I went to lunch at the egg place again with Vinny. This time it was plain scrambled eggs.
While walking to the restaurant, I realized that Vinny had lost it. I think he has taken this “always on trial anywhere near the courthouse” thing a little too far. As we were walking, he would start saying something about the case, stop in mid-sentence, casually look around, begin walking across the street, then pick up where he left off 15 seconds later. Reminded me of the scene in Animal House where John Belushi is sneaking into the building, stops, crouches down, looks all around, then starts running again. I felt like asking “why is that guy across the street pointing a microphone at us?” I didn’t think that Vinny would find me amusing at that point, so I kept my mouth shut and kept walking.
Over eggs, Vinny said that the Grinch was “looking to get out of the case” and asking for a settlement offer from the defense attorneys. My mouth was half full of eggs, but I still blurted out “forget it.” A little piece of egg flopped out of my mouth onto the plate. I finished chewing and then told him that I wouldn’t settle even if I had to take the case through trial myself. He smirked at me and said that the insurance company wasn’t planning to settle. My case was in a “defend posture.” As opposed to a “settle posture,” I guess.
Heading back to court, I made some phone calls. That day would happen to be the day that my phone was ringing non stop. Had four messages. Sorry, have to call you back later.
Back inside the courtroom, the attorneys went back into the judge’s chambers for another conference. The jury was put in the jury room. It was just me and the patient’s wife sitting there again. She didn’t change poses. She sat there with her hands folded in her lap and stared at the opposite wall. Didn’t talk. Didn’t interact with anyone. Didn’t look around. Even her lawyer didn’t talk to her that much. Made me wonder what she was thinking about. I’m sure she had her own version of what happened the day her husband came to the emergency department cemented in her mind. She probably thought I was a terrible doctor. Maybe she was just angry and looking to prove a point. Maybe she just needed the money. Who knows. My mind was working too hard. Then I started wondering if she was sitting there thinking about what I was thinking about while I sat there. Disengage the clutch, WhiteCoat, you’re going too fast.
The jury was laughing and talking loudly. They all got along, so it seemed like a good group. Too much of a good thing, though. All of a sudden, the judge whipped open the back door to the courtroom and walked briskly into the room like a dad going to spank his kid. He stood at the door and sternly told them that if they weren’t quiet, he would make them stay longer today.
I looked back at the plaintiff. Ha! She moved! Her arms were clasped in front of her instead of folded across her chest.
Twenty minutes went by. You know it’s boring when you start to count the number of lights in the courtroom. Just for the record, there are 47 bulbs.
Everyone came out of the back and took their places at the tables. Hitch went over to the jury door and began letting the jurors back in the room. Louise was standing up and she kicked my chair. Ooops. Forgot to stand when the jury walked into the room.
Everyone settled in and then the patient’s widow took the stand.
The Grinch led her through a story of her family life with her husband. She described her husband, how he was a police officer and how much they loved each other. How they raised their children and how he played with their grandchildren. Some jurors were taking notes about his life history. Most were just sitting there listening. A few smiled when she would come up with cute anecdotes.
The plaintiff’s attorney produced several pictures of the patient. The widow started crying when she discussed pictures of her and her husband. A couple of the women on the jury cried along with her. Then the Grinch asked her how much she loved her husband. She became teary-eyed. So did the jury. “More than words could describe,” she answered.
“Come on,” I thought to myself. Exactly how does this apply to his medical care?
At that point, Louise leaned over to me and said “I’m all over that on cross” — meaning that she was planning to dispute her wife’s statement that she loved her husband. I sat there for a second and thought “is this lady crazy?” Then I leaned back over to her and asked “Whyyyyyy?”
She grabbed her chewed up pen and wrote “kidding” on her pad. Then she looked at me and drew a smiley face.
“Just testing your poker face,” she whispered.
Whackball. That’s three pairs of underwear your firm owes me now.
The patient’s widow described in detail her perception of what the patient looked like while he was at the hospital. She stated that while she was in the doctor’s office prior to coming to the emergency department “all of a sudden an area on his stomach just opened up and bled all over the place.” The doctor allegedly didn’t know what it was, so he recommended that the patient go directly to the hospital by ambulance. Funny that the doctor didn’t write that in the chart and that he didn’t tell me about it when he called to tell me the patient was coming. The Grinch never asked her about the family doctor’s reactions, though. Conveniently left out the issues that would hurt his case … like those notes from the doctor’s office.
The patient’s wife cried again when she discussed her husband’s death. Since he died, she had to sell her home and now has to take care of her elderly mother by herself. Her income was cut by more than half.
At the break, the hospital representative and the other physician being sued started saying “so thaaaaat’s what this is all about … she just wants us to pay for her retirement because they didn’t have any retirement planning.”
That concept really upset the hospital representative. She stood there rotating the several rings on her fingers like nuts on a bolt while she shook her head and scowled. The rings clanked against each other as she turned them.
I didn’t know what to think. Part of me felt sorry for the widow. I felt sorry that her husband died. I felt sorry that she was alone. But we can’t force others to pay people millions of dollars just because we feel sorry for them. Why did the jury even have to hear about the patient’s family life?
The “retirement” comments just ate at me.
See previous posts in this series here.
“Exactly how does this apply to his medical care?”
It doesn’t. It goes to the damages. She’s not up there to testify as to whether his care was proper, she doesn’t have the knowledge to do so. She’s up there to explain about the quality of life he led, and the loss she’s suffered.
If there were no damages, even if you had acted intentionally and with malice, there would be no (civil) case.
Whether there are damages hasn’t yet been determined. There may be a perceived loss on the part of the plaintiff, but the relationship of that loss to the medical care provided hasn’t even been established yet.
True, but the plaintiff has to put their entire case on during their turn. If they don’t put evidence of all elements on the defense will move for, and get, a directed verdict when the plaintiff rests.
And I don’t know if the loss is “perceived”. He’s dead and she’s a widow, that’s about as actual a loss as you can get.
Jeepers. The judge threatening the jury with “staying later” is really childish on his part. All he needed to say was keep it down.
This is especially ironic after all the yelling that came out of his offices earlier…
The Judge is the god in the courtroom!
Every untoward utterance of the judge should be reported to the Judicial Review Board, one at a time, once a month, so that the judge lives with uncertainty for years. The judge is the cause of the lawyer oppression of the doctor with weak cases. This cult criminal receives campaign contributions from plaintiff and defense bars. They have a mutual interest in churning litigation and holding trials. The judge is biased in favor of that interest. There should be no pity. The judges should come to fear the doctors, not the other way around. The judge is a shiftless, lazy, slow shuffling government employee, like a postal worker moving as if in molasses while long line grow at the post office. These are biased lawyers who should get no quarter. Every utterance that is not within judicial temperament limits get reported.
Great installment, WC. Jeez.
I agree. Best to date.
Hey Supremacy? Knock it off, please. You’re in danger of becoming a kook with an idee fixe, rather than a serious reformer. I agree, there is need for reform. We get it. Your Johnny-one-note is becoming tiresome. You don’t have to make your point every single time.
The lawyer is tiresome, with thousands of claims, 80% of which are weak. As a coroner, you probably have a low risk of being sued. So, skip over my comments. The ideas here apply to other parties about 10 times more than to the doctor. If the ER doc gets sued every 5 years, he gets all upset, and has to blog the experience word for word. Any business of the same size gets sued dozens of times a year, every year in business. So you knock it off, accepting lawyer oppression in silence. And if the lawyer is tired of this loving lawyer criticism, the lawyer is invited to move to Venezuela with the other redistributionists in this hemisphere. Go with your own kind, the Commies.
See, if we had medical courts and a salaried expert panel instead of a jury, all this “how much did you love your husband” crap would be completely moot. As Joe Friday said “stick to the facts, Ma’am”.
No it wouldn’t. There would still be a damages phase. It would be a fact she loved him and missed him and how he lived his life would be a fact. Same as if someones negligence was possibly responsible for your death. Get hit by another driver today and injured severely or killed and your spouse will testify to the facts of how you lived pre-injury. She probably won’t think it’s crap either.
Damages only apply after there is guilt. They are two separate entities. You don’t win damages without winning the malpractice verdict so you shouldn’t be allowed to pitch your damages to win your malpractice verdict.
This surprised me in my trial as well. I was wondering why all the sentimental and pity producing pictures were allowed to be shown before any of the “facts” of the case were discussed. Seems like a trial should be determine liability first then talk about damages, rather than imply damages and determine facts later.
I felt sorry for the widower, Who wouldn’t? The plaintiff attorney inflicted more emotional damage by leading the family through this ordeal when their case was without merit.
Hatchloing: Very good. The wife should have been excluded from the court due to her unseemly appearance, conduct and false boohooing.
This should have been done by the defense lawyers.
This is the justification.
http://supremacyclaus.blogspot.com/2008/09/exclude-plaintiff-from-trial-for.html
“Damages only apply after there is guilt. They are two separate entities. You don’t win damages without winning the malpractice verdict so you shouldn’t be allowed to pitch your damages to win your malpractice verdict.”
Do you think you and all other jurors are too dumb to hear evidence of both the negligence and the damages and not confuse the two? Get your state to bifurcate all civil trials then.
” The plaintiff attorney inflicted more emotional damage by leading the family through this ordeal when their case was without merit.”
Do you mean your case or Whitecoat’s? If it’s the latter, at least one of the two experts Whitecoat consulted thought it did have merit. And just because there is a loser and a winner in every case does not mean that the loser’s case was wholly without merit. Often cases result from a very honest disagreement between two parties. For example, if you and someone else enter into a contract with a somewhat vague clause, both of you thinking it means something else, and you end up filing suit over it, just because one of you loses doesn’t mean your case had no merit.
“Do you mean your case or Whitecoat’s?”
Mine. And probably Whitcoat’s because they are probably not going to gain anything from it. Just a guess.
As to the rest of your paragraph. Duh. So for you, every disagreement and case has merit.
Of course you think that about yours. Every litigant thinks the other side’s case has no merit. That’s why they are in a lawsuit, after all. I’m impressed that you can decide that Whitecoat’s probably doesn’t have merit (in terms of being pursued, if not winning) having not seen any evidence, though.
“So for you, every disagreement and case has merit.”
No, that’s not what I said.
The bifurcation of the trial is a good idea. First prove negligence took place. Bifurcation prevents outcome bias, a violation of the procedural due process right of the civil defendant to a fair hearing.
The plaintiff should also be excluded from the court if the appearance of the plaintiff will be disruptive and prejudicial to the above defendant right. WC’s lawyer failed to assert those legal rights. As soon as the wife started crying, the lawyer should have called for a mistrial and demanded all legal costs to the plaintiff lawyer’s personal assets.
Criminal trials have two phases, one for guilt and one for punishment. I dont see why civil trials should be any different.
You know that image of a blindfolded Lady Justice holding up measuring scales? It doesn’t apply in civil trials.
Really? Which of the jurors is cheating justice?
[...] has been serializing a first-person account of his malpractice trial; you can read parts eleven and twelve, bearing in mind that you’re coming in partway through the story. (The trial has concluded, [...]
Naturally she will say she loved her husband and he was a wonderful person. What lawyer would let their client say “he was a lying sob that ran around, but he only beat me on the weekends and I need the money.”
Yeah, she’s probably lying about her dead husband. Good call on your part.
Like I said at the outset, and is becoming clearer with each post, the odds are with the defense. Looking forward to the conclusion.
Just sailing through these. Thanks for the good read.
(Just sorry you went through it)
******************
You know a patient is bored while lying on an ED stretcher when counting ceiling lights, ceiling squares, dots in the ceiling squares and number of items in the omnicells in trauma room… = one …long.. boring night.
The up side is said patient isn’t at death’s door if they can do all that counting.
I wonder if they can subpoena her ER records to verify that he was a good husband that did not beat her. And since the deceased was a cop, what about any excessive force complaints? Forgive me, I saw the Thomas Cullen Davis story recently and that defense lawyer was real good.