"Are you okay, Ted?"
"I'm fine."
But he wasn't fine. He lifted the lid, took another look at the deadly calling card his body had just discharged, finally flushed, and walked back to the den. The Devil Rays were now up by eight, but the game had lost whatever importance it had in the first inning. Twenty minutes later, after three glasses of water, he sneaked down to the basement and urinated in a small bathroom, as far away as possible from his wife.
It was blood, he decided. The tumors were back, and whatever form they now had they were far more serious than before.
He told his wife the truth the next morning, over toast and jam. He preferred to keep it from her as long as possible, but they were so joined at the hip that secrets, especially any related to health, were difficult to keep. She took charge immediately, calling his urologist, barking at the appointment secretary, lining up a visit just after lunch. It was an emergency and tomorrow just wasn't acceptable.
Four days later, malignant tumors were found in Mr. Worley's kidneys. During five hours of surgery, the doctors removed all the tumors they could find.
The head of urology was closely monitoring the patient. A colleague at a hospital in Kansas City had reported an identical case a month earlier; a post-Dyloft appearance of kidney tumors. The patient in Kansas City was now undergoing chemotherapy and fading fast.
The same could be expected for Mr. Worley, though the oncologist was much more cautious in his first postop visit. Mrs. Worley was doing her needlepoint while complaining about the quality of the hospital's food, which she did not expect to be delicious but why couldn't it at least be warm? At these prices? Mr. Worley hid under the sheets of his bed and watched the television. He graciously muted the set when the oncologist arrived, though he was too sad and depressed to engage in conversation.
He would be discharged in a week or so, and as soon as he was strong enough they would begin aggressively treating his cancer. Mr. Worley was crying when the meeting was over.
During a follow-up conversation with the colleague in Kansas City, the head of urology learned of yet another case. All three patients had been Group One Dyloft plaintiffs. Now they were dying. A lawyer's name was mentioned. The Kansas City patient was represented by a small firm in New York City.
It was a rare and rewarding experience for a doctor to be able to pass along the name of one lawyer who would sue another, and the head of urology was determined to enjoy the moment. He entered Mr. Worley's room, introduced himself because they had not met, and explained his role in the treatment. Mr. Worley was sick of doctors and, if not for the tubes crisscrossing his ravaged body, he would have gathered his things and discharged himself. The conversation soon made its way to Dyloft, then the settlement, then to the fertile grounds of the legal profession. This fired up the old man; his face had some color, his eyes were glaring.
The settlement, meager as it was, had been completed against his wishes. A paltry $43,000, with the lawyer taking the rest! He had called and called and finally got some young smart mouth who told him to check the fine print in the pile of documents he'd signed. There was a Preauthorization clause that allowed the attorney to settle if the money exceeded a very low threshold. Mr. Worley had fired off two poisonous letters to Mr. Clay Carter, neither of which provoked a response.
"I was against the settlement," Mr. Worley kept saying.
"I guess it's too late now," Mrs. Worley kept adding.
"Maybe not," the doctor said. He told them about the Kansas City patient, a man very similar to Ted Worley. "He's hired a lawyer to go after his lawyer," the doctor said with great satisfaction.
"I've had a butt full of lawyers," Mr. Worley said. Doctors too, for that matter, but he held his tongue.
"Do you have his phone number?" Mrs. Worley asked. She was thinking much more clearly than her husband. Sadly, she was also looking down the road a year or two when Ted would be gone.
The urologist just happened to have the number.
The only thing mass tort lawyers feared was one of their own. A predator. A traitor who followed behind fixing their mistakes. A subspecialty had evolved in which a few very good and very nasty trial lawyers pursued their brethren for bad settlements. Helen Warshaw was writing the training manual.
For a breed that professed so much love for the courtroom, tort lawyers fell limp with the visual of themselves sitting at the defense table, looking sheepishly at the jurors as their personal finances were kicked about in open court. It was Helen Warshaw's calling to get them there.
However, it rarely happened. Their cries of Sue the World! and We Love Juries! evidently applied to everyone else. When confronted with proof of liability, no one settled faster than a mass tort lawyer. No one, not even a guilty doctor, dodged the courtroom with as much energy as a TV/billboard lawyer caught scamming a settlement.
Warshaw had four Dyloft cases in her New York office and leads on three more when she received the call from Mrs. Worley. Her small firm had a file on Clay Carter and a much thicker one on Patton French. She monitored the top twenty or so mass tort firms in the country and dozens of the biggest class actions. She had plenty of clients and lots of fees, but nothing had excited her as much as the Dyloft fiasco.
A few minutes on the phone with Mrs. Worley, and Helen knew exactly what had happened. "I'll be there by five o'clock," she said.
"Today?"
"Yes. This afternoon."
She caught the shuttle to Dulles. She did not have her own jet, for two very good reasons. First, she was prudent with her money and didn't believe in such waste. Second, if she ever got sued, she did not want the jury to hear about a jet. The year before, in the only case she'd managed to get to trial, she had shown the jury large color photos of the defendant lawyer's jets, both of them, inside and out. Along with photos of his yacht, Aspen home, etcetera. The jury had been very impressed. Twenty million in punitive damages.
She rented a car - no limo - and found the hospital in Bethesda. Mrs. Worley had collected their papers, which Warshaw spent an hour with while Mr. Worley took a nap. When he woke up, he did not want to talk. He was wary of lawyers, especially the pushy New York female variety. However, his wife had plenty of time and found it easier to confide in a woman. The two went to the lounge for coffee and a long discussion.
The principal culprit was and always would be Ackerman Labs. They made a bad drug, rushed the approval process, advertised it heavily, failed to adequately test it, failed to fully disclose everything they knew about it. Now the world was learning that Dyloft was even more insidious than first thought. Ms. Warshaw had already secured convincing medical proof that recurring tumors were linked to Dyloft.
The second culprit was the doctor who prescribed the drug, though his culpability was slight. He relied on Ackerman Labs. The drug worked wonders. And so on.
Unfortunately, the first two culprits had been fully and completely released from all liability when Mr. Worley settled his claim in the Biloxi class action. Though Mr. Worley's arthritis doctor had not been sued, the global release covered him as well.
"But Ted didn't want to settle," Mrs. Worley said more than once.
Doesn't matter. He settled. He gave his attorney the power to settle. The attorney did so, and thus became the third culprit. And the last one standing.
A week later, Ms. Warshaw filed a lawsuit against J. Clay Carter, F. Patton French, M. Wesley Saulsberry, and all other known and unknown attorneys who had prematurely settled Dyloft cases. The lead plaintiff was once again Mr. Ted Worley from Upper Marlboro, Maryland, for and on behalf of all injured persons, known and unknown at the time. The lawsuit was filed in United States District Court for the District of Columbia, not too far from the JCC offices.