Truly becoming an expert at something requires many, many years of hard work, dedication, and commitment. Yet, for some mysterious reason, virtually no field out there is suffering from a shortage of people who have none of these things, yet seem to believe that they know everything there is to know anyway. The good news is that more often than not, expertise is not something that can be easily faked—and when fake expertise is confronted by real expertise, the real often wins in epic fashion. Here are 42 awesome stories of times when non-experts thought that they could outwit the experts—and what the experts did in response.
1. Scandinavian Skies
Some random guy tried to correct me about the geography of my own country (Norway). He was claiming that it is very much flat like all the other Nordic countries, and he refused to believe me when I told him that it’s actually the opposite and is filled with mountains. I’m pretty sure that actually living here and seeing the country with my own eyes holds just a tad more weight than simply repeating something you heard.
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2. Photographic Memory
My friend and I went to this event called Dapper Day at Disney last weekend, where people dress up in all kinds of vintage wear. One of Disney's photographers for the event asked my friend if she was Disney-bounding (i.e. interpreting a Disney character), and she replied that she was simply wearing a generic dress from around 1955.
The photographer began telling us about how her dress was really much more late 1940s and that, while we may have researched it, he actually lived through it; and so next time, we should look at a picture before assuming we know what era something is from. We are both professional theatrical costumers whose strengths lie in historical costuming, and her dress was taken directly from a 1955 catalog.
Furthermore, based on his approximate age, and being generous that he may have aged extremely well, this man definitely could not have been older than 5 years old in 1955.
3. This Guy Sounds Like a Neanderthal
I'm majoring in archaeology. I once had a guy start talking to me about dinosaurs. I corrected him and explained that it's a fairly common misconception, but paleontology and archaeology are actually two different fields and I'm studying humans, not dinosaurs. He then doubles down and insists that I need to know about dinosaurs because "What do you do if you're digging up ruins and find a dinosaur fossil? Call a paleontologist??!!”
He smugly tells me that I'll be useless in my field if I don't know about dinosaurs, and that I had better start registering for paleontology courses as soon as possible. He left shortly after that comment. I still don't know too much about dinosaurs, and I don’t think that will change any time soon.
4. Hamlet Gone Wrong
I didn’t specialize in this per se, but when I worked at the deli counter in my local grocery store, I had a guy once come in and ask for some sliced ham. I asked him if he wanted Black Forest ham, honey baked, or mesquite ham. He looked at me with an obnoxious smirk on his face, and said “It’s not mesquite, it’s mestique!”
When he didn’t believe me that he may be wrong about this, I literally pointed at the sign and label on the actual freaking ham itself to show him that it did, indeed, say “Mesquite.” Nevertheless, he still continued to correct me. I finally gave up and just gave him his damn “mestique ham.” This was a good 15 years ago, and I’m still mad about it!
5. Sugar in the Morning, Sugar in the Evening
You wouldn’t believe the number of times people have tried to tell me that you can only become diabetic if you eat too much sugar. These people also tend to absolutely INSIST that they are right. I’m a type one diabetic, and I was diagnosed when I was just 14 months old. Was I drinking soda from my baby bottles and using ring pops as pacifiers back then?
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6. Music to My Ears
A guy who considered himself to be a “music maven” tried to correct me when I mentioned something about Beethoven's “9th Symphony,” better known as "Ode to Joy." He insisted that Johann Sebastian Bach had composed it when, in fact, Bach had never composed a single symphony in his entire life—not to mention that “Ode to Joy” is one of Beethoven's most famous pieces!
7. Sounds Like Intelligence Skipped a Generation!
I'm an identical twin, and a big biology nerd on the side. I had someone once try to insist to me that fraternal twins are actually called "paternal" twins. The reason that she claimed to know this better than me was that she expects to give birth to twins at some point in her life, due to the fact that her husband’s father has a twin and she had heard that twinness apparently skips a generation.
I have no clue where on earth she’s getting her information from, but she may want to consider glancing through an actual science textbook instead some time...
8. Rock Star
I was working for a scaffolding company right after I had finished my degree, while I was still looking for a full-time job in mining engineering. One time, we came across some pyrite and one of the guys thought that it was gold. I basically explained to him that it could not have been because it was too hard, to which he replied, “What are you some kind of rock specialist?” My answer was simply a polite but firm “Yes.”
9. Foul Language
Someone in my school once tried to correct my Spanish in class. I’m Puerto Rican, but I guess my classmate was not aware of that. I just started speaking to him in full, fluent Spanish in response. He walked away.
10. What a Sap!
I’m a professional dietician. I once had a person start telling me all about how agave nectar is soooo much healthier, and how I should replace all the sugar I eat with it. I told her that it's just a fructose and glucose mix, and that you might as well just use corn syrup. She got really mad. Like irrationally mad.
11. The Cow Jumped Over the Moon
My wife has a friend who studied zoology at an academic level. This friend once told me that cows can't run or jump. I grew up with them on a farm. On more than one occasion, I had to run after or away from them after they had jumped a fence. I know from experience that this zoologist is wrong. Despite what many people think, cows can actually be really fast when they want to be.
12. Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place
I’m an avid climber. People tell me to wear gloves all of the time. There is a form of climbing where gloves would be somewhat acceptable, although even then they’d be a bit questionable. However, in free climbing and bouldering, which are what I do, you absolutely cannot wear gloves because your bare fingers are what allow you to grip onto smaller pieces of rock effectively.
13. You Had Me At Pizza
I'm a food scientist, so this happens to me basically all the time. I had one person insisting that she doesn’t eat any MSG because it gives her terrible migraines. She was eating pizza while telling me about this. There is so much misinformation out there about food, that things like this are basically a constant experience for me.
14. Soiled
My professor told my class that he was once shopping at a chain store, looking for some fertilizer. A younger employee asked if he needed any help finding something, so he told him what he was looking for and in what amounts. The employee then went on to thoroughly teach him about how those numbers are really percentages of how much elemental nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are in the mix—and the rest of the percentage missing is just filler stuff.
My professor has a PhD in soil science. The employee’s explanation was not correct, but he decided to just let it slide since he was so enthusiastic about it. He didn’t want to burst the poor guy’s bubble.
15. They’ve Got Their Heads in the Clouds
I’m an app developer. Every once in a while, tech support will escalate an issue to me, and I'll have to listen to a customer try to explain to me how my own program works. I don't care how many times you whiningly tell me that "It won't sync to the cloud!" An application that doesn't even connect to the internet has never done that, and never will.
16. When the Army Comes Rolling Along
I work in the field of Lightning Protection here in the good ol’ United States. I do all the estimating and all the designs for the largest company in the Southeast. I’ve been doing this for about 7 years already. I am fully certified through our industry's largest certification company. Despite all of that, the amount of engineers and architects who love to argue with me about the industry code is astounding.
I live that code. Being that I estimate and design systems, my main job is to know that code like the back of my hand. That code is practically a part of me. I have experienced many cases like this, but the worst was the Army Corps of Engineers. We had a project that their designer had designed which was in the bid package drawings.
It was a pretty standard situation, we were just going to pick out the materials requested and ignore the incorrect aspects of the design. That is how we bid it, won it, and designed it. This would have provided them with a fully certified system. In our business, a U.L. Master Label certification is as close to a requirement for every job as anything can be.
Two weeks after we submitted our design, it came back with a revise and resubmit stamp, along with a very snarky demand from the Corps that we change our design to the exact one provided in the bid package. I went back and forth on emails and calls with their engineers, trying to explain to them that their system would not work, was potentially a dangerous hazard, and ultimately could not be certified or warrantied.
They came back basically with a “We don't care what you say, we know better, just do it and keep your mouth shut.” So I did. I designed it exactly like they had asked and put a disclaimer on the drawing, saying that there would likely be issues and that we were not responsible. A few months then go by, my design is installed, and the Corps are now ready to get their certification.
They call the inspector in to check the design out. He immediately fails it before they even put it on the roof. The Army got pissed and tried to blame it all on us. I politely forwarded the countless email chains to the officer in charge. They had to scramble to get it up to code in time for when they needed it. As a consequence, it resulted in us issuing a change order to bring it up to code for them. It cost around 75% more than the original cost of the project.
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17. Quality Assured
I was being discharged from a week-long hospital stay and, even though I was ready to go home, I was still having some bouts of nausea. I had been getting Zofran while inpatient and asked the nurse if the discharging provider could send in a script for a few doses. In a sweet, sickly voice, she said: "Oh honey, Zofran only comes in IV form."
I replied with, "Oh honey, I'm a pharmacist, and can assure you that it also comes in tablets, liquid, and oral-disintegrating tabs." She fumbled a bit, then mumbled something about checking with the doctor and quickly exited the room. I may not have perfectly mimicked her condescending tone, but I sure as hell tried.
18. Mechanical Errors
I'm a Harley Davidson mechanic and, I swear, almost all Harley riders seem to feel some kind of intense need to pretend that they know everything there is to know about their bike at all times, even when they clearly don’t! Believe me, it can get really annoying. I don’t even argue with them anymore, I just tell ‘em what's up. If they want to debate me about it, I just say "ok" and walk away.
19. Will the Real Designer Please Stand Up?
I wrote software for a large, interactive art piece. It was presented in such a way that it required the viewer to discover how it was used on their own, but it wasn't difficult and most people picked up on the main operation of it very, very quickly (as was intended to be the case). There were three stations that all interacted with each other, but were separated by some distance.
One day during the exhibit, I see some random guy very flamboyantly operating the device (it created music, lights, and fire), and voluntarily explaining how it works to a small crowd gathered around him. I'm intrigued, so I walk over to hear him. According to what he was telling people, he had "figured" it all out and was therefore now basking in the adulation of those around him.
The only problem was...he was totally wrong. Like, way off! So, after listening for a little bit, I gently and politely pointed out how it differed from what he was saying about it. He then looks around at "his" crowd, and tells me that I'm way off and I clearly don't get it; that I just don't understand. This was especially perplexing not only because I had been involved in the design, but also because simple operation and observation contradicted what he was claiming.
Anyway, I again, politely, explained a bit more to further illustrate where he was going wrong. He told me that I just didn't know what I was talking about. I hesitated for a moment, and considered just thanking him and walking away. Then, I thought better of it. I looked straight at him in front of the entire crowd and told him that I had written the software for what he was doing, and had been writing and running it on my laptop at home every night for the last six months.
The crowd’s whole attitude instantly changed. People came up to congratulate and thank me, and they no longer seemed to care about this other guy’s claims. I eventually just wandered off. It was weird how invested that guy was in being right and the center of attention over something that had nothing to do with him, to begin with. At least he was polite at the end.
20. Stand and De-Liver
I’m a nurse, and I particularly enjoy it when people try to inform me about medications and the amounts they feel they should be taking. Patient: “But I usually take paracetamol every hour!” Me: “And that’s why you’re here with liver problems, Karen!”
21. Are You Ready to Rumble?
I run a company that produces fighting equipment, think foam swords and sports armor. Part of my job is safety checking all of the weapons—making sure there's no exposed core, making sure it's all up to spec, etc. I am also female. I was invited to go to fencing one time in my area, something that I’m fairly skilled in, as you can imagine.
One player there recognized me and asked me to check his weapon to see if it would pass at my game. Another dude interrupted us to show me the “right way” to check a weapon. He then proceeded to explain basic construction methods to me. Eventually, he was stopped by the opening announcements for that game —and he missed every single hint that I didn't actually need his advice. Watching him blush a few minutes later when I was introduced with full title to go up on stage was glorious.
22. The Beer Necessities
In the Netherlands, we have different sized glasses for our Pilsner. They all have different names—the smallest (0.18L) is called a flute (Fluitje), the middle is a vase (Vaasje), and the largest (0.5L) we just call "half a liter" or pint. Sometimes, bars have a medium of 0.33L as well, but that one doesn’t really have a name.
Anyway, most people drink flutes or vases. You'd order "a flute, please" or "a vase, please" and you'll always be served the house pilsner in the size you ordered. As you might have guessed by now, I am a bartender. One night, I was at work in my bar and had this group of five dudes drinking vases—a lot of vases.
The thing is that when you simply order "a beer," you'll be served a vase of pilsner as the standard. Everyone knows this here. It's common knowledge and no one ever objects to it. So, these dudes had simply been ordering "five beers, please" over and over again the whole night. They were served vases each time.
When the time came to finally pay, I gave them their bill and it said 35 vases of Heineken. They then tried to argue with me that the glasses I had served them in were not vases, but flutes. I told them that I was not going to argue about something as ridiculous as this, as anyone who drinks beer in the Netherlands knows what a flute and a vase is, and everyone knows what size they are.
Nevertheless, they refused to pay, so I told them to Google the sizes of beers and see for themselves. So they did. They then found a website that listed the sizes and names of the glasses, but they wouldn’t believe it because "The website must be owned by Heineken." Sure, a flute and vase conspiracy, that's a new one!
In the end, I told them to pay or I would call the cops, so they paid—but they also said that they were going to write a complaint email to my bosses telling them that I was ignorant about glass sizes. I encouraged them to do so, knowing full well that any such claim would just be laughed at and thrown out almost immediately.
At this point, even some of our other customers started telling them to stop behaving like ridiculous idiots. I kindly asked them to never return to my bar again.
23. A Life and Death Situation
We had a few lectures at my university given by the head of cardiology at the adjacent hospital. He told us about the time he was waiting to cross the road, when a man next to him collapsed. As he knelt down to attend to him, a large lady strode over, physically lifted him and pushed him out of her way, then said in a loud and proud voice: "I'll take charge here, I have a first aid certificate!"
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24. Coming Out Ahead
I’m a mechanic and I was once asked to do the rear brakes on a classic Vespa scooter. I think it may have been a 200 Rally, but I’m not fully sure as this was decades ago. So, the owner and his pal turned up with the scooter. I loosened off and removed the rear rim and tire, then loosened the hub nut and began to put the rear rim and tire back on.
That’s when all of a sudden, I heard: "Oh hey, wait a minute, mate! What the heck are you doing?" I said, "I'm getting the hub off." They yelled, "Not like that, you're not!" They insisted that there was a better way to remove it, and offered to try and do it themselves on my behalf. So, I said sure. I told them that I was going out for a quick cup of coffee and smoke break, and that they could call me to come back and continue as soon as they had removed the hub.
Four hours later, (yes, four bloody hours), they were still at it. The hub wouldn't budge, not even a single inch. Getting bored, I finally decided to just go back to them and do the job myself. I put the rim and tire on, screwed in and tightened the two wheel bolts, and, using a mallet, hit three times on one point, then three times 180 degrees opposite, then rinsed and repeated three or four times until the entire rim, tire, and hub assembly simply came off.
You know, the simple way that this was meant to be done all along. I charged them for half a day’s worth of labor, for only a 30-minute job.
25. What a Crackpot!
I've spent over a decade as a professional pastry cook. The general manager at my new corporate job just tried to teach me how to crack eggs.
26. Czech Mate
I studied history at university and worked for a while as a tour guide in Prague, Czech Republic. I once had a customer on a walking tour of the city get really snarky with me because I called the river running through the city the Vltava. He declared to the whole tour that this was not its name. I asked him if he had heard it referred to as the Moldau, as that was the German name for the river during the Habsburg era when German was the official language.
To my surprise, he said no, and added that I was probably just stupid. He insisted that the river was called the Danube. I pointed out to him that the Danube doesn't run through Prague, and asked if perhaps he was thinking of Brno. No, he confirmed, he had definitely read in a guidebook some time that it was the Danube, so why the hell was he paying money for this tour if the guide didn't even know what the river was called?
At this point, another tourist in the group showed him her guidebook where it clearly said 'Vltava.' Then another showed him a map, and another showed him another guidebook, and so on and so forth until the whole group had basically shown him what a twat he was being. He didn't apologize at any point, of course, but at least he kept his mouth shut for the rest of the tour.
27. When Earth Doesn’t Work
A new house recently got built next door to mine. Shortly after the owners moved in, they knocked on my door to complain that my house was built too high. I explained that my house was built on flat ground and that their builder had built their house lower for some reason, undercutting my fence. The guy proceeds to give a long-winded spiel about how earthworks are done and how my house is too high and I have to fix it.
I then explain that I do earthworks for a living, have done the earthworks for over 300 houses in my suburb alone, and around 1,200 in the local area in total. I name his builder, his site supervisor, his engineer, the exact floor levels in the street, and the law that says that he has to pay to fix my fence. He still hasn't paid, and the legal procedures are beginning soon.
28. Hitting Below the Belt
I've been in martial arts for 14 years, and I'm a fourth-degree black belt. I don't claim to know everything, not even close—but I do know what I'm talking about compared to the average person. At my university, I decided to try out the Taekwondo club on campus. It was the first day I was trying it and I didn't know if we were supposed to wear uniforms or not, so I went in with workout clothes but brought my full gear with me just in case.
Before the class started, one of the leaders (who was wearing a second-degree black belt, nothing to sniff at, but still a difference of five years of training) came up to me and started explaining the general protocol of class. He offered to stand next to me during the class to show me how to do the different steps. Throughout all of this, he seemed annoyed that he was having to explain everything, and generally acted like he didn't want any new, inexperienced students.
I politely agreed, and asked if we should wear our uniforms for the class. He explained that if we had them we should, but it wasn't a problem if I didn't have one. I explained that I did have one, and said I'd be right back, then proceeded to go change into my uniform. His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw me walk out with my instructor's uniform and fourth-degree belt.
29. How Can It Be Two Things at Once?
I’m a nutritionist. I once had somebody insisting that you should drink apple cider with vinegar to alkalize your body and prevent diseases. I pointed out that that's an acid. He insisted that it was not, as it was “just apple cider with vinegar.” Right…
30. Mama Mia!
My parents are Italian and I speak Italian. Nevertheless, I have often had random people in the US who are one-quarter Italian at best, or who once ate Italian food, correct me on the pronunciation of any number of things. One of the favorites is to tell me that “gravy” is how you say sauce in Italian. Yes, my Italian may not be perfect and I may have forgotten how to say a lot of things since my childhood, but I am quite certain that sauce isn't called "gravy" in Italy. Sorry, friends!
31. This Website Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us
I’m a welder on nuclear submarines with over 14 different x-ray welding qualifications at my current company alone. I was in an online discussion group about welding but eventually had to leave it because I was constantly getting dragged into ridiculous arguments with people who are brand new to the field and have no real world experience with welding, yet think that they literally know everything there is to know about it.
The amount of wrong information that was being thrown around left and right over there is insane. There were plenty of very knowledgeable folks there who I enjoyed talking to, but they were greatly overshadowed by the ignorant, unfortunately.
32. A Tall Tale
Someone once tried to convince me that I was wrong about my own height. I’m 6’10” tall. A guy came up to me and said that he was 6’10” tall, so I must therefore actually be about 7-feet tall in order to be that much taller than him. “Nahhh, man—you’re 6’6” tall max,” I replied. And then we went back and forth about that for a little bit. Like—what? Why? What would I possibly stand to benefit from lying about my height to a total stranger?
33. Going Off Quilter
I worked at a quilt store for five years. I'm a male and was in my late 20s at the time. I got customers treating me like I knew nothing about quilts pretty much every day. Eventually, I just started working on my own projects in the store right in front of people, so that they could see that I was a better quilter than them before they started talking down to me and asking if the owner was my mother.
34. Nothing Natural About This
I have a degree in Music Performance, specializing in low brass instruments. I can transpose most other clefs on the fly, which is an important trait for a gigging musician. I now have another career, but I come out during wedding season, holidays, and to cover or sub for local professionals. I was recently at a gig playing trombone and reading a lead sheet written for flute.
The trumpet player kept missing a D-flat. We stopped rehearsal, and he tried to tell me that I was playing the wrong note. I told him that the note was a D-flat and that he, in fact, was the one playing the wrong note by playing a D-natural. He then tells me that I need to learn to transpose. I had to explain to this professional musician that low brass instruments don't transpose C parts, we just read them.
A D-flat on flute is a D-flat for trombone as well. The dude still argued with me about it for five minutes. Even the piano and guitar players began chiming in to tell him that he was wrong.
35. Do You Know Who I Am?
Unfortunately, I was recently on the flip side of something like this—and I got shut down. I was arguing with my cousin while we were in an old hydraulic elevator. I said that hydraulic elevators are slow, crap, and have far more failures than cable elevators. The guy standing across from us started laughing and shaking his head. He proudly informed us that he is an elevator repairman, and that what I was saying was not true at all. Shamed.
36. Been There, Done That
"You need to research what aircraft carriers are like before you attempt to write a book about one." This was said to me by a member of my writer's workshop after reading a scene in which I described an aircraft carrier as "creaking." I’ve sailed on the USS Eisenhower...
Pixabay
37. Laser Focused
Yesterday, I was at a physics lecture given by Donna Strickland, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics last year for her work in lasers. During the question period afterward, some kid (either an undergrad or a young grad, I didn’t know him) was all like “I have a comment more than a question...” and proceeded to explain some laser technique to her and that he thought she should try to use.
Her response was a “Yes, we are all well familiar with that technique in my lab and we already use it.” I was just kind of amazed at the nerve of this kid for trying to tell a Nobel Laureate how to do her research in a room packed with hundreds of people.
38. You Can’t Possibly Do What I Do!
I used to work in an air traffic control tower, and we would fairly often have new pilots visiting to see the airport and what happens from the air traffic control side of things. I was on a break one time when a particular pilot was visiting, and I was the only female air traffic controller in that workplace. I guess because I’m a woman, the people there just assumed that I was a waitress or something rather than an actual air traffic controller.
So the visiting pilot finishes his cup of coffee, hands me his mug, and says “Wash that for me, would you honey?” By the time he had returned to his aircraft, my break was over. He, unfortunately, found himself at the back of a rather long departure queue. I wanted him to have some time listening to the frequency and absorbing the fact that if a woman is in a professional environment, she’s probably not just the freaking tea lady.
39. There’s Some Bad Chemistry Between These Two!
I once had a nurse explain to me that I needed to drink more water so that more oxygen could get to my brain. In response to my puzzled look, he explained that H2O dissolved into oxygen and hydrogen, and the oxygen then travels to the brain. I'm a chemist. Yes, I asked to speak to the clinic director.
40. Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better
I once found myself in a situation like this that you would never believe. I'm by no means a medical expert or a doctor, but I have a trauma care qualification through the fire department. One evening after my night shift, I came across a male in the street who had clearly just had a seizure and fallen off his bike in the middle of the road.
I grabbed a blanket from my car and ran over to try and help. I began assessing him, and there was a LOT of blood. At first, he wasn't responsive, so I was starting to work through the rest of my assessment whilst asking one passerby to call 9-1-1 and asking another one to run 100 yards up the road to the nearby emergency station and tell them to come down.
All of a sudden, some woman with an “I want to speak to your manager” haircut appears out of nowhere, and loudly declares that she is going to take care of the situation from here on; and so everyone else needs to just move along. To be honest, when I first heard this, I was thankful to now potentially have some help, and the patient was just starting to show some signs of recovery.
That quickly changed as this woman began aggressively pinning the dude to the floor and telling someone to stick his wallet in his mouth. I started to freak out and tell people not to do what she was telling them to do. I tried to get her the heck off of him, because I could see that she clearly didn’t know what she was doing.
She responded by telling me that I was the one who should get off of him and that I should let someone who knew what they were doing deal with the situation. I didn't bother arguing with her. I instead took over the 9-1-1 call, as the member of the public was struggling to give the right info to the person on the other end of the line.
I explained the situation carefully and gave them my casualty assessment. Then, the fire crew arrived. To say that I was relieved when they jumped out, told the woman to get off of the dude, and spoke to me on a first name basis is an understatement. Her face dropped as everyone there clearly stopped taking her seriously in that moment.
The patient was handed over effectively. They turned him onto his side, administered whatever they judged was necessary, warmed him up in a blanket, and loaded him onto the ambulance as soon as it arrived.
41. A Civil Conversation
I once had a friend of a friend start to explain the causes and effects of the American Civil War to me at a backyard party. I kept trying to take part in the conversation, and he kept interrupting me. Finally, our mutual friend, overhearing our “conversation” (AKA this guy's lecture), leans in and says, "You know she got her grad degree in this subject, right?"
I'd love to say that learning about my credentials, so to speak, changed the tone or course of our conversation, but it didn't. Somehow, it only intensified his need to explain things to me that I can literally teach a high-level class on. Classic.
42. Arms Race
I’m a Canadian lawyer. I used to primarily do firearms law. I taught a course in firearms law at a major university. I've been consulted on it by major lawyers. I've had judges tell other lawyers to phone me with their firearms law questions. I once had a first-year law student try to tell me that I was oh-so-wrong about firearms law on a particular topic.
Eventually, they went and cited a particular case, which I politely advised them that they were wrong about. They kept going on and on, talking about how just because I'm a lawyer and they're a student doesn't mean that they're wrong. Meanwhile, I'm just trying my best to hold my tongue. Eventually, someone else chimed in to be like, "Uhh, don't you know who this professor is? The case that you are citing is a case that he personally argued and won on." That was definitely a satisfying moment, to say the least.
43. A Boneheaded Play
I sat in on a personal injury case where the plaintiff broke their leg in an accident and had a doctor on the stand as an expert. The woman's lawyer begins questioning the doctor about his experience with leg injuries (he was a well known orthopedic surgeon in the area). She asks if he’s ever treated a tibula fracture.
He simply answers "no." So, she starts grilling him with questions about the tibula. After about six or seven questions, she asks "how did you get a medical license if you've never treated a tibula fracture?" She launches into a huge rant trying to discredit his credentials, to which he simply responds "there is no bone called the tibula."
The lawyer became beet red and everyone in the room tried their best to keep from laughing, including the judge.
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