Details
Synopsis
The tragic story of a negligence suit that pitted doctors against lawyers in a malpractice case involving a profoundly handicapped child.
| Size | | Length: | 400 pages | | Height: | 9.8 in | | Width: | 6.8 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 23.2 oz |
Industry Reviews
Werth (The Billion Dollar Molecule, LJ 2/1/94) integrates the story of one family's travails after the birth of a profoundly disabled son with an unbiased view of medical and legal issues. Werth reviewed files and interviewed most of the people involved in the medical malpractice case brought by the parents of Tony John Sabio. This meticulous, even-handed approach results in a book that is both an engrossing look at the experiences of one family and a serious glimpse into the American medical malpractice industry. It also touches on the serious question of whether, given the competing interests involved, a medical malpractice suit can be an effective tool to discover the truth or achieve justice. This is the book that Jonathan Harr's A Civil Action (LJ 9/15/95) aspired to be but was not because Harr did not put that particular lawsuit into the larger context. Recommended for any library where medical and/or legal true stories are in demand. Suzanne Pierce Dyer, Alameda Cty. Law Lib., Oakland, Cal.
Chafe
In this powerful tale of a medical malpractice suit, the villains are not doctors, lawyers, nurses, midwives, hospitals or victims, though all were deeply involved. Instead, one of the lawyers in the case pointed to "the system" as the culprit of an incident in a Norwalk, Conn., hospital where twins were born, one brain damaged and the other dead. Such cases of malpractice are often decided not on the basis of fact but on the perception of what a jury was likely to think was fact, shows Werth (The Billion-Dollar Molecule). It was uncertain that the blame lies anywhere; it may have been an indeterminable prenatal accident, but it was incumbent on the parents' lawyers to attribute blame and on the hospital to avoid it by various defenses, including placing the guilt on the apparently innocent attending physician. And over all hung the palpable power of the insurance companies. During the seven years of discovery, jockeying and conniving, the attempted deal-making and final settlement for $6 million, one doctor's career was nearly ruined and the lives of the parents of the remaining twin were changed by the emotional and financial strains of caring for their permanently damaged child. In the end, in 1993, all sides settled without going to trial, which they all feared. A moving, skillfully told story with many morals about justice, the legal and medical professions, hospital procedures, administrators, insurance companies and parents. (Feb.)
Lopate
[Werth's] persistent investigation, well-organized writing, and dramatic but not soap-operatic narrative style bring all elements of their story to life. He shows how relations among patients, physicians, hospitals, lawyers, and insurers gradually shifted and what major roles psychology and fear rather than justice and logic played. Well paced, gripping, believable, Damages is a first-rate account of a basically irrational process.
Annotation copyright H.W. Wilson Company.
Beatty
'Damages' is a rich, if uneven, account of [a] malpractice case. . . . The book is crushingly sad, of course, but it's also a vivid study of denial. There's the doctor, who seems arrogant and blames the hospital. . . . There's the hospital, which comes off as inept and claims there was a fetal accident. There are the insurance-company executives, who don't think the Sabias deserve a giant settlement for Little Tony's care, because they figure he's going to die soon anyway. And there's Big Tony, a hotheaded but dedicated father. . . . 'Damages,' unfortunately, never really takes off like, say, [d. Harr's] 'A Civil Action.' The case is convoluted, the cast of lawyers and doctors faceless and vast. Werth is a meticulous, evenhanded reporter, but he spends too little time evoking the Sabias' life and too much transcribing dull depositions.
Annotation copyright H.W. Wilson Company.
Giles
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