Posted
10:43 PM
by Michael Fox
In this case, the rest of the sentence was "that a lady with one hand is disabled," but as any experienced trial lawyer knows, almost anything can prove a stumbling block at trial. Here, a jury verdict for Caterpillar is affirmed when the quoted lawyer was unable to prove that a one handed lady was disabled and could operate a high speed scanner at the employer's required productivity level. Hoffman v. Caterpillar, Inc. (7th Cir. 5/11/04). Here the real key was an in court showing of a videotape of the plaintiff operating the equipment, a showing which not only convinced the jury that she could not meet the standard, but also made the exclusion of her expert who would have said she could, irrelevant.
