When Pain is Invisible: A Documentary

Chris:

Yeah, my daughter is the one that told me. She saw someone taking pictures. You have a legitimate injury. You submit a claim that, “Hey, I’m injured. I need some support here.” And they instantly declare you a fraudster.

Joseph:

They hire these people to go out, creep around and stalk our clients and try and catch them in an aha moment or catch video that makes them not look injured at all.

Chris:

She was smiling. So they wrote that in the report that we were happy. I must not be in pain because we were walking across the parking lot, smiling.

You get in your vehicle, drive over to the store to get milk. They follow you behind you. They drive all the way. They film you getting out of your car, walking in the store, walking, and they’ll write all that in the report. Three o’clock, entered store, came out with a bag of milk.

Joseph:

You don’t see that he had two hours sleep that night. You don’t see that he has neurological pain going down his leg.

Chris:

Walking fine.

Joseph:

You don’t see that his hip is screaming at him as he’s walking.

Chris:

I said, “Well, why did he write in the report Mr. May is walking with no distress?”

Joseph:

You just see a normal looking guy.

Chris:

That’s a medical statement of what my medical capabilities are. You have a private detective writing that in the report?

Joseph:

That’s my job, to put that video in context so that it is meaningless to a jury.

Chris:

And, “Oh, look, he’s fine.” No. What do you mean I’m fine?

Yeah, it was a really nice day. We got off a little early on that day. It was a sunny day, gorgeous day. Temperature was perfect. Everything about the day was perfect. It was one of those days where you couldn’t imagine something going wrong.

Joseph:

I’m one of the lawyers who’s answering calls for potential clients or people calling in with legal problems.

Chris:

It was kind of weird. I had never been in an accident with that much impact.

Joseph:

He was in a T-bone type accident, somebody turned in front of him and he collided with them.

Chris:

Someone was there suddenly. I didn’t even realize which direction they came from. So fast, I couldn’t even respond fast enough to do anything. So it was full impact. I’d never had airbags go off before. And then I tried to step out of the car. I couldn’t stand straight. I stumbled at the knees, I fell down. And then a couple of people came over and they grabbed my arms, they just walked me over to the … There was a grassy field and they just laid me down. They told me not to move until ambulance showed up and off to the hospital, I went.

I did call a lawyer initially.

Joseph:

He already had a law firm representing him. He’d been with them for about three years and really nothing had happened.

Chris:

First one just gave me a referral to the second one, and the second one went probably a whole year and never called me.

Joseph:

He was worried that his lawyer was trying to push him to settle for about $80,000.

Chris:

So I basically hung the phone up and I thought, “Okay, I’m going to need a real lawyer here.” That’s how I ended up finding Joseph at Pressler.

Joseph:

And I told him I didn’t think that was fair and that didn’t make sense to me based on what he told me. Chris agreed and that kind of confirmed his suspicion that something was going on that didn’t feel right, and he decided to change lawyers and come with our firm.

Chris:

And then when I went to the doctor and he said, “Chris, this is permanent. How you are is how you’re probably going to stay.” So I was in a situation where there was nothing that was going to fix it. I was just going to have to learn pain management for the rest of my life.

Joseph:

When you’re dealing with serious personal injury for people who can’t work, people’s lives are totally different. Thinking about just wanting it to be over or thinking, “What’s the point? Look at how diminished my life is.”

Chris:

I want my family to be able to rely on me. And I was feeling, especially at the time, it was like if I can’t go back to work, I couldn’t do … It’s a physical job. That’s bottom line. It involves miles and miles and miles of walking and stepping up and down onto a truck.

Alinka:

When I met Chris, religiously, he’s getting up at like 3:00, 4:00 in the morning, going to work. And he’s been doing that for years, right? So he would never miss a beat. He’d always be at work on time. He’d stay at work all the … All of a sudden that he started not being able to get out of bed.

Chris:

Yeah. It psychologically destroys you.

Alinka:

Every now and then, his back will just … Something will happen and either his hip or his back or something will just seize up.

Chris:

And then to be almost like, “I can’t walk 10 feet across my own bedroom.”

Alinka:

So I’d wake up and he’d be struggling to get there and to get a glass of water or something.

Chris:

I got to get on my hands and knees to get across the room.

Alinka:

So I’d be like, “Chris, why didn’t you wake me up?” He said he doesn’t want to wake me up.

Chris:

I’d look at myself in the mirror and feel ashamed, even though it’s not my fault. It’s hard to kind of let that go.

Joseph:

He was this provider for his kids and that identity’s taken away from him. And Chris said, “Joseph, a lot of people look at me and they say, ‘He was the garbage man. He’s just a garbage man.’ And they don’t understand what that job meant for me.”

Chris:

I loved that job, to be honest. It was a great job. Everyone I worked with, all the coworkers were awesome. It was one of the most fun jobs I’ve ever had in all my life.

Joseph:

He said, “You lawyers, you fancy lawyers, you might not understand how good a job that is and what that job meant for my family, and also what it meant for me to know I had that job to look after my kids.”

Chris:

If I could take what I feel regularly, put it in someone else, it could potentially be immobilizing for them. They might be on the floor just like begging for pain meds. Whereas for me, oh, yeah, it hurts. I won’t lie. But I don’t have a choice, I have to live with it. There’s nothing I can do. I can’t change it.

Joseph:

Chris’ injuries are invisible. If you were to look at Chris, you just see a normal looking man. It’s our job to make the invisible visible.

Chris:

My whole life changed. Everything that I loved to do ended. Years of going on trail rides, ice fishing, climbing, snowboarding, skiing, and dirt bike riding, gym every day in my life. That was the old life, right? So that’s over.

Joseph:

The goal is whatever’s taken from you, we have to return it. And until we know what’s been taken, we can’t settle the case.

Most of my clients have never had someone fully stand up for them, especially when they’re in a fight against a bigger opponent. So these insurance companies have billions of dollars. They make billions of dollars a year. So it’s not a fair fight. And what’s at stake for me is when I’m presenting on the client’s case, I want them to feel like I’ve heard them, I understand them, and that I am fighting for them.

Chris:

I was like, “Okay, somebody’s actually going to know what to do,” because I had no idea what to do until Joseph got involved where he was like, “No, no, no, these are your rights and this is what we do. This is what your rights to do are.” So he took over and I started just following his instructions.

I didn’t have to deal with it anymore. So he would get all the information from them, then he’d contact me and tell me, “Yeah, this is what’s happening, Chris. This is why. This is what your rights are. This is what we are going to do.” And I just felt at peace when he took over.

Joseph:

So in Chris’ case, he had disability benefits. They were all denied. They said the same thing, “You worked for 10 months. What’s the problem?” We also had the settlement going through the courts, which we knew was going to take years. So what we did is we were able to dispute small parts of the case and get three separate settlements. So we came on in 2018, we had a partial settlement in 2019. That partial settlement made sure that Chris could look after his family.

Chris:

It was a huge ease to know that, yeah, he was literally just dealing with it.

Joseph:

The other tactics the insurance company used were pretty common. So they denied a lot of his treatment, that made him more desperate to settle. We had to find ways to get him treatment. In fact, we were able to find people to treat him with no upfront fees whatsoever, and then they were paid once the case eventually settled.

Chris:

There was accident benefits that the insurance company, they were supposed to be paying me out. So he got me those from the insurance company.

Joseph:

When it comes to settlement, I don’t like settling cases. Every settlement I feel gives me a bit of a pit in my stomach because I always think, “Could I have gotten more? Is this the right amount for the client?”

Alinka:

Like Joseph, he was always in communication with Joseph and anytime he wrote Joseph, called him, he was right there. So I thought they did really well. And they gave him a lot of emotional support as well.

Chris:

I never would’ve got the support that I needed or any of it without him.

Joseph:

So I always want to make sure that when I’m settling the case, it’s the correct amount. And that means I need to know what are the injuries? What does the rest of my client’s life look like with these injuries? Are they getting better? Are they getting worse? What does it look like for work? And I want to know what is the treatment they’re going to need?

Chris:

You’re never going to get … I mean, the insurance companies will railroad you until there’s nothing left. So without that support, it’s not going to happen in the first place. So yeah, it’s 100% worth it.

Joseph:

And ultimately, I want that defense lawyer to think, “Why is this guy fighting so hard? Why is he treating this person that he doesn’t even know other than through a professional relationship, why is he treating them like his family?”

Alinka:

It was almost like his brother, you know? And they were always there whenever you needed them. So I think working with them and getting what they got is just, for sure.

Joseph:

So you have to, part of these cases is rethinking your own identity and what brings you value and realizing that you’re valuable regardless of what you’re doing. But it’s not easy. It’s not easy.

Chris:

This is the best that I have to work with. I’m going to manage my pain as best I possibly can and make the best of what I can do.

Joseph:

I want to do that every single time. I want to treat these people like my people. These are my people to protect. That’s ultimately my goal.