Show No Fear

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “You’re sure?” Remy said as gently as she could.

  Mrs. Reilly nodded her head. Several minutes passed in chitchat. Remy looked her over—graying brown hair cut neatly over a ravaged face that seemed oddest when she tried to smile—hard to look at—frozen like a bad face-lift. Here sat a very sick lady, judging from that and the painful way she moved. And one arm, her left—Remy looked away, not wanting to stare. Nina had already told her some of the story.

  Might be some good money for the firm here.

  “Mrs. Reilly, Nina told me a little about your circumstances. How can I help you?”

  “Call me Ginny. My nickname has such a youthful air, even if I don’t anymore.” A deep breath, a few blinks, and Ginny said, “My husband left me for a much younger woman. We’re divorced now and he pays me support, but I know he’s going to ask the court to reexamine it.

  “But that’s not why I came today. Not that I forgive my cheating erstwhile life companion. I just got to thinking, if I die soon, I can’t leave my children with nothing.” Ginny stopped, smoothing her hair with her remaining, shaky hand. “You see how hard Nina works. Our son, Matt—he’s got problems and his father’s attention will naturally lie with his new family, even though Matt needs him very much. My kids need me. When I’m gone, money will help, although neither one of them would admit to giving a damn about it.”

  “You use a cane,” Remy prodded gently. “Is that connected somehow with your injury?” In her mind, she added, what price could you put on a hand?

  Answer: a lot, when it came to the law.

  “I’ve been diagnosed for a year or so, although I was sick before that and didn’t know. I didn’t see a doctor until some time after Harlan—we separated.”

  Remy jotted everything down in her neat notebook. She knew Lindberg as a competent physician and an occasional expert witness for the plaintiff in insurance cases. He was a good man, on the right side. But even good men made mistakes.

  “Did you seek further medical advice?”

  “When biofeedback didn’t work, two weeks later, at the end of last September, I found Dr. Wu. His offices were close to Lindberg’s, and I had seen his advertisements in the local newspaper. By then nothing I did could keep my hands warm. So freezing and painful—it was like I spent my time soaking them in the ocean out there.” Ginny tilted her head west.

  “Dr. Wu is an acupuncturist?”

  “On Cass Street in Monterey, just like Dr. Lindberg.”

  “Did Dr. Lindberg give you Dr. Wu’s name? Did he recommend him specifically?”

  “No.”

  Too bad, Remy thought, but she underlined Lindberg’s advice, knowing it might present some opportunities. “But you say he told you, ‘Sure. It can’t hurt.’”

  “That’s right. That’s what he said. I believed him.”

  “Did you check Dr. Wu’s credentials as carefully as you did Lindberg’s?”

  “No, but he had a license number printed on his cards, and an extravagant office.”

  “Go on.”

  “I went in there on a Thursday. September twenty-eighth, last year,” Ginny said, consulting a daybook she pulled out of a pocket. “His receptionist was out to lunch, or else he didn’t have one because there was no one else in the office. That made me nervous. Are doctors allowed to treat women without nurses present?” Ginny didn’t wait for Remy to reply. “Are they even doctors?”

  Ginny described the day vividly. She had been asked to lie down on a table. Dr. Wu, efficient, smooth, professional, pulled out a set of long, thin needles.

  Ginny had felt scared. She also felt committed, like a person getting a tattoo. She told Remy that she had decided on this course and couldn’t see any easy way out that wouldn’t humiliate both of them.

  Dr. Wu, a small Chinese man, squeezed her hand, enough to make her cry out. He apologized but was encouraging, saying, “I can help you.” Then he inserted a needle into each of her fingers. She experienced excruciating pain almost immediately. However, warmth flooded into her hands, the first warmth she had experienced in a long time. The color of her fingertips began to change from pale to pink.

  “My God, this hurts!” Ginny had cried.

  “Very natural,” Dr. Wu had said. “Please understand, healing takes courage.”

  “He hurt you badly?” Remy asked after a moment.

  “A lot, not a little.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “He said he had stimulated a meridian flowing through my fingertips which would benefit my entire system. He told me how acupuncture was an ancient healing art, more than two thousand years old, based on the idea that our bodies have a system of channels—meridians. These kind of steal energy from one part of the body to propel another. He showed me ancient charts that outlined which channel affects a given part of the body. His theory was that an obstruction in energy flow produces physical and emotional issues. The needles unblock the obstruction, restoring health.”

  “Hmm.”

  Ginny shook her head. “I must have been demented to believe such horseshit.”

  “Many people claim healing effects due to acupuncture. How long did he leave the needles in?”

  “He bandaged my hands—with needles in place—and told me to call the next day. He said it was a severe case and it wouldn’t do any good to leave them in for a half hour or something.” She stopped talking and her right hand crept over to guard her left arm.

  “Did you call him the next day?”

  “I got an answering service saying he would be out of the state at a conference in New Mexico until Tuesday.” Ginny paused. Her eyes darkened. “That was the worst four days of my life.”

  “You continued to experience pain?”

  “Shooting pains that went all the way up my left arm. I was walking the floor all night. I was afraid to rip the needles out. He had said not to touch them. When I couldn’t get through to Dr. Wu, I tried Dr. Lindberg. He was also out of town. He had left another doctor for referral. I called Dr. Chase’s office—he used to be my neighbor’s GP. I explained to the receptionist what was going on, and she said to come on in. I did. Dr. Chase saw the bandages but he wouldn’t touch or unwrap them. He said he knew nothing about acupuncture and couldn’t risk harming me out of ignorance.”

  Remy was surprised. “You told him you were hurting?”

  “He recommended ibuprofen. Said to go to the emergency room at Community Hospital if I had to.”

  Doctors were usually good about helping patients in pain, but Remy appreciated the difficulty. One lawsuit might ruin a medical career. She wouldn’t take that kind of risk either, however abstractly she abhorred the thought.

  “It’s easy now to see I should have gone right to Wu’s office or even taken the needles out myself. But I was in his power, you see? He was supposed to take care of me, and I believed he knew what he was doing. I might have made things worse, plucking them out.

  “As I said, I couldn’t sleep for the first two nights, so I started taking prescription painkillers I had left over from gum surgery the year before.” Ginny reached awkwardly into her bag to find a fresh tissue and blew her nose.

  “I took them until Dr. Wu returned. He took the needles out without saying much. What could he say? My fingertips on my left hand looked like I’d slammed them with a hammer. The right hand wasn’t so bad. I didn’t have the energy to complain. My left hand seemed to get worse, and by then I didn’t trust Dr. Wu, but I couldn’t get in to see Dr. Lindberg either. He had some sort of family crisis and I kept getting referred to Dr. Chase.”

  “When did you finally see him?”

  “Not before the next big drama. A few weeks later, I reached into the refrigerator for some piecrust and the tip of my index finger fell off my left hand.”

  CHAPTER 13

  REMY FELT HER JAW TIGHTEN BUT FORCED ALL EXPRESSION from her face.

  “Now, here’s something strange. It didn’t hurt. Remember when you were a kid, losing teeth? This fe
lt like that.” Ginny’s brow knitted as she remembered. “By now all the fingers on my left hand were black. Angry-looking red streaks ran up my arm. I had fever. I guess I must have called Nina because she came and took me to the hospital. Guess I used my good right hand to punch in the numbers, huh?”

  Remy refrained from imagining it. She made a note.

  “They put me under. When I woke up, at first I thought all was well. But then I tried to touch myself. You can’t imagine, Miss Sorensen. You just can’t. At the hospital, I woke up maimed. The doctor said I had developed gangrene. They had to take my left hand to save my life.”

  “You need a minute?” Remy asked.

  Ginny wiped a tear away with a handkerchief. “No. Let’s finish this.”

  “All right. Were you wearing gloves when you reached into the refrigerator, as Dr. Lindberg had advised?”

  “I couldn’t wear gloves by then. The Raynaud’s was driving me nuts—once in a while my other nails turned blue and my fingers froze, but by then, they burned. Rotting, we now know.”

  “What made you wait so long to come to me for legal help? I would think Nina must have urged you.”

  “She did. I should have done something right away.”

  “You’re a patient under the care of doctors. It’s a tough call.”

  “Anyway, I’m sicker lately. The pain’s reminded me of those four awful days, and the thought of leaving my kids so exposed…I also remembered something that happened at the hospital after my surgery. A nurse was giving me pills and fooling with my IV, and the resident physician came in to examine me.

  “I was half-asleep, not paying close attention. The resident hadn’t seen me before, but she turned out to be so sympathetic. Her mother had the same illness as I had. When the nurse told her about my adventures with acupuncture, the resident almost hit the ceiling. ‘That damn fool,’ she said. ‘You can bet this guy wasn’t an MD. He clearly hadn’t read up on Raynaud’s. You never puncture their fingertips.’

  “I made a mental note to ask her about it, but you know how hospitals are these days, somebody new every day, strangers prodding you, trying to help. My thought got lost. I guess Dr. Lindberg should have known his advice was wrong, too, shouldn’t he?” Ginny sighed heavily.

  Remy stood up, walked over to Ginny, and took her good hand between hers. “Do you know the exact date you heard the resident physician at the hospital speak about not puncturing the fingers of Raynaud’s patients?”

  “Yes, I wrote it right here in my book: October twenty-ninth.”

  “Good. Ginny, do you have a receipt for that visit to Dr. Wu?”

  “I paid cash. I’m sorry, I think I may have lost it.”

  Remy rose. “Let me get you some coffee.”

  When Remy returned, Ginny looked at her hopefully, expectantly, as if Remy could turn the clock back to some earlier, happier period in her life. Remy felt grounded when people looked at her that way.

  “You’ve been victimized by a man who took your money and harmed you. You deserve recompense for the pain and suffering you have endured because of this treatment, which appears, at least from what I know right now, negligent in more than one respect.”

  “I’m so glad to hear you say that.”

  Remy ticked off the negligence on her fingers. “First, trying to treat someone with your illness at all. He delayed other, urgently needed medical care in order to submit you to an acupuncture treatment. I doubt anyone can prove acupuncture is helpful in your circumstances. Second, the resident’s statement at the hospital might be useful. We may be able to find medical authority backing up her remark that Raynaud’s patients should never have their fingertips punctured. Third, Dr. Wu left those needles in and left the state for several days, leaving no referral for patients like you who might experience complications. Even taking acupuncture at face value, as a medical treatment, Dr. Wu may have fallen below the standard of care for his profession.”

  “I never put it all together like that before.”

  “But there are potential problems. We’ll address those as they come up. Meantime, in my opinion, I can protect your right to go after Dr. Wu. We’ll send the required claim letter by October twenty-ninth of this year. Let me explain. The American Medical Association and the state medical associations are very effective lobbyists for health-care providers of all sorts. Several years ago they managed to pass a very special set of rules, of impediments, in fact, to filing a case against a doctor or any medical practitioner, like an acupuncturist. Unlike other negligence cases, in a medical malpractice case you have to first send the provider a letter saying certain specified things, in effect notifying him that you intend to sue him and why. And you have to do it ninety days before you can sue.”

  “So we do that,” Ginny agreed. “Send that letter out.”

  Remy nodded. “That extends the time to sue for another three months beyond the one-year rule. But if you don’t get the letter out within one year of the discovery of the medical malpractice and its negligent causation, the courts will not let you continue the suit. The deadline for this letter is a year from the date of injury or the date of discovery that malpractice occurred. We’ll have to show that you had no idea that what happened to you constituted malpractice until the resident whose mother was ill raised it with you in the hospital on October twenty-ninth.”

  Remy’s tone softened. “I think you will be all right on this, though we may have to fight a summary judgment motion on that basis.” She gathered her thoughts, listening to the office crew slam doors and gun motors as they began leaving for lunch.

  “The second requirement is that we cannot file a lawsuit without a Certificate of Merit from another acupuncturist or more probably an MD saying there is probable cause to believe medical malpractice occurred. I think we can get that. The third problem in a medical malpractice case is that, by law, there is an upper limit on how much a jury can award you for your pain and suffering. And the defendant can request to have it paid out in installments.”

  “A limit?” Ginny asked.

  “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, plus your compensatory damages, your medical bills and so forth. The loss of a hand is a very expensive injury. As long as we can show causation, you should be awarded the maximum amount.”

  Ginny almost smiled. “Oh, that would really help my kids.”

  “Every case has problems we’ll have to address: whether we can find a witness to the needle insertion. That’s important because Dr. Wu might not admit to anything. Whether he destroys or alters records of your treatment. Whether he carries liability insurance or has enough assets to satisfy a sizable judgment. Whether”—Remy hesitated—“you might have lost the hand anyway, somehow, due to underlying illness. No doubt they will argue that.”

  “I know my health situation is complicated.”

  “Don’t worry too much about that right now,” Remy said. “But you should know your legal position the way I view it, since you have consulted my professional opinion. We need to look into the medical aspects more, but, Ginny, I want your case. I don’t like seeing people like you hurt by profit-seeking quacks. I hope the rest of the firm will agree. I have to consult them and obtain their approval before taking the case. I’ll take care of the necessary legal and medical research. Do you have a problem with Nina doing some of the research on your case? She’ll look at your medical treatment, look into finding witnesses, that sort of thing.”

  Ginny thought for a moment. “Yes. That’s a good thing.”

  “I’ll send your letter within the applicable time period to preserve your rights. I will ask you to sign a contingency-fee agreement in which our firm is paid one-third of your recovery prior to trial, or forty percent of your recovery if there is a trial. Is that acceptable to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “If our research shows a major problem with your case, you will have to agree to release the firm from its commitment at any time, and we will refer you to other counsel. We won’t ask
for a penny for our time. All right?”

  “I don’t pay if you can’t continue?”

  “Not a penny.”

  “Should we—should we sue Dr. Lindberg? He’s a good doctor, he really did try to help—”

  “He might be more useful testifying for our side somehow.”

  “I’ll leave that decision to you.” Ginny grabbed the edge of the chair with her right hand and stood up. “Thanks, Miss Sorensen. My daughter told me you are an outstanding attorney. I see why you have that reputation.”

  “I’ll do the best I can for you,” Remy said, smiling. Immediate work would be required. Ginny Reilly’s situation was interesting and would present a new challenge, but Remy had two short trials likely to go in the next two weeks. She would simply have to squeeze the work in. If her judgeship came through, she would put this one into Jack’s competent hands.

  Nina came into the room. “All done?” she asked Remy.

  Remy nodded.

  “Hey, Mom,” Nina said, touching her mother’s shoulder.

  Her mother stood up. “Time to go.”

  CHAPTER 14

  “I HAVE A NEW CASE,” REMY SAID ON FRIDAY MORNING, SITTING between Lou Frost and Jack McIntyre on Pohlmann’s leather chesterfield. Klaus was holding court on Friday instead of Monday because they had been painting his office. They all talked at once.

  “Just a moment,” Pohlmann said, smiling.

  “Klaus, I know you want to tell Jack and Louis about the appeal. We got the Ninth Circuit to remand it back for further factual findings. The Army case,” Remy reminded them.

  “Oh, yeah. About the teachers at the Defense Language Institute getting laid off?” asked Lou.

  “How old is that case now?” Jack asked. He didn’t add, although they all thought it, is anyone ever going to pay us for any of this? Klaus was currently working on two appeals, both pro bono cases.