People at both tables stood at attention as the jury filed back into the room. None of the jurors looked at us as they took their seats. That made me uncomfortable. I could feel my heart rate kick up several notches. In fact, I could faintly hear my heart beating in my ears. I was conscious of every breath I took.
The judge asked the foreperson if the jury had reached its verdict.
“We have.”
“With regard to whether the actions or inactions of Dr. WhiteCoat were an actual and proximate cause of the plaintiff’s death, what is the jury’s verdict?”
“We find in favor of the defendant”
“With regard to whether the actions or inactions of Dr. GreyCoat were an actual and proximate cause of the plaintiff’s death, what is the jury’s verdict?”
“We find in favor of the defendant”
“With regard to whether the actions or inactions of CrossTown Hospital or its agents were an actual and proximate cause of the plaintiff’s death, what is the jury’s verdict?”
“We find in favor of the defendant”
The codefendant punched me in the arm and hugged me.
I looked over at the plaintiff. Her head was hung and she covered her eyes with one of her hands. The Grinch had his arm around her and was whispering something in her ear.
I sat back down in my chair and stared at the table. I didn’t know what to feel.
Relief.
Let down.
Tired as hell and half ready to fall asleep.
Mix in one pinch of vengance and a few sprinkles of self-righteousness.
Happy didn’t really seem to come into the picture at that point.
Louise asked me how I felt.
I said “emotional.”
She kept watching me. I looked up at her and looked away again. It really annoyed me that she kept eyeballing me. I furrowed my eyebrows. It was making me angry. Then my eyes started to well up with tears.
I don’t know why it popped into my head at that point, but I thought that if a man could ever experience PMS, this must be what it would feel like. That thought made me burst out laughing while tears were running down my cheeks.
Louise must have thought that I was a total nut job right about then.
I called my wife and told her the news. She was at work and started cheering with excitement. Her voice was jiggling, so I could tell that she was bouncing up and down.
Then I heard her nurse yell “He DID?” in the background. Three or four other people started cheering. “Woo hoo! Yeaaaaahh! Congratulations!”
They were having an instant party on the other end of the phone line and I was sitting on an old wooden court house chair feeling numb.
Yet again, my wife helped me put things in perspective. I needed to be happy and stop being a drag on everyone else’s good mood. I hung up with her, stood up and hugged several people. I shook Vinny’s hand, thanked him, and gave him a hug. I even hugged Louise, although it was one of those hugs where you touch shoulders, turn your heads away from each other, and pat each other on the back a couple of times.
I looked around to give the Grinch a good stare, but he, the plaintiffs, and the family had already left.
The judge was gone, too.
I went through the door in the back of the courtroom to find the judge. Behind the courtroom was a long hallway with a series of offices. I walked up and down until I found the judge’s office and I went inside.
His door was partially closed, but I could see him taking off his robe and hanging it on a hook. I knocked and asked if I could speak to him for a second.
He walked out and I shook his hand.
“I know my opinion probably doesn’t mean much to you, but I wanted to tell you that I thought you ran a good trial and that you kept things fair. I appreciated that and wanted to thank you.”
He nodded his head a couple of times and then said “I’m glad that you’re at the end of your ordeal.”
Talk about hitting the nail on the head.
I’m so glad they found in your favor! Yeahhhhhh!!!
HURRAY!!!
Fantastic!!
This has been a fascinating series to read. Thankyou for sharing with us.
WooHoo! Good for you!
Thanks so much for posting the end of the story a day early. I’m very happy the jury found in your and your co-defendants’ favor.
I have to admit I am a bit disappointed The Grinch didn’t burst into flames at the reading of the verdicts…
Oh well, you can’t have everything.
>:)
Doris
Another wholly arbitrary and excessive verdict rendered by a jury driven entirely by sympathy for the plaintiff.
Or not.
Perhaps juries get it right sometimes. Perhaps most times. They apparently got it right for you.
Crap. Now it’s over. Got anymore trials up your sleeve?
Congratulations, very glad it went your way. Very sad for the family, but it seems you were in the right. OK, how long ago was this?
Crap. Now it’s over.
People are never happy.
Dr. Whitecoat, I’m glad you prevailed. I’m very sad and sorry that you had to go through this ordeal. Thanks for telling your story. I hope that other doctors will take some comfort in it. I hope potential plaintiffs will see their case from the other side. And I hope the public in general will see that it is not a small thing in the life of a doctor to have a suit filed against him.
Cheers!
Hat’s off to you, WC. Could you perhaps post a follow-up about any after effects? PTSD? More defensive practices? etc.
I agree. I think the epilogue will be the most important part, the aftermath and how it affected his life.
Read an article the other day that 10% of doctors who are sued contemplate suicide. Its a staggering number considering the percentages of doctors sued and people wonder why the state of medical care is what it is in this country.
Yeah, we definitely need an epilogue. Lessons learned, changes made, how it affects you today, etc.
Congratulations on seeing it through to the end, rather than settling a baseless case. Seems ungracious your lawywers didn’t toss the take-out lunch and take you out for a really nice dinner and drinks, or at least a celebratory cup of coffee.
Lawyers in my firm always try to talk to the jurors immediately after they are discharged, to find out which evidence they found most convincing, which witnesses were most understandable, which arguments were most (and least) persuasive, when indiduals began leaning toward their ultimate vote, why hold-outs felt as they did, etc. I understand this type of post-verdict interview is prohibited in some jurisdictions, but I have found it a most educational exercise when it can be done.
A.J. – I sat on a jury where the lawyers on both side had a joint post-verdict interview. It was actually kind of fun to participate in and the jury members were very open and honest with their comments.
No. Usually, it is traditional for the lawyers of both sides get together after the trial, and toast to the stupidity of the public they ripped off. A lawyer told me that.
Apparently the lawyers you know have the same world view you do. I can certainly understand that closed-minded jerks who already know all the answers would not want to engage in interviews that might cast doubt on their fact-free beliefs.
AJ: You upset about something? This is for entertainment purposes only. Take it easy. If you are a lawyer, I am trying to help you improve your profession. Every self-stated goal of every law subject is in failure. Save for the unspoken one. Rent seeking. That is a spectacular success.
S. C. advises: “It is appropriate to shake each of [the jurors'] hands and to say a simple, quiet, “Thank you.”
That would be a courteous and restrained gesture under the circumstances. Do you recommend making it before or after shooting all the lawyers in the head? “For entertainment purposes only” of course.
If you shot the lawyers in the head, the other lawyers would love it. They would have fewer competitors, and your murder charge would generate a multimillion dollar death penalty appeal business.
No, I suggest suing the other lawyer. To deter.
I’ve been on two civil juries, and was contacted by lawyers on both of them.
On the first one it was right outside the court house, on a open stairway in the rain…at 2 a.m. Since it was a hung jury the plaintiff’s lawyers were very eager to find out what the hang ups were (votes were 9-3 in defendent’s favor on all three issues). I was only 18, brand new registered voter => Jury Pool. If I had been older and more experienced I would have told them to buzz off, I was not going to stand in the rain and get soaked. But I didn’t and I did.
Second trial I was 40-something, foreman of the jury, and got to tell the plaintiff’s lawyer that the jury thought he had a lousy case, he did a lousy job with it, and he wasted everybody’s time with it.
As said already, the jury is not the best friend of the doctor. It is the ONLY friend of the doctor in the trial.
It is appropriate to shake each of their hands and to say, a simple, quiet, “Thank you.”
As to the judge, he allowed a false claim to get to trial, a bogus, phony game and Broadway production to generate fees for both bars that support his campaign. The defense bar needs the trial to break even, and will never file effective preliminary motions. The defendant does not know enough law to judge their adequacy, and needs a personal legal malpractice specialist lawyer to terrorize the defense lawyer of the insurance company, as well as the insurance company. If weak cases are deterred, they have to lower their premiums. The insurance company has an interest in having a trial, to increase premiums, to intimidate and scare the insureds, and to stay in business. They know they will win 80% of the time, so it is a charade. They also know the outcome of the case from past experience, likely, within an hour the lawsuit claim in received in the insurance office.
The plaintiff bar needs to win only one in five cases in the lawsuit lotto to have a high income. Both bars contribute to the judge campaign to use the doctor as a pretext for phony trials that make money for both sides and the judge. The doctor is the soccer ball keeping both teams and the referee in rigged business.
All judge immunities must end so the doctor may sue the judge for judge malpractice. The gratitude expressed to the cult criminal on the bench is that of the dog who got kicked 5 times instead of 10 times. This judge should be boycotted by all product and service providers until he dies or is driven out of town.
Then, it is appropriate to say to the defense lawyer, I am so glad you are not getting sued for legal malpractice by my personal legal malpractice specialist. Congratulations. However, you should have gotten this case dismissed on motions two years ago. I hope you enjoy the fees you earned by betraying me, disrupting my life for two years, by allowing this phony trial. I know what you were doing, you self-dealing insurance hack. I am going to recommend to all doctors they refuse your services when they get sued. You will pay for your betrayal and intentional lack of competent advocacy.
Go through the record, and make a list of the missed opportunities to try to end the case with the help of the personal lawyer. Report one at a time, once a month to the Disciplinary Counsel (DC) for violation of Rule 1.3 Diligence
A lawyer shall act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing a client.
And, Rule 3.2 Expediting Litigation
A lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to expedite litigation consistent with the interests of the client.
These reports to the DC are immune if kept confidential. Nothing will happen because the DC is also rigged airtight to pursue only the interest of the criminal cult and not of the public. Still, dozens of investigations and prolonged uncertainty will deter. To send a message, as the lawyers like to say, you insurance hacks will not get to trial to make more money when motions will end the case, or you will pay a price in uncertainty.
The insurance lawyer is lucky to be getting $150 an hour. I don’t know how one even pays for overhead of a lawyer office on that amount. One other possibility is to try to hire a personal lawyer at $300 and hour to try to get rid of the medmal complaint and to attack the other side. Spend $10,000 or even $30,000. I am sure WC spent 1000 hours a year this case went on. Cut off two years off its resolution, the $30K is cheap.
If you offer the insurance lawyer bonuses for performance, he will refuse them as violating his contract. That implies, he is really the agent of the insurance company and not of the doctor. The Rules say he is an agent of the doctor, and owes his allegiance only to the doctor’s legal interests. The contract the lawyer has with the insurance company makes it otherwise.
I have no doubt that the same stupid, slow moving, incompetent insurance lawyer always allowing a trial, when paid $150 an hour, knows how to be a vicious pit bull if ever allowed to accept a $10,000 bonus from the doctor for performance and early termination of the case.
What were the legal and factual bases for the motion(s) Vinnie could have filed that would have gotten a dismissal two years earlier?
None.
There are so many, hard to know where to begin.
Start with the automatic disqualification of the plaintiff expert for being in a different specialty and his distant and small amount of clinical experience, his age making him obsolete and a worthless impedence to the aims of the court.
How about the improper motives of the lawsuit?
How about the fact that few survive this condition, making the case weak if not frivolous.The judge now has the option of dismissing the case on first pleading, as being hopeless and a waste of the court’s time.
Max, you are the pro who can come up with the other 12 reasons. I don’t appreciate your misleading answer.
I don’t know the expert rules in effect in WC’s state at the time. That expert would not have sufficed under PA’s MCARE laws. Odds are, the jurisdiction had liberal rules. Simple as that; otherwise, it would have been an easy motion to disqualify that the insurance company would have prepared for the lawyer to file under his name.
“Improper motives of the lawsuit” is a nonsense objection. Is “compensation for a perceived wrong” an “improper motive?”
“Few survive this condition” is baseless. None of us really know the “condition,” because WC understandably concealed it.
But we do know there was a factual dispute about blood on the abdomen, and that even WC thinks such — if true — would have demonstrated negligence. That’s likely why the plaintiff’s lawyer took the case in the first place. Perhaps you want to argue the EMT was in on the conspiracy with that note?
The jury has the ability and power to determine what was done and when it was done. If the experts agree on the standard of care, on its causing the damage, then the jury may determine the facts fit in.
If the experts give good faith opposite testimony and differ about the standard of care, and differ about the causation, a scientific dispute exists. The court does not have the ability to resolved a scientific dispute. Only additional scientifically valid data may resolve a scientific dispute. Scientific disputes are outside the subject matter jurisdiction of the court, and it must dismiss the case, as it did here.
Plaintiff feared a particle accelerator would generate a small black hole that could swallow the earth and was not insane.
http://www.physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/soundscience/LHC.pdf
Max, you get a motion to dismiss because a scientific controversy exists. Opposing experts are testifying in good faith. For example, one honestly believes CP is caused by hypoxia, the other by intrauterine infection. The case should end.
What is your reply?
yes but at the same time the judge is not a doctor and doesnt know what conditions would cause death when. That is why we have expert witnesses and juries. Everyone gets their day in court, like it or not but even if we have extra frivilous lawsuites at least we get the ones that should be gotten. No system is perfect and the US could definitely use some reform. Something like England where when the plantiff loses a lawsuite they pay all court fees for the duration of the trial. That would deter weak and frivilous suites
Where did you get the idea that the plaintiff attorney’s motive for filing suit is a basis for dismissal? Or that a judge will let you root around in the lawyer’s private life to concoct some motive you consider improper? No one but a total amateur could believe a case would be dismissed on such a basis.
Similarly, you have the “issue in controversy” idea exactly backward. If experts on both sides agreed, there would be no need for a trial, or even a lawsuit; the case would settle or the judge would grant judgment for the side supported by both experts. It is only when the experts have differing views that the issue is in controversy and the trial goes forward. The law does not accept what you consider an unalterable principle: that jurors are universally too stupid and uneducable to understand the simplest medical concept. No judge would dismiss on that basis.
The expert in WhiteCoat’s case would have been permitted to testify in my state until the most recent round of legislative tort reform tightened up the expert witness qualification requirements. Even if the court did strike an egregiously unqualified witness, the judge would then give the plaintiff an additional 60-90 days to find someone better. Filing a dismissal motion on that basis was, and to great extent still is, futile.
You haven’t come up with anything that would work in the real world.
Congrats Dr. Whitecoat. Thank you for sharing your story with us, and for your fabulous writing!
Matt, where are you? You are usually the first one to offer a criticism of the case.
Dr. WC, I’m sure Matt will be along shortly to “congratulate” you.
Voir dire has become big business, with jury selection consultants, etc. Grisham’s “Runaway Jury” highlighted the jury selection process.
WhiteCoat,
I am so glad you prevailed, and also sorry you spent so long in limbo before resolution. Please post an epilogue! As Doris said, it would have been fun if the Grinch had spontaneously combusted.
On jury duty, I was in the voir dire pool for a wrongful death lawsuit (auto accident, not medmal). I was excused by plaintiff’s rude and snobbish ambulance-chasing counsel. The pattern used to dismiss prospective jurors increased my disdain for such bottom-feeders.
WC – Congrats! One complaint, you said that you would post the condition you were supposed to have called the surgeon “early” for. I’d love to know the medicine of the claim!
Seconded!!!!! You could do it as a case presentation with a day or so for people to read/comment before you reveal.
Congrats!!! I’m so glad they ruled in your favor.
Congratulations, and thank you for sharing your story with us.
Congrats WC! And thanks so much for sharing the story.
Funny… from this end it seems kind of anti-climactic. So glad you won, thanks for telling the story!
Thanks so much for sharing your story. I really appreciate the honesty and emotion you expressed in it.
Happy win day to you!
Happy WIN day, dear docterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…..
Happy win day to youuuuu!
2) To you and to all: Never, ever, ever “admit” to anything, for the sake of settling, if you know you are not guilty.
3) No matter how a case ends (though of course, WC, we have all been rooting for you!), remember to thank the good Lord who sees it through with us. If we win, great. If we don’t, that’s great, too, for He has his reasons.
Again, congrats from the heart! And thanks for this great story that took so many hours of your life to tell to the rest of us. We have all learned much.
The first part was chopped off the above, so I’ll try again.
1) Party?! I forget what those are! But here is a lusty rendition for you:
Happy win day to you..
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 16th, 2009 at 6:00 am
Hmm….you said you were going to post it at 6AM on Monday. Did you set this to post automatically, but got the date wrong? Lots of readers love you, in any event, for posting early even though you didn’t get the 300 comments in the challenge post.
Thanks… Congratulations
Thank you for posting this early, WC! Congratulations. I’m sorry you had to go through this.
Btw Congrats WC, will you ever post the dx?
Congrats on the win and on this fabulous recounting of this awful experience. Thank you for sharing it.
You are a gifted writer.. no doubt one of your callings.
I can relate to your wife’s reaction. She endured this with you for so long. I know what that feels like… as we also got the deserved favorable verdict.
I do wonder why Louise was disheveled.?
You said “my wife helped me put things in perspective. I needed to be happy and stop being a drag on everyone else’s good mood.”
A wise observation that I am taking to heart.
This was a fascinating series….thanks so much for taking us along. Reminscent of the old time radio serials they used to gather ’round for in the evenings….
Thanks to Doris for the mental image of the Grinch going up in flames! Hilarious!
I’m sorry for the family’s loss, but their bringing this to trial illustrates our society’s refusal to understand that death happens and it’s nobody’s fault. Sometimes, it just happens. Ultimately, eventually, no one can stop it. When will we ever learn?
Why oh why have we heard NOTHING about tort reform during all this health care reform crapola?
Give health care away for free and then blame the docs when something goes wrong?
Congrats and thank you for being so candid through this process. Learned a lot as a healthcare administrator!
How come Matt has not commented yet on this post??!??!?! Maybe he was the Grinch.
Ok, so I started at post 1 at 11:30. It’s after 1 am and I’m glad to see how it resolved.
Congrats.