As the Grinch began to talk, I quickly saw why the codefendant physician was so upset. Most of the things the Grinch said either were untrue or distorted the evidence.
“There is nothing to suggest that the family’s observations were wrong.”
In reality, every one of the medical personnel that evaluated the patient most of the day noted none of the findings that the family observed. It upset me that the Grinch never addressed those discrepancies during my testimony. Then again, Louise never brought them out either. Perhaps they didn’t want to emphasize them. All part of the “show.”
“The patient’s medical records confirm the family’s observations.”
Yeah, only after the patient had gone into septic shock and was near death eight hours after he came to the emergency department.
“Dr. WhiteCoat only listed only “findings” in his note, he never listed any “diagnoses.”
So what? This was never an issue until late in the trial and none of the experts even said anything about it.
“There was no question that there was blood on the abdomen.”
Only one medically trained person even mentioned the possibility, and that person hadn’t even done a thorough exam.
“Dr. GreyCoat was not a reliable witness. He was impeached and said something different between his deposition testimony and his trial testimony.”
He really did not get impeached. His deposition testimony was that he “believed” I had done something, when I really had not done so. He tried to clarify it in his testimony, but the Grinch glossed over it. There was no difference, but the Grinch blew it out of proportion.
“Dr. WhiteCoat had a duty to the patient in the emergency department whether or not the patient had been admitted.”
This statement had nothing to do with any pertinent issue in the case. He was just throwing dirt at me to see if it would stick.
“And then look at the demeanor of the witnesses. On direct examination, you saw a ‘gentle, calm’ Dr. WhiteCoat. When he was presented with evidence that made him look bad, you got see the ‘snarling, angry’ Dr. WhiteCoat.”
I may have been a little angry, but I never snarled.
“Dr. WhiteCoat’s failure to request a surgical consult up until he transferred the patient care to the admitting physician was pure and simple negligence.”
The only basis for this assertion was his hired expert’s testimony. I later learned that during her closing argument prior to my arrival, Louise had made a big deal about how much money this expert had been paid — on the order of $4 million during his work as an expert witness. Wow.
Through all this, I kept my poker face. I kept telling myself the only reason the Grinch was making all these stretches in logic was because he knew he was losing and he was taking desperate measures to attempt to win the case. I had to trust that the jury would not buy into the silly arguments.
“My client is without a husband because of the negligence of these physicians and that hospital.” He held out his arm and pointed a long arthritic finger at us as he made the statement.
“This jury should send a message that blatant negligence like this will not be tolerated from any healthcare provider.”
With that, the Grinch sat down.
Then the judge began reading through all of the jury instructions. There are a lot of them.
“The laws of this state say that a jury must …”
My head started swimming again. I tuned out the judge and actually started thinking about the patients from the night before. What really happened with the girl and her boyfriend? Would the dad kick his drunk son out of the house? Why doesn’t he go to rehab, anyway? What will the scar on the little girl’s forehead look like after her cut has healed?
I snapped back to consciousness to see everybody standing up around me. Louise hadn’t even bothered to kick my chair. I quickly stood up.
The judge had finished talking and the jury was filing back into their room to do their deliberations.
Once the door had been closed, Vinny offered to buy everyone lunch.
“You can go home if you want,” he told me. “Deliberations could take hours or they could take days. I’ll call you once we hear something.”
In other words, I should plan on my head not being in the game and should plan on picking up my phone on the first ring between 9AM and 6PM for the next couple of days.
I wanted to go home to get some sleep, but I took him up on his offer for lunch.
All of the attorneys left their cell phone numbers with Hitch, and we headed down the street to a burger joint.
During the walk, Vinny talked about the pros and cons of jury deliberation.
“If it deliberations last less than two hours, it is generally considered a defense verdict. Otherwise the jurors have to go through all the calculations of damages.”
Here’s hoping for a short deliberation, then.
“That doesn’t mean that short deliberations are always defense verdicts, though. Not too long ago, a jury deliberated less than an hour before finding AIG liable for $8 million.”
Here’s hoping that none of those jurors or their families lived in this city.
“And …”
“Could we not talk about this right now?” I asked.
“Oh … sure. Sorry.”
We sat down in the restaurant and made our orders.
Vinny and Louise started bantering back and forth about the different jurors. The hospital attorney just sat there and stared. He wasn’t the talkative type.
The other doc and I caught up on what each other had been doing since leaving the old hospital. He had moved to another state and was helping to run a residency program. He actually saw another patient 6 months prior who had the same problem that the patient in our case had. “Damn right I called the surgeon as soon as the patient reached the door. Surgeon asked me why the hell I was calling him when I hadn’t even done any testing.” We both laughed.
“Didn’t make any difference with the patient, though. He still died.”
Ironic.
Then the hospital attorney’s phone rang.
“Are you kidding me? Yeah. The other defense counsel is here with me. I’ll tell them. We’ll be there in 20 minutes.”
He hung up his phone and looked at us.
“They’ve got a verdict already.”
“Are you kidding me?” Vinny asked.
Louise got a big smile on her face and pumped her fist toward the middle of the table, almost knocking over her glass of Diet Coke.
As we were getting all of our orders changed “to go,” Vinny reminded us …
“Don’t forget – it only took 45 minutes for AIG to lose $8 million.”
But but but… what HAPPENS!?! hope you post soon. holding my breath will eventually cause something bad
Did Vinny ever explain why Louise handled the closing?
Do you ever find out what was behind Louise’s disheveled appearance? Yep – I’m hooked on every storyline within the story.
GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Don’t leave us hanging here, Whitecoat! “To be continued” on a Friday afternoon? What a cliché!
You’ve got to wonder what will happen when the Grinch gets old and sick, and needs to go to an ER. Can’t imagine he’d be too popular there.
Hehehehe… the Medical Grisham.. watch out!!!
Of course, the early question is…. are you driving a Ferrari (we all know how rich you ED Doc’s are.. LOL) or driving a 10 year old beat up hyundai, living in a cardboard box? I guess we have to wait a VERY LONG weekend to get that answer ehh??
““Dr. WhiteCoat had a duty to the patient in the emergency department whether or not the patient had been admitted.”
It’s an accurate statement of the law. He likely wanted to make sure the jury didn’t believe that there’s no duty of care until a patient is admitted.
I’m sure Louise made all kinds of seemingly banal statements about the situation to make sure everyone was on the same page.
“It upset me that the Grinch never addressed those discrepancies during my testimony. Then again, Louise never brought them out either. Perhaps they didn’t want to emphasize them. All part of the “show.””
Or, perhaps they are professionals doing their job, just like when you do your job, and what laymen think may be important may not be important. Since you hire them, you rely on them.
“The only basis for this assertion was his hired expert’s testimony.”
The only basis IN EVIDENCE was that. There was also your hired expert’s position that you were negligent as well.
Matt, I could be paid to swear on the stand that WC is the most recent incarnation of Jesus Christ (or substitute the religious messiah of your choice here) and be believable in it. Does that mean it’s right or even that I have a clue of what I’m talking about? No, it means I’m saying what I was hired to say…. nothing more nothing less. Then again, if I’m right, maybe WC should be found guilty of negligence since he didn’t cause the patient to rise from the dead. Wait… is that what happened WC?
Not really sure your point. Any expert for either side will have been paid. In this case experts paid by both sides found the care was negligent. The jury doesn’t know that though because one side kept shopping for an expert to support them.
Matt,
It doesn’t look very good when you don’t even address the weak points in your case. If you are confident you will deal with them before the defense even gets a chance to do so. Otherwise it makes you look like you are trying to hide something.
You assume he agreed with WC on what the weak points were. But again how you present your closing is a matter of personal preference.
DON’T LEAVE US HANGING….
WHAT DID YOU ORDER FOR LUNCH, DAMMIT ?!?!????!!!
You’re clear. You coulda told us that, but nooooooooo, you gotta string it out. How much is EPMonthly paying you to keep us here? It’s not enough, whatever it is.
Matt, I’m getting a little weary of your posts. This should sum up how you are perceived on this board:
Who do you think you are?
How many posts do you have?
Obviously you are fighting a losing battle here
Really man, why defend lawyers in blog comments?
Every post, you feel compelled to reply….
pay close attention to his posts. he is a professional troll.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamebait
finding yourself getting mad at him? then he got what he want.
You two are making me misty.
And Doc99 I’m just someone posting in a blog. Same as you. Sorry that my daring to disagree with you and Adam offends you so much.
Frankly I’m a little weary of your comments too but I’m not going to whine about them. You’re certainly entitled to express them however misguided I may find them.
Adam I don’t care if you’re mad or not. If learning things and critical thinking make you angry I can’t help that.
“I don’t care if you’re mad or not. If learning things and critical thinking make you angry I can’t help that. ”
Well done, excellent example of your troll baiting.
I never said I was mad, and I’m not mad. Your slight shift of topic is masterful – sure to enrage the unsuspecting intertron traveler. But wait! You didn’t ACTUALLY say I was mad, just that you don’t care. Oh what to do?!
Please give another example…
I’m afraid you’re heading into crazytown. But at least you’ll know someone there already!
Huh? I didn’t complain about you. But I’m complaining you confuse me with someone else. Sheesh.
I see this kind of crap in blog threads all the time. Who knows where Matt gets his ideas? It’s one of those unfair things, but people will read Matt’s comment and not check on the truthfulness of it. If they would just search on your name, they would quickly see that Matt just pulled a random complaint about you out of the air to post.
I couldn’t believe there was a new post today (on the trial)!!! Bonus! But…..geez. Now the whole weekend.
What is Matt talking about? I do not remember WC’s expert witness confirming WC’s negligence….I do remember that the Grinch sort of kind of tripped him up…..but not that the expert bagged on WC.
Still, great post!
It was early in this series. First or second post. They obviously didn’t bring that guy to trial. I’m not saying he was right, I have no way of knowing that. But that was his conclusion.
I just found it ironic given how plaintiffs experts are so harshly criticized.
I imagine responses will be limited, but I like to ask just to see if I continue to get a little to no information.
What are average medmal premiums as a percentage of salary for different specialties?
How much does your medmal typically go up if you settle? If you lose? If you are sued 1 time and win. If you are sued 10 times and win.
If I search for this information I find next to no numbers.
There are plenty of law web sites saying the concern is overblown.
Due to lack of numbers on this, someone that is obsessed with numbers would have to begin to think it isn’t that big of a deal if convincing numbers cannot be produced.
Give me studies. Give me reports. Give me government data. Give me insurance quotes.
Anecdotal information doesn’t do much for the argument that medmal premiums are a serious problem.
Try publiccitizen.org. Consumer rights lobbyist. One of the reasons you won’t find national info is that these are regulated state to state.
Another source for raw data might be state insurance regulator websites. The accessibility of the info varies with them though.
huh.
according to several of the articles i read in http://www.citizen.org the whole medmal thing is overblown.
couldn’t find any crazy numbers regarding premiums.
lots of talk of a few docs making up most of the claims.
if this medmal premium thing is so awful you’d think there would be some convincing studies/articles.
Here is the chief industry source for medmal insurance rates. Unfortunately, you have to pay for it, but perhaps your local library (public or academic) will have access.
http://www.medicalliabilitymonitor.com/
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Seriously? All weekend with this suspense?
Matt,
Your getting a little manic with the keyboard. Is business slow ? Your wife mad at you? ED got you down ? I still haven’t decided if you need a hug or a psychiatrist.
No just got lots of free time to spend the millions made suing negligent docs. I choose to spend it educating you. You’re welcome.
This reminds me of the movie “The Verdict”. Did you know the original draft of the script never revealed to the audience how the trial came out?
Matt,
The issues you don’t think are all that weak but that you know your opponent is going to stress are some of the most important for you to raise. Admission against interest is a powerful credibility boost when you can go on to demonstrate that it is irrelevant.
Of course, where like here, you simply have a loser of a case it probably doesn’t matter what you do after putting the dead man’s family on the stand. Either they were enough to convince the jury to award damages despite lack of fault or they weren’t.
Again, what WC thinks is relevant or damning may not be in the eyes of others. Have you never been involved in a conversation where someone thinks X is an important point and you think it’s Y? And since we’re working off short blog posts of three closings and a rebuttal that probably took over 90 minutes total, it’s hard to get too excited one way or the other.
Not sure why you automatically assume this case is a loser when 2 out of 3 experts who reviewed it thought WC was negligent.
The entire standard of due care is subjective. The transfer of money from clinical care to predatory land pirate is quite objective. The subjectivity of the standard of due care violates the procedural due process rights of the civil defendant, now asserted by the Supreme Court several times. It is unfair. If opposing experts testify in good faith, then a scientific dispute is going on. The court has no ability to decide such a dispute and should declare the case moot, outside its subject matter jurisdiction, and not justiciable.
I would like Max to rebut that motion to dismiss, made upon the submission of the report of the defense expert supporting the care given. The non-testifying expert opinions are privileged attorney work products. You know that quite well.
I don’t want to argue with anything that you’ve said here, but I will say this: you keep pointing out that 2 out of 3 experts thought WC was negative, and that’s including the one the defense consulted and did not bring to trial. If you’re including that expert, I think it’s important to consider the possibility that the plaintiff consulted more than one expert before they found one who agreed with their interpretation of the situation. I’m just putting it out there because as you like to say, there are two sides to every story, and we’re only privy to one of them.
Matt obviously makes a lot of his income in taking plaintif’s cases. Otherwise, how could he defend those inaccurate, misleading statements the Grinch made?
You don’t think the defense ever makes what “inaccurate, misleading” statements? You don’t think any of the defense lawyers here or the defense witnesses laid out their case in a way the plaintiff thought was inaccurate and misleading? Surely you’re not that naive. Or incapable of recognizing that different perspectives don’t necessarily mean one side is deceptive.
Think of the healthcare debate, or any debate about an issue where there are two or more sides. Much of what one believes to be accurate or relevant is a matter of perception. The hope is that in hearing the sides the third party listener with no stake in the outcome can make a decision they believe is based on the truth, given the various information informing the perspectives.
Well, I try really hard not to make “inaccurate, misleading” statements in closing, because I would expect opposing counsel would point them out in his rebuttal argument, so that the last thing the jury hears before deliberations is a laundry list of my misrepresentations. If opposing counsel isn’t that good, there’s still an excellent chance at least a couple of jurors were paying close enough attention/taking good enough notes that they realize you’re fudging the facts, and conclude you are unworthy of belief. Persuasive argument is one thing; “inaccurate, misleading” argument is something else.
I don’t think many lawyers do try and do that, as anyone who has ever been to any trial school or had any trial training or simply tried cases knows the first thing you’re told is not to underestimate the jury. Trying to trick them is foolish and more likely than not going to lose your case.
My point is that what you may consider the story of your case may leave out something the other side considers important, and vice versa, which doesn’t make your argument inaccurate or misleading. For example, in this case, it seems to be a big deal that at least one provider saw blood on the patient’s abdomen. If Louise didn’t mention it in closing, I wouldn’t find that omission misleading or inaccurate. It might be something she felt like had been dealt with elsewhere thoroughly, and she doesn’t want to let dealing with it again sidetrack her theory.
The suspense is killing me!!!!!!!! (wait, is that a diagnosis? or just my findings?)
from post 22:
“They settled out with one hospital for $250,000. Now they want 8 times that much from us?”
what other hospital? am i missing something here? i thought this would be discussed further in this post, but it wasn’t.
This was one of those moments where I knew what I was thinking but I didn’t explain it that well.
The bailiff Hitch mentioned it during jury selection, but I never explained how or why it happened. See Part 7.
That one will have to go into the book.
guessing the pt was a transfer from another hospital. typical of medical malpractice suites to sue everyone involved in patients care including EMS and try to get a dart to stick in one of them
Love the story – let’s have the last chapter!!!!
Are you going to tell us what the abdominal bleeding was, if it was present? What’s the diagnosis?
By the way, I’m curious, did you ever mention what this rare diagnosis that the patient had was? Or is that something you had to omit for legal/privacy reasons?
In regards to all the lively legal discussion/debate going on about “The Trial of a Whitecoat,” wouldn’t it be a hoot if WC has been writing fiction?
Anyone familiar with the saying, “Arguing on the internet is like running in the Special Olympics? Even if you win, you’re still retarded.”
p.s. Matt – leave Doc99 the hell alone!