The Chameleon Skylark

Published on September 26, 2025

The nose knows: The case of the Skylark that Changed Colors

“Hey Ell, boy do I have a case for you”.  Howard, my law partner didn’t like personal injury work so when Fast Eddie came to see him claiming to be a victim of a hit and run he cleverly foisted this case on to me. Little did I know when I first took the case that it would turn out to be one that I would long remember in my later years and choose to be the subject of a short story on an auto website.  Fast was not Eddie’s first name but that’s how I referred to him when all was said and done and the case all over.

“Tell me what happened Eddie” was the first question I asked my prospective client.

“I’m a fireman and I was standing in the street in front of the fire-house. We had just received a report of a fire and I had stopped the oncoming traffic so the big hook and ladder truck could pull out. When I saw a car approaching, I held up my hand for him to halt. He slowed and I told him he had to stop and wait. He didn’t like that and shouted ‘Fuck you’ as he hit the  gas, slamming into me as he drove by. I was knocked to the ground but I got a good look at his face and his license plate. I didn’t want to forget the number, so I scrambled around in the gutter and found a small piece of sharp glass. I used it to scrawl the license number right into the asphalt.”

Eddie told me that he had injured his right knee when he was knocked to the ground and this had resulted in a permanent injury. He could not continue his duties as a fireman and was forced to give up his livelihood. He wanted to sue the driver to recover for his loss of ncome over the remainder of his working life and for his knee injury. I inquired if he had filed a police report and he responded that he did. “Is there anything else you can tell me about what you reported?” I asked him.

“I sure can,” he answered. “As the car sped away it appeared to be a white car and I was able to give them a description of the car—a white little sports job—and the license plate number. I

also gave them a good description of the driver. He was about my age, caucasian, half-bald and with a huge schnoz.”“ A what?” “You know. A big nose.” This smelled like a promising case so I decided to take it.

I commenced the law suit and went through the customary pre trial discovery and procedures. One of the procedures was depositions of the parties. The defendant when he was deposed under oath denied being in New York, denied hitting my client and further swore that his car was a bronze Buick skylark and not white sports car as Eddie had reported .

I had obtained the police report that Eddie had filed and it supported the defendants position in all regards. Interestingly it clearly stated that Eddie observed that the defendant had a large nose. Unfortunately when Eddie was deposed he could not under oath state that the defendant at the table across from him was the driver that struck him. Now it seemed that the only person struck was me.  I was stuck dumb.

“Shit!” I grumbled to myself. “This case just went belly up.” But I could not simply walk away. I had already invested a good deal of time and effort into this case and wished to avoid taking a loss. My hope was that the defendants insurance company would still come through with some sort of settlement offer rather than go to trial. No such luck. They felt confident that we would not be able to pin this on their client and opted to have the case tried. In their shoes, given the circumstances, I would have done the same.

Once we had a trial date, I ran into another snag. My client, had moved to Colorado and he did not wish to come back for the trial. I had taken the case on contingency and since he had no money invested at this point, he felt rather indifferent about whether he won or lost. This guy was really starting to grate on my nerves.“Look, Eddie,” I let him know forcefully over the phone. “If you don’t show up, the judge will dismiss the case and I’m out my time and the tab for the doctor and the economist I hired to figure up the damages. So unbuckle your skis, get on a plane and get your ass to the courthouse next Tuesday. Got it?” He reluctantly agreed.

The trio commenced and I had to deal with two problems. I had to find a way to deal with the color of the vehicle as described in the police report and the failure of my client to identify the defendant in the skylark. These were huge, huge problems . In order to overcome  the discrepancy about the color of the vehicle that appeared in the police report, white. I had obtained a color chart provided by the manufacturer of the vehicle which had samples of painted metal strips for every color that they offered for the skylark. During the trial I had established that the incident took place around noon on a sunny day and then pointed out how, due to the high reflectiveness of the material, many of the color strips appeared to be white when they were struck with bright light. I hoped this would resonate with the jury and overcome the wrong description in the police report. I still had to find a way to deal with the inability to identify the defendant.

When Eddie took the stand, he was still unable to positively identify the defendant. We were stuck with his deposition testimony but the police report provide the  description that the driver had a HUGE  nose. We were able to get the police report into evidence.

The defendant then took the stand and, as expected, claimed to have been in New Jersey on the date in question. The defendant’s attorneys were so confident of a defense verdict that they did not bother to provide have  any alibi witnesses.

During the summations I argued Eddies description of the car was credible because if the jurors looked at the color charts they could reasonably find that “that if you are lying injured in the street trying to catch a glimpse of a vehicle speeding off in the bright sunlight, you might mistake a bronze paint job for a white one.” I recognized that this argument was tenuous at best and I had to go for a clincher if I was to have any hope of victory.

“Ladies and gentleman, you have read the police report which was introduced into evidence. It documents that the plaintiff identified the driver of the car as a man with a huge nose. It listed the defendant as the owner of a sports car whose license plate matches the one my seriously injured client carved into the pavement that day. I ask you to now  look at the defendant  and determine if he was or was not the man my client identified as the driver of the car.” I then turned from the jury box, walked towards the defendant sitting at his counsel’s table and pointed at the defendant. “Look at that nose nose,” “It’s huge. You might forget a face but you can’t forget that nose.Your decision to find for the plaintiff should be as plain as the nose on his face.”

The jury returned a unanimous verdict in favor of Eddie, determining that the defendant was one hundred percent responsible for Eddie’s injuries. The jury was then instructed to reconvene in order to set the amount of the damages.

The damage portion of the trial began and now the defendants started scrambling to come up with money to try and settle the case. I was feeling pretty comfortable with the value of the case. I evaluated that between  between the knee injury and significant loss of earnings I should be able to obtain a verdict in the seven figure range. At this point during a court recess the defendants offered one hundred and fifty thousand dollars which I was obliged to convey to my client. I did, together with the recommendation to reject it out of hand. To my shock and surprise Eddie opted to grab the first amount they offered him, $150,000.

I have seldom had a client ignore my recommendation and not  try to get additional offers, but that’s exactly what Fast Eddie did. I was flabbergasted when he accepted the offer.

After the settlement and when the jury was dismissed, I questioned members of the jury as part of my routine follow-up. I learned that they did actually play around with the color chart in the jury room and were able to manipulate it in the light so that certain colors appeared to be white, just as I had claimed. In fact one juror climbed onto a table in the jury room and showed the other jurors how moving the swatch in the color chart under the florescent lights caused it to to turn from bronze to white. They also opined that they were thinking of awarding an amount in the millions. One juror commented jokingly that every time the defendant opened his mouth it reminded him of Pinnochio’s nose which grew larger every time he told a lie.

Why do I call this client Fast Eddie? I met Eddie in the courthouse lobby after my conversation with the jurors. I advised him of the jurors comments about the case and the amounts they were considering awarding and what he gave up by settling. This was his response.

“You know Ell, When they made the offer I just wanted to go home. I had taken this case to two other lawyers and neither wanted to take it. I only wanted to have a case to justify my actual injury as a permanent loss so I could get my full pension from the fire department. I already had a torn meniscus. When I fell to the ground it became worse”.

Fast Eddy now admitted that what  actually happened was not as he had reported to the police. The driver had gotten him so angry by ignoring his order to halt and then cursing at him, that he decided on the spot to make him pay. He went on to admit to me that he had struck the car hard with his hand as it drove by and then  had fallen to the ground. He did not have to fake his injuries because he actually did mangle his knee when he fell. Bending his head down so I couldn’t see his eyes he said “Sorry Ell, I just wanted to go home.

Elliot Fixler