Very few defense lawyers or insurance adjusters have the guts to say it out loud. But the subtext from the defense in personal injury cases involving older people is that an injury affecting them isn’t a big deal because they are going to die soon anyway.
But what matters is how you use your time, not the amount of time you have.
Jimmy Johnson was the first football coach to win both a college football national championship and a Super Bowl.
During Johnson’s Hall of Fame speech he talked about the concept of “Quality Time Left”:
Quality time left. Think about that. I’m 78 years old and I think about QTL all the time. Let me tell you something folks, the people that you love, appreciate those moments because there will come a day when you won’t be around to appreciate those moments.
The law of scarcity applies to everything. The less there is of something, the more valuable it becomes.
Older people have a limited amount of quality time left to spend time with their families and enjoy their hobbies. Time spent golfing, going for walks, traveling with family and playing with grandkids is hugely valuable.
An injury that takes away those things destroys the quality time left. Instead of QTL older people and their families end up with suffering time left (STL). Or waiting to die time left (WTDTL).
If the concept of quality time left resonates with someone like red-state Jimmy Johnson, it’s going to resonate with even the most tight-fisted jurors in the PNW.