Justice?

So there's a case involving some friends that's been hanging around like a musty old towel, for over 10 years. If I wasn't so lazy, I'd write a Grisham-like treatment of it and become rich. RichER...

A mom from inner city Broward gave birth to a baby, and the child needed her spleen removed. Her pediatricians told her to give the child antibiotics every day, as she was very susceptable to awful infections. Mom didn't do it.

A few years later, Mom took the child to a clinic for a checkup. She was doing well, and the friendly doc decided to order a vaccine to prevent disease. It was given. Months later, the child was in a Broward hospital, dying, literally, of septic shock. The docs told mom she wouldn't last, but in a last ditch effort to save her life, she was sent to my friend's hospital.

The local hospital agreed the child was in dire shape, and told mom to expect the worst. The girl's hands and feet were dead from gangrene, and the necrosis was spreading. A team was assembled, and they knew the one chance the girl had was to amputate all 4 appendages -- even that might not work, but it was her only chance.

They did the surgery, the intensive care was amped up to heroic levels, and a miracle was accomplished: the child lived, and with none of the brain damage that was expected.

So, Mom thanked Jesus, and the doctors, and took her little girl home -- maybe THIS time remembering those antibiotics.

Ha. As if! Mom was directed to a med mal lawyer (how that happens is the better story, which cannot ever be told) and she sued every doctor in 2 counties who had any contact with the little girl. The pharmacy where she was supposed to get the life saving prophylactic antibiotics was not sued, even though, arguably, the friendly CVS pharmacist could have been held liable for failing to call mom to remind her what she should have done.

The case dragged on. The docs in Broward settled, piecemeal, as their insurance carriers understood that a limbless child in front of a jury could mean a bad result --actual fault be damned.

My friend and his colleagues endured a tragically comical experience of inept lawyering, with the case shuttled around less than stellar members of our local defense bar.

And then, years into the case, the plaintiff's lawyer got lucky: through, I guess, a paralegal nurse who deserves a big raise, he learned that the vaccine that was given had expired months before. Now, medically, that had no real impact, as the child got a variety of disease that the vaccine wouldn't have prevented, and, additionally, a few months old vaccine is still just about as effective as a non expired one.

Again...Ha. As if science matters. What matters is that the plaintiff now had a very appealing argument to make to a non sophisticated jury. If I had the case, I'd have said, essentially, "they gave this child spoiled milk, it made her sick, and now they're trying to convince you it's no problem."

Last month, the trial finally began, in front of a judge with not a lot of civil experience. I'll leave it at that.

One of the local attorneys for my friend started to panic. This fellow, not the brightest bulb on the X mas tree, but looking the part of a southern attorney (I didn't know they still made seersucker suits) asked to settle. He got my buddy's hospital to offer substantial money.

But the plaintiff kingpin, now too old to try the case himself, sent 2 pawns to court, determined that this would become one of the largest jury verdicts in state history. And, indeed, the pawns asked the jury to award more than $50 million.

The jury awarded substantially less, and found the mother largely at fault for causing this whole tragic episode. When reductions are made under Florida law, the net result to the plaintiff will be less than half what he could have gotten in settlement.

A lawyer from Atlanta was brought in to try to case, after the hospital's trustees lost confidence in their local counsel. Turned out it was a great move -- the Atlanta guy, who I never met, did one hell of a job. He convinced a jury that the case was more complicated than plaintiff said it was.

And, the true miracle is that the girl is doing well. She's in high school, and, with her prosthesis, on the cheerleading team!

So, is my friend thrilled that his hospital was let off the hook for a fraction of what a jury could have awarded? Of course not. They saved a child's life, heroically, and were still told they had to pay damages.

Had the child died, none of this litigation would have ensued. It's first year law school knowledge that it's cheaper to kill a tort victim than to leave him maimed.

And a quadruple amputation is some serious maiming...

The good news is that the law now protects, or at least limits, future claims like these.

The law doesn't do anything to make moron mothers follow directions.

Still, it could have been worse. And as to the aging plaintiff titan who sent his two pawns to battle for him in court, in hopes, I guess, of a final huge verdict, well, he forgot a lesson well known to those of us in the trade: pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.

In this case, the relative slaughtering was, I guess, some form of justice.