’t So Lucky

A lady got into a minor fender bender with a truck in a casino parking lot. My guy said she parked and went inside the casino for a few hours. She testified that she was so hurt that she went right home and to a hospital. I asked if she was a frequent visitor to the casino and if she had a rewards card. She was happy to tell me she did, and that she had gold status. She showed me the card.

I subpoenaed her rewards card records, and it showed she was playing slots for hours after the accident. Reddit User: lawgirl3278

His Rolex Wasn’t Stolen

A man reported his Rolex as being stolen. He was adamant that he was at a hotel and it was stolen. He got sworn in and eventually let out that he wasn’t at a hotel but rather with his mistress, and he had left it at her house. His wife noticed he didn’t have it on, so he immediately claimed it must’ve been stolen.

This man decided to hire an attorney and go through this whole circus just so his wife wouldn’t find out about his affair. Needless to say, the claim was denied. Reddit User: jessnod

The High-Speed Chase

I had a client accused of leading the cops on a high-speed chase. The cop on the stand estimated he was going 90 mph but never actually clocked him. Then the cop identified where the chase started with me and where it ended. It lasted about 2 miles. Then we went through his log of when it started and when it ended. About three and a half minutes.

Once you walk through the math on that, the average speed of this chase was 35 mph. The client got acquitted really quickly after that. Reddit User: hitchinpost

The Landlord Refused to Make Serious Repairs

I was suing a landlord who failed to make serious repairs in order to force the tenant out. The hard part is proving bad intent instead of mere idiocy so you get higher damages. Code enforcement was involved, so I requested those records. The landlord left a voicemail to the enforcement department saying to hold off on the fines; they would make the repairs as soon as the tenant was forced out.

That was an easy case. It was out of idiocy to leave that voicemail, though. What was he thinking? Reddit User: M-Cicero

They Got It from Costco

I had a client whose 60k car was ruined by a shop that put in the wrong oil. We couldn’t prove it at first; the engine blew up, oil leaked out, and evidence was lost. I subpoenaed their bank records and figured out they bought their oil from Costco. I called Costco and got their prices for the last two years.

I then worked out the amounts they were spending, did some backhand math, and showed based on the values that it was impossible they had ever bought the right oil. They settled in full immediately. Reddit User: EunuchsProgrammer

She Lost Her Arm

My client was a woman working at a meatpacking plant. Her glove got caught in the machine, and she lost her arm. We sued the owners of the plant for the glove issue. We also sued the machine manufacturer for failing to include the required guard.  Turns out there was a note in small print at the bottom he didn’t know about that said the sale was without the handguard.

That is against the law. The woman got all her medical bills paid, got money for a prosthetic, and got a bunch of pain and suffering damages. Reddit User: Temjin

What Crime?

I was deposing a guy in a large breach of contract/fraud action. I asked him if he’d ever been convicted of a crime, and he said no. Later in the dep, I asked him the question again, and there was no objection, and he answered “no.” I then whipped out his indictment for felony fraud.

…And his conviction for misdemeanor conspiracy. He denied it was him until I started asking about his co-conspirator (his son), and then he gave me the “oh yeah I remember something about that” line. Reddit User: Lawyerboy96

The Plumber Said Wait 48 Hours

A plumber installed a new tile on top of his work but warned the owners not to walk on it for 48 hours. They walked on it but alleged the defects were caused by improper install. We had an expert do a report that confirmed that it was consistent with proper installation but people walking on it too soon. The crazy homeowners still went to trial on it.

In their evidence disclosure, they included a series of pictures. The background very clearly showed a dog’s paw pressing down on the other end of the tile. Reddit User: asoiahats

Jail Calls Aren’t Private

When I was a prosecutor, I had a guy who was representing himself. He was charged with car theft and evading. He was actually able to escape the cops for quite a distance and was captured later. His defense was that he wasn’t the right person. I got his calls from jail, and he talked so much to his girlfriend about how he had committed the crimes.

The look on his face when I told him that I was providing him copies of his jail calls was great. Reddit User: PM-ME-YOUR-DICTA

He Was Working for Free

My only full trial. The contractor was supposedly ripping off my client, who was no saint either. I went through the entire contract where each sub was listed, and he agreed to each line as being part of a contract. He agreed that the amount was to be paid to the subs. He agreed to the total. What he failed to do was list any profit. My last question was, “Where is your profit in this contract?”

As written, he was working for free. Case dismissed by the judge without me having to present my side. Reddit User: Snpuck

What Is XYZ Corporation?

One guy had a lucrative commercial construction business and was ready to retire and sell it. He got a buyer, and part of the deal was receiving a portion of the profits for several years. Somehow, the company had no profits. But there was all sorts of evidence of wealth: new cars, etc. At trial, the new owner was on the stand. “Nope, we’re really just struggling to break even.” Dad’s attorney asked, “What is XYZ Corporation?”

Before there was an answer, the buyer’s attorney literally jumped up and said, “Your honor, we would like to discuss a settlement.” Reddit User: Earguy

She Asked for Permission

A husband and wife were charged with drug sales. The wife had given full admission to the cops and ended up pleading before trial. The drugs were found in a shed with tools that the husband denied knowing anything about. On the cross, I started asking about his relationship with his wife.

He admitted that he was in charge of the finances and also admitted she had to ask permission to spend money. I then asked him if he knew she admitted to selling drugs. He did. So wouldn’t she need his permission to do that? Of course she would, he said. No further questions. Reddit User: SmallTownDA

Jack John Smith

I sat in on a criminal trial, and the defense basically had no defense other than “there were documents lying around with the name Jack Smith and our client’s name is John Smith so there might have been someone else living in the house hiding the drugs.” In the very last minute of closing arguments, the prosecutor stood up and said, “I’m really tired of you spending all week pretending you don’t know who Jack is when you know very well.”

“Your trial binders, which have been sat on your desk all week, say Jack Smith because that’s what he goes by.” Reddit User: cowtown456

He Doesn’t Know How to Use a Computer

As an 18-year-old computer store owner, I had a guy sue me because his computer was a “lemon.” Well, he chose to represent himself, to which the judge said only an idiot would represent himself and begged the guy to postpone and get a lawyer. Nope, so the guy rambled for 20 minutes and made himself look like a complete redneck moron who just didn’t know how to use a computer.

So then it was my turn. My lawyer stood up and said some legal phrase to the effect of “the plaintiff failed to ask for any damages, therefore we ask for summary dismissal.” Reddit User: bwave1

He Died

I was a witness at a hearing on some counterfeit aircraft parts. The lawyer for the German company that supplied them told us that there was a delay and that the hearing had to be rescheduled. The magistrate in charge said no. Now. Not later. Turns out that the German guy who said he was the owner of said company was bogus.

He was Canadian, and the real owner of the company had died at a hospital in London two days earlier. Reddit User: dmukai

Faking a Disability

Former insurance lawyer. There were quite a few times I busted someone for faking a disability by hiring private investigators to tail them for a day. One guy claimed he could barely walk or move at all. Like, he couldn’t even make himself breakfast or get out of bed without help. Caught him literally jogging out of his independent medical examination (for the purpose of litigation) and threw his walker aside when he bent down to pick up his keys after dropping them.

I work fraud investigations now, and it never ceases to amaze me how people think they’re exceptional liars. Reddit User: drunk_with_internet

Yeah, I Did It

Not a lawyer but involved in fraud investigations. I called a suspect who was allegedly using the money he was being provided as a guardian for an incapable individual. I explained the allegation to the suspect. He stated, “Yeah, they’re correct. I took the lump sum and bought cocaine and booze. I understand it was wrong, do what you gotta do.”

“I’ll sign a statement or come in the office if you need me to.” Not really dealing with high-level criminals here. Easiest case ever. Reddit User: ShipwreckDave

The Family Assistant

I work in family law. My client insisted the employee his wife claimed was their “family assistant” was his wife’s personal assistant. He had nothing to do with her, so all of her payrolls should be allocated to his wife. Opposing attorneys showed up with an email from the client to the “family assistant” saying, “In future dinners, when broccoli is served, I require a higher floret to stem ratio.”

Payroll got allocated to the community, and we consistently joke about florets. Also, I do not envy the job of that family assistant. Reddit User: jose_gomez

The “Born On” Date Campaign

My uncle is a lawyer, and this is one of his favorite ones, though I know I can’t do it justice. The defendant was pulled over in a small town in the south. Accused of a DUI, he came to my uncle because afterward, evidence surfaced of there being open containers. Well, it was later found out this evidence was Budweiser containers.

Thing is, this was not long after Budweiser had started their “born on” date campaign, and the evidence was born after the date the defendant was pulled over. Suffice to say the case fell apart after that. Reddit User: SavoirFair71

They Copied Her Fingerprint

Not me, but my cousin. He’s an intellectual property lawyer who represents lots of small artists and craftspeople. One day, one of his clients is wandering through the aisles of a major home decor chain store. She notices a bowl that looks exactly like one of her bowls. Ultimately, she and my cousin sue the chain store; the store denies everything. My cousin buys a bunch of the bowls and has them sent to a lab, where they do a series of scans.

The proof was that when they copied the original bowl when they made the mold, they accidentally included her fingerprint! Reddit User: manuel_dexterity

The Wrong Guy With the Wrong Clothes

My grandpa was a jury foreman for a murder trial in a small town in Tennessee. Two guys got in an argument at a bar with the victim. The two guys drove home, got a rifle, came back, and shot a guy. While the trial was about to wrap up, a surprise witness who happened to be the guy they had supposedly murdered was called.

Those two idiots had shot and killed the wrong person, who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time wearing the wrong clothes. Reddit User: BeefJerkyYo

Don’t Threaten Police Officers

In the middle of the suit, things took a dramatic swing in our favor. As a direct result thereof, opposing counsel threatened my client, a police officer, with professional ramifications if we didn’t drop our case. This is a big no-no for lawyers, and the fact that my client was a cop and being threatened in his capacity as a cop was the icing on the cake.

Once the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission was notified that my client was threatened by opposing counsel, the case settled in full within a couple of days. Reddit User: crunchyfunyons

Semi-Nude Pictures on Facebook

I was representing the mother in a custody dispute. The father and his new wife were arguing that she was a bad influence on the kid because she posted lewd photos of herself on Facebook. They weren’t able to produce these photos of my client, but I easily found the new wife’s semi-nude pictures on her Facebook page. When I presented them to her on cross-examination, she admitted they were hers and that there was nothing wrong with them.

But she still insisted my client was a morally low example of a woman and mother. We won. Reddit User: JournalofFailure

They Were Actually in Disneyland

My dad had a case where he caught a trucker that caused a wrongful death in the wrong place. The company had sent him away for “training,” but he and his family had actually gone to Disneyland—which my dad confirmed on the man’s Facebook. Further investigation revealed this was common practice at their company, and they lied their butts off on the stand.

The judge ultimately allowed him to work with the defendant’s attorney and get records from him because of the blatant perjury. The jury awarded 43 million in the end. Reddit User: therealskaconut

I’ll Buy Your House

I represented a gas station in a nuisance suit. Adjacent homeowners had sued to say the lights were too bright, etc. The homeowner gets an appraiser to say the real estate is diminished in value by 80K. I get the homeowner on the stand, and he says it’s a nightmare. So I pull out a real estate contract and ask to buy his house on the witness stand.

OC objects, saying it’s an offer to settle, but I argue it’s not and that it does nothing to alter the underlying nuisance of the property. The judge overrules the objections, but in the meantime, the homeowner is sweating bullets. Reddit User: Heathens_cry

No Engineering Degree

Condemnation case. I deposed the township’s “engineer” on whose valuation of the property the township relied. He admitted that (i) he does not have an engineering degree, and (ii) he “did not take the value of [my client’s] property into consideration when establishing what the offer was going to be.” He just took the township’s budget and cut it in half “as a starting place for negotiation.”

There was a clean transcript of no objections, just ten admissions in a row that established he didn’t do what he needed to. Reddit User: UCLAwyer

Her Heel Broke

I had a trial where a woman claimed she tripped in a store because of an obstacle. We had video footage that showed that the heel of her shoe broke. In her evidence, she said that her heel had broken when she tripped over the obstacle. I asked her what type of shoe she was wearing on the day before showing the video clip. She said shoes with heels and that funnily enough, she was wearing them today.

She stepped out of the witness box, and her heel immediately snapped. They settled during the lunch adjournment. Reddit User: Animus131

The Fraud Expert

The defense brought in an expert on a certain topic that was a point of interest in the trial. The expert said everything that would support the defense’s argument. During recess, my uncle found a check statement addressed to the expert from the defense with instructions for what to say along with it! When he got back in the courtroom, he brought the expert to the stand and questioned if he was, in fact, honest about what he had testified.

And then my uncle pulled out the check statement and instructions, and the expert and defense just put their heads down. Reddit User: the-great-cornholio

Security Camera Footage

Not a lawyer, but I’m a clerical assistant at a law firm. Pretty recently, we had a client come in and say he was injured on an NYC bus. He claimed that he suffered a fracture in like two places in his leg and wanted to sue. My boss easily obtained the security camera feed from the bus, which clearly showed him laughing and sitting back with his leg kicked up on the seat in front of him after the impact.

My boss gleefully called the guy in and told him to go back to work. And that was the end of that. Reddit User: JDisselt

I Was Asleep

Not a lawyer but a paralegal. The case was a huge car crash involving several people with severe injuries; it was on a two-lane left turn entrance to a major highway, and someone ran a red light and veered off, hitting a lot of people. We suspected this was a huge DUI case. We were waiting on highway patrol’s report before we could proceed with insurance.

Once we got the document, under the adverse party (the one who caused the accident) they wrote: “I was asleep, and when I woke up, I saw I ran the red light.” Reddit User: ProvocativeSkeleton

The Technician Is Fixing Her Fridge

My cousin is a private investigator who worked with lawyers. He got a case about an appliance repair technician suing his job for getting hurt on the job; I don’t remember the exact details. Fast forward a week or so, and before going to work, my cousin goes to his sister’s apartment next door to his to pick something up. He walks into the kitchen and lo and behold, said repair technician is fixing her fridge.

He just set his camera down and recorded him while he worked. The easiest case he ever had. Reddit User: DarkFolie

She Got Offered More Money

This lady tried to back out of a contract because she got offered more money. Our contract has an exclusivity clause where you aren’t allowed to even entertain other offers from competitors once you sign. She also played dumb, saying she thought we were just going to research. She literally sent us emails about “how do I know if it’s a good price,” “ok I’ll sell,” etc.

But the kicker was when she wrote, “As you can see, I didn’t reach out to [competitor], they called me at 8 am on [specific date after she signed the contract].” Reddit User: jrc5053

Bodybuilder with Migraines

My client rear-ended a BMW and did MAYBE $500 in damage to the car. The plaintiff was a cute young woman who claimed she had a rotator cuff tear and migraines as a result of the accident. I did some sleuthing and found her Instagram, wherein she documented her entire transformation from normal person to bodybuilder in the year immediately following the accident.

I snagged all the screenshots of her doing pull-ups with her alleged rotator cuff tear, deadlifting, and squatting. Case settled VERY quickly after that. Reddit User: mochaput

Divorce Case

One lady was a saint who raised 10 kids while happily cleaning the house and doing everything for a man that was cheating on and abusing her. He denied his extramarital affairs for a year of litigation. Then, at the final hearing, I had him frustrated on the stand and asked, “And isn’t it true you’ve been intimate with 7 male and 5 female prostitutes since your marriage to the plaintiff?”

The guy exploded, “That’s not true! It was only two male and three female…” and then he trailed off as he realized how screwed he was. Reddit User: Caa3098

No Proof

Not me, but one of my dad’s stories from when he was in law school. My dad was an acting lawyer. It was a speeding ticket. The cop begins to explain the story as such: “I was following a blue Ford Focus that was clearly speeding. The car went onto the highway and I lost it for a bit.”

“I caught up, I pulled it over, and I ticketed them.” The cop had no proof it was even the same person. My dad stepped down. He won the case. Reddit User: Eplico

The Cop Lied

Not a lawyer, but recently, I was ticketed for driving an uninspected vehicle. Instead of paying the ticket, I went to the pre-trial, where the judge offered me a lesser charge in the hopes that I would take it and not bother with an actual trial. Instead, I presented documentation proving that it would have been impossible for the charges to be true, with the implication being that the cop lied.

I guess the judge figured out that I was more than willing to waste everyone’s time, so she just dismissed the case. Reddit User: phillillillip

Discrimination Against People With Disabilities

In a dispute with an employer, I got declared unfit to work due to a disability that I’ve had for ages. They replied to say that due to that, I wouldn’t be paid and included the phrase “due to your [disability]” at the start. They normally paid full pay, so this was treating someone differently because of their disability status, which is completely illegal here, and which changes damages for wrongful termination from a year of pay to an unlimited amount.

My representative just sent them a letter pointing out that they’d just admitted discrimination, and they started talking settlements straight away. Reddit User: [redacted]

About the Same Pace

Not my story, but a former coworker (who was formerly a lawyer) was representing the officer in a disputed speeding infraction. The driver was insistent that the officer pulled over the wrong person and that it was, in fact, the person driving ahead of him that had been speeding. Lawyer: “The person ahead of you, were you following him for a while?” Driver: “Yeah, for ways.”

Lawyer: “Were they pulling much farther ahead, or were you keeping about the same pace as them?” Driver: “I’d say we were keeping about the same pace.” Got em’. Reddit User: [redacted]

They Took My Entire Check for 8 Weeks

Not a lawyer, but I had a case of wage issue against my one employer. I went on maternity leave, and when I came back (early, to top it all off), HR told me I was going to be garnished for unpaid medical. They were supposed to leave me with at least a minimum wage, but instead, they took my entire check for 8 weeks. I filed with my state’s department of wages, and my employer denied it.

I literally gave my attorney my last 8 pay stubs that showed me receiving $0. I won. Reddit User: Flamingo_Borris