The 5th Horseman

Chapter 103

JUDGE CARTER BEVINS shook his wristwatch, then turned his bespectacled eyes on Maureen O’Mara. He asked her if she was ready to proceed.

“Yes, Your Honor,” O’Mara said, standing, taking her position behind the small oak lectern.

She put her notes in front of her, but she wouldn’t need them. She’d rehearsed with her partners again last night, memorized her key points, knew the tone and text of her summation inside out. She’d put everything she had into this case, and her entire future would spring from the results of this trial.

She’d done great so far, and she knew it.

Now she had to clinch it.

She took a breath, smiled at the jury, and began.

“Ladies and gentlemen, three years ago San Francisco Municipal Hospital was privatized; it was sold to a for-profit corporation.

“Since then,” O’Mara said, “the number of fatalities due to pharmaceutical errors has tripled at the hospital.

“Why? I submit that it’s because of errors caused by incompetence and overwork.

“In the last three years, nearly three quarters of the staff have been replaced with less-experienced people who work longer hours for less pay.

“The hospital makes a profit,” O’Mara said. “But at an unacceptably high cost.

“You’ve heard testimony about the twenty people who died painful, senseless deaths because they came to Municipal Hospital.

“It’s sickening and it’s outrageous. And the management of Municipal Hospital is fully to blame. Because they really don’t give a damn about their patients. They care about the bottom line.”

O’Mara paced in front of the jury box, put her hands on the railing, her eyes connecting with the jurors as she spoke only to them.

“We heard from Dr. Garza last week,” O’Mara went on. “Dr. Garza has been head of Municipal’s emergency services for the past three years, and he doesn’t deny that during that time, the fatality rate of patients admitted through the ER has gone through the roof.

“And Dr. Garza told us why that happened. He said, ‘Sometimes a bad wind blows.’

“Ladies and gentlemen, there’s no such thing as a ‘bad wind’ in a hospital. But there is bad medicine. The legal term is ‘operating below the standard of practice.’

“That’s what malpractice is.

“When I asked Dr. Garza if he had anything to do with those patients’ deaths, he said, ‘I take the Fifth.’

“Imagine. He declined to answer because he didn’t want to incriminate himself!

“Wasn’t that an answer in itself? Of course it was.”

No one coughed or seemed even to breathe. O’Mara pushed on, looking at each of the jurors in turn.

“This isn’t a criminal case. No one’s going after Dr. Garza for a crime, even though he made this bizarre self-incrimination.

“But we are asking you to hold Municipal Hospital responsible for this ‘bad wind.’

“We are asking you to punish Municipal for putting profit over the well-being of its patients.

“And we are asking you to award my clients fifty million dollars, a sum that will hurt the hospital, even though it can’t begin to make up for the loss of those twenty precious lives.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this hospital must be stopped from practicing Russian-roulette medicine — and you can stop them.

“Ask yourselves, if someone you loved was ill or injured, would you want them to go to Municipal Hospital?

“Would you want to go there yourself? Would you even consider it after what you’ve heard?

“Please carry that thought with you into the jury room — and find in favor of my clients, and those they have lost at Municipal. Award them the maximum amount of damages. On their behalf, I thank you.”