Legal Question in Personal Injury in California

Did you put it in a little jar and poke some holes in the top, or did you kill it before saving it as evidence?

What Mr. Stone means is what proof do you have to take to court? You need admissible evidence to win a law suit. I would add, what damages do you have? Contrary to popular belief in some circles, law suits are not lottery tickets. What you get if you win a lawsuit is almost always (not entirely always, but damned near) something less than what your actual losses are for whatever happened. Did it make you sick? Were you hospitalized? Lose time from work? Those are the kinds of losses that a lawsuit would allow you to recover. If you don't have any losses like that, you will never find an attorney to take the case unless you pay them by the hour, which will cost you far more than you could ever hope to get.

Mr. McCormick is being generous in saying that litigants get "somewhat" less then their actual damages. If you are in fact awarded what your actual damages are worth, from that sum you have to subtract attorney fees [at least 33% if contigency], non-recoverable costs, the time you personally spent on the suit, etc. On a straight forward damage case, you might get to keep 60% of what your awarded damages are. Since most cases [85-95%] settle, you get normally even less than that.