Damages

by Barry Werth

Difficulties during the birth of their twins results in one twin's death and the other needing extensive medical care, leading a financially and emotionally troubled family to initiate a lawsuit that consumes seven years of their lives. Reprint.

Genres: Law, Nonfiction, Legal, Memoir

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Cassidy Cassidy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very detailed biography of everyone interacting with a medmal suit -- doctors, nurses, lawyers, victims. It's non-fiction but reads like a novel. Nell Newton recommended it to me as an excellent tale of the human experiences generated by one civil action. It should be required reading for law students.

[Soojin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was required reading for Torts in law school, but I would absolutely recommend it to anyone interested in medical malpractice or civil litigation. I felt this book was worth my time, because I was learning about an interesting niche of the real world in a fascinating, digestible way (rare for non-fiction). The value of the book is in the clear, artful way it tells a story that could otherwise be very boring and complicated. It does this by focusing on people - what people on every side were going through and what effects the litigation had on everyone involved. I appreciated the diversity of perspectives that humanized everyone by explaining their thoughts, feelings, motivations, and strategies.

As a law student, this book was a refreshing break from casebooks and I appreciated the author's portrayal of substantive legal concepts. He set up the legal elements of negligence and helpfully explained the lawyers' strategy as they did discovery, took depositions, and interviewed experts to test and develop their legal theories of the case. Later, the extensive medical details were less interesting so I skimmed some of the expert depositions. Still, the takeaways from the book are also important legal ideas, like: 1) truth matters less than jury's perception, 2) money is never enough to compensate for severe harms, but it's something, 3) lawyers prepare hard for trial to incentivize settlement, etc. The book does a great job of showing, not telling, so I think the themes will stick with readers even after they've finished it.

[Deja · Rating 4 out of 5]

When non-lawyer friends ask me about litigation, medical malpractice etc. I recommend this book. The book provides perspectives of plaintiffs, lawyers, defendants, insurance companies, and doctors. A great introduction to complexities for everyone. Easy to read like a novel with limited legal jargon.

[Myles · Rating 3 out of 5]

"He'd learned years earlier that juries quickly became inured to the sight of even the most horrible brain-injured children. A twenty minute day-in-the-life, he liked to say, was much more compelling than having a wheelchair-bound child 'just lying there' day after day in court. [...] 'It's difficult for a jury to distinguish between a vegetable and a human being. Instruct the cameraman to focus on the person's eyes. It is impossible to look into someone's eyes and not sense humanity. If you look long enough, you start believing that there is a consciousness there. There is,' he concluded, 'that illusion of humanity."

XX

"What troubled him was the exercise itself. It was all calculation now, and the law, the part of it he loved, was mainly an elaborate charade. Because insurers only settled when they were facing trials they thought they could lose, it was necessary to make them fear losing. And so for years you geared up for trial, knowing that what you were really doing was designed not to try the case but to settle it. It was another paradox: prepare your case well enough to win in court, and the other side is likely to give in before you ever get there; do less and you end up, naked and underprepared, before a jury. No wonder defendants won 90 percent of malpractice trials. The good cases almost always settled; it was usually only the bad ones that made it to a jury."

[Amanda Sola · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was heartbreaking and frustrating, but in the way it was supposed to be. This was a well written and organized account of a real life medical malpractice case. Without spoiling, the details of the medical damages are difficult to swallow, and you want to hate the medical staff. But the author does a really good job making you feel for the medical staff as you do the Sabia family who files suit and you are unsure who, if anyone, is at fault. But the frustrating part comes in with the lawyers. As we all know, lawyers do not seek truth, but rather, to win. And in doing so, the lawyers on both side interview experts over and over until they find the experts that agree with their interpretation of events.

The depositions, when the opposing side's attorneys question the experts, are awful. The lawyers are trying to weaken the expert's testimony or trying to strengthen their own. It's sad that the truth isn't the end goal, especially when we are talking about a struggling family. What's worse is when each side attempts to determine damages and has to evaluate the life expectancy of an individual, and reduce their entire being to a price tag.

I don't want to give the ending away, but it was disappointing, but also not. Hard to explain without spoilers, but if anyone wants a true account of what a medical malpractice case looks like, I highly recommend this book.

[Eric Schultz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Damages is a multifaceted look at a medical malpractice case. It is a rare find because a lot of otherwise confidential material was released from its confidentiality. It details a seven year ‘bad baby’ case where a family is destroyed because of the consequences of a high-risk pregnancy. It follows the lawyers for each side as they build their cases and the doctors as they are deposed without any prejudice. If you are interested in the grind that is getting a case to court, this book does a great job at showing the process. It also shows two different styles of mediation.

[Meg Meyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at the way medical malpractice lawsuits move. The case is heartbreaking - a twin birth - one twin is born dead and the other twin was born with severe birth defects. You see what life is like for the parents of that child; humanity at it’s most basic level.

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Werth manages to make a very complex case (over 6 years of litigation) compelling and easy to follow. Also I loved that he'd describe each new person with a mini biography.

Anyone interested in litigation would enjoy this novel.

[Beth Slucher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riveting.

[Jiewei Li · Rating 3 out of 5]

The way I had to read all of this for Torts before semester started was wild. Solid investigative journalism I suppose.

[Caitlin McA]

For a book that I have to read for school, this is top notch. Quite journalistic, which is a style I really appreciate.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great look at civil procedure.

[Zeb Snyder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Werth wrote a book that provides a look at a medical malpractice case from the perspective of pretty much everyone involved in the case.

[Lidiya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet another masterful and scathing criticism of litigation, on par with "A Civil Action."

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dessert: Big Chewy Apricot and Ginger Cookies from New Sugar And Spice Baking Book. Chocolate Situation from Zahav.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative and thought provoking