Damages
When Donna Sabia went into labor on April 1, 1984, she was expecting healthy twins. Instead, one baby was stillborn-and the other just barely clung to life. Caring for their son would exhaust the Sabias emotionally, financially, and physically, and put a nearly lethal strain on their marriage-but after deciding that a lawsuit might bring them some relief, they discovered that what it brought was a seven-year-long maelstrom of conflict, stress, and further expense. This examination of the Sabia family's story brings us not only into their lives but into the lives of the doctors, lawyers, insurance carriers, and countless other players in this heartrending tale of human sorrow which is also, in the words of The San Francisco Chronicle, "a disturbing biopsy of a system in serious need of an overhaul."
Here is the book that A Civil Action fans have been waiting for.
--Praised for its "meticulous detail" (San Diego Union Tribune), Damages is already being used in law-school courses
--A timely, serious, evenhanded book that gives a human face to the health-care crisis
--Takes readers behind the scenes of both the legal and medical professions
Amazon.com Review
On April 1, 1984, Donna Sabia went into labor expecting twins. But one of the babies arrived stillborn, while the other--Anthony Jr.--was barely alive, with an Apgar score (rating newborn vitality on a scale of 0 to 10) of 1. In the following years, he suffered from spastic quadriplegia, cerebral palsy, and cortical blindness, and would require lifelong medical attention costing millions of dollars just to survive. The Sabias' lawyers faulted Donna's maternity clinic and the delivering physician for her son's condition, initiating a 7-year lawsuit on the claim that a simple $40 ultrasound could have eliminated incalculable suffering and catastrophic expense.
Damages is a careful analysis of how the fields of law and medicine intersect in the realm of medical malpractice, where lawyers sue not only to redress suffering but to make sure that doctors and hospitals are more vigilant in the future, if only to avoid being sued again. Werth leads readers carefully through the litigation, from the deposing of expert witnesses, through the preparation for trial, to the posturing of settlement negotiations. Always firmly aware that lawyers sue doctors on behalf of human beings, however, he reveals the emotional and psychological consequences of a civil justice system that is often neither civil nor just. Werth explains esoteric legal and medical procedures in understandable terms that laypeople will not find condescending, while describing the human side of the Sabias' case without patronizing attorneys and physicians. Ultimately, Damages is the chronicle of a devoted family braving a medical malpractice industry in which the decision-making process on both sides is governed by a cost-benefit analysis that leads, perhaps inevitably, to the commodification of human life. "Even after a big verdict," Werth quotes one malpractice lawyer, "I'm suffering because all I could get my clients, who've been brutalized by the most appalling malpractice, was money." --Tim Hogan
- Paperback: 400 pages
- Publisher: Berkley Trade (June 1, 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0425168638
- ISBN-13: 978-0425168639
- Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1 x 9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
