The Associate Page 14

  But why wouldn’t she tell me that she knew that Dr. Kim was deliberately killing people? And why would she turn around and want to sue Dr. Kim after she, herself, arranged for this to happen? And how was I going to, in good conscience, go into that settlement conference and demand millions of dollars for the life of her son, knowing what I knew? No matter, I was going to go on in there and still demand millions of dollars for Austin’s life. I was going to do that and pretend that I never heard the vile things that Betsy was telling me.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m only telling you now because I think that it might come up in that conference.”

  “You think?” My voice was loud, too loud. I didn’t want anybody to be suspicious, so I had to work on modulating my tone of voice. “Now, we have to get in there in that settlement conference. We’ve already eaten up half of our allotted time. But before we do, I need to know the answer to my question. You knew what Dr. Kim was doing, yet you didn’t say a word about that to me. Why?”

  Her voice was a loud whisper. “I didn’t tell you about that because you were going to ask me how I knew, and I didn’t know what to say. Plus, I promised Min-jun that I wouldn’t tell anybody about what he was doing. I promised him that. He told me that if I told you what he was doing that he was going to go to prison for the rest of his life. I didn’t want that. I’m actually very fond of him. He helped me when I needed it. He helped Austin die a peaceful death in his sleep. That was all that I wanted. Min-jun gave that to me, so I wasn’t going to tell you something that would send him to prison.”

  “And how did you find out what he was doing? How did you know that you could single him out as somebody who would do something like that for you? And why would you turn around and sue him, when you were the one that arranged for it to happen?”

  She made a motion for me to lower my voice. “One question at a time.”

  “We don’t have time for one question at a time. Answer all those questions that I just posed. Answer them all or, I swear to God, I’m going to walk out of here with no settlement at all.”

  She took a deep breath. “I knew what he was doing because I overheard some people talking about it. They suspected that he was doing that. I don’t know who I overheard speaking about it, but it was just a rumor that was going around on the oncology floor. You know, it was idle talk. People talking about how so many patients had died while Min-jun was administering the anesthesia. People thought that he might have been deliberately killing them. They were talking about how many lawsuits he had against him, and they were whispering about how many times the hospital had quietly settled with people without them even filing a lawsuit. There’s a lot of talk around the oncology ward between parents.”

  I shook my head. The hospital was settling with the next of kin for anesthesiology overdoses and other deaths resulting from the improper use of anesthesia, before these people had even filed a lawsuit? Why would the hospital be protecting Dr. Kim like that? I suddenly realized that there was the distinct possibility that there wasn’t going to be 35 clients that April Kennedy was going to try to settle with. Most of those 35 people had already gotten their millions and they got their millions without even filing a lawsuit. They were no-doubt given confidential settlements that would have never shown up in my research on this doctor. They were quietly paid to go away, yet Dr. Kim continued with his hospital privileges. That was disgusting to me.

  It was disgusting to me, yet I was going to use it as leverage. If April didn’t meet my demand, which I had decided was going to be $15 million, I was going to threaten to expose the hospital for what it was doing. I knew that I could get Tom Garrett to do some deep investigation into Dr. Kim and the hush-hush settlements that were occurring and I could show that the hospital could be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in punitive damages if I really wanted to go down that route. I could literally bankrupt that hospital.

  I had all the leverage to ask for the moon. I didn’t want to sue the hospital, mainly because I wanted this case to be over. Betsy had just confessed to me that she arranged for her kid to be killed, so I wasn’t going to risk going to trial and having that fact uncovered for the jury. No, somebody else was going to have to sue Menorah for what it did. That wasn’t going to be my hill to die on. I was just going to use that fact as a bargaining chip.

  “Okay,” I said. “So, the damage is done. You’re going to walk out of this building a very wealthy woman. A very wealthy woman, even though you were the one who asked for it in the first place. I don’t know how I feel about that. What I do know is that I’m going to have to take a shower when I get out of here.”

  At that, we walked back into the suite of the law firm. “We’re ready,” I said.

  Blondie nodded her head. “This way, sir,” she said, and I followed her through the maze of offices to an enormous conference room. It had floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the expanse of the city. Plush white carpet, a long cherry wood table in the middle, leather seats, high ceilings and a modern chandelier that hung from the ceiling.

  At the table were six lawyers – three men and three women. Also seated at the table was Dr. Kim. I recognized April, who was the lead attorney. I had worked with her before.

  She saw me come in and she stood up, and so did the others. April Kennedy was small – only about 5’2” and probably weighed about a buck nine. She had dark hair that was cut in a shaggy bob and she was wearing a dark blue suit with black piping and heels. She was an attractive woman, with her dark brown eyes, olive skin and perfectly straight teeth. She walked over to me and shook my hand, gripping it as hard as any man. “Mr. Harrington,” she said. “Thank you for coming in.”

  “Thank you for seeing me.”

  “Please have a seat.” She gestured to one of the black leather chairs. She got a water for Betsy and me and the two of us sat down.

  I looked over at Betsy, hating her. I couldn’t believe what she had just confessed to me. How could she snow me like that? Seriously. How could she have knowledge about the crimes that Dr. Kim was doing, and not tell me? And how could she be suing Dr. Kim after she arranged for him to kill her son? It wasn’t like his malpractice insurance was going to cover his deed. It was an intentional act, and his malpractice insurance didn’t cover-

  His malpractice insurance didn’t cover intentional acts. That was it! That was why Betsy didn’t tell me the truth about what Dr. Kim was doing. That made sense. She didn’t want me to know. She probably didn’t expect that this was going to come out in quite this way. Betsy was no fool. She had to have known what the implications were going to be if it came out that Dr. Kim had intentionally killed her son. That would negate the malpractice insurance and that would mean that the money would have to come out of Dr. Kim’s own pocket. She clearly didn’t want that to happen.

  I fiddled with my file, wondering how to approach this. I had to wonder if they were going to ask me in this conference about Betsy’s relationship with their client. They had to know that Betsy and Dr. Kim were having an affair. They had to suspect what was going on.

  I cleared my throat. I looked April right in the eye and decided that I was just going to shoot the moon and ask for a crazy amount of money and see what she did. “In light of what was revealed in the newspaper just this morning, I would like to go ahead and make a demand of $20 million.” I nodded my head. “I have some documentation here about Austin’s grades and his SAT and ACT scores, and I have two letters of acceptance. One is from Harvard and one is from MIT. I also have my client here, who can testify that her son had the ambition to be a NASA aerospace engineer, and the average salary for that kind of engineer for NASA is currently $105,000. I have an actuarial table that has been prepared by an actuary that shows that, over Austin’s lifetime, he could have earned $8 million from the time he got out of school until the time that he retired at age 65. I am not demanding damages for pain and suffering, obviously, but I have also calculated damages for loss of consortium. I figured t
hose damages would be $2 million. That is because Austin was my client’s only family, and, while you cannot put a value on companionship, the law requires that I do just that.”

  “Loss of consortium does not figure into this case,” April said. “That is only for surviving spouses and for surviving children. It does not go to parents.”

  “Nothing in the law says that parents cannot get loss of consortium,” I said, knowing that I was standing on shaky legal ground. “But I understand that a jury probably wouldn’t award this type of damage, so I am willing to strike that out of my demand.”

  April nodded. “So noted. Please proceed.”

  “So, I’ve calculated $8 million for lifetime earnings, and $12 million for punitive damages.”

  April shook her head. “$12 million for punitive damages is excessive. We do not believe that a jury would award that large of amount. Plus, I think that you know as well as I do that your client’s son, Austin Ward, was terminally ill. Therefore, you cannot extrapolate lifetime earnings to age 65.”

  “I also have the results of a genetic test that showed that Austin had a genetic marker for leukemia. I have studies in my file that show that, with Austin’s kind of genetic marker, gene therapy could have been effective enough for a cure. If Austin would have lived, he could have pursued genetic therapy and he might have been cured.”

  I closed my eyes as I remembered how I found out about Austin’s genetic marker. Betsy told me that day in her house. She had just gotten the results back from the genetic test and she was very upset. I now knew why she was so upset. She probably realized, too late, that Austin had a chance to live. He had a chance, and she took that away from him. She did. Dr. Kim probably wouldn’t have killed her son if she didn’t ask him to do so. And Betsy knew what Dr. Kim was doing. Or she suspected it, at any rate. She could have requested that Dr. Kim not be the anesthesiologist for her son’s case.

  That had to kill her. She took away Austin’s only chance to live. And he did have a chance to live a long life. With the right gene therapy, he could have beaten his leukemia. That had to devastate her.

  “Mr. Harrington,” April said. “We understand your argument, but it’s weak. Your client was terminal. Yes, he had a genetic marker and yes he could have been cured by gene therapy. Those are contingencies that we are prepared to take into account. According to the research that we have done independently, Austin had a 70% chance of surviving if he was properly given gene therapy. Therefore, we calculate that Austin’s lifetime earnings would be 70% of what your actuary estimates. That would be $5.5 million over his lifetime. However, Austin had not yet pursued a career in aerospace. There was no guarantee that he would have actually become an aerospace engineer. We’re going to take into account that his chosen profession was likely to happen, but there was a chance that it wouldn’t. We understand that he had acceptance letters from Harvard and MIT, and we further note that Austin had perfect mathematical scores on both his ACT and SAT. We calculated that there was an 80% chance that Austin could have achieved his ambitions of being a NASA engineer had he lived. Therefore, we are prepared to offer your client $4.5 million in actual damages.”

  That sounded good to me. April was correct. There was no guarantee that Austin would have lived if he would have gotten gene therapy. There was no guarantee that Austin would have pursued a career in aerospace engineering with NASA. There was always the chance that Austin would have just decided to become a guitar player on the street. Plenty of super intelligent people dropped out of society to do menial work, and Austin was a decent guitar player. He was driven, however. “$6 million,” I said. “In actual damages. “I believe that Austin had at least a 90% chance of fulfilling his dream if he would have lived. And I also believe that Austin had more like an 80% chance of living if he would have gotten gene therapy. My research on the issue shows that gene therapy is very promising for Austin’s type of genetic marker. $6 million is a fair amount.”

  April stared at me, as did the other five people on the other side of the table. I knew that she was in no position to bargain. Not when the hospital would be on the hook for untold millions if I really wanted to play hardball. The hospital wasn’t her client, because that would be a conflict of interest to represent both Dr. Kim and the hospital, but, at the same time, I was pretty sure that the hospital and its culpability was going to weigh heavily in these negotiations.

  She turned to Dr. Kim, who silently nodded his head.

  “$6 million is a fair amount,” she said. “For actual damages.”

  I nodded my head. I was entitled to 40% of the award, and I was calculating that in my head. $2.4 million was going to be my cut. I was going to share at least part of it with Harper, even though she hadn’t really participated in this case. Not a bad chunk of change. It was, by far, more money than I had ever had in my life. That number was staggering to me, and I hadn’t even gotten in-depth to the topic of punitive damages.

  “Now, for punitive damages,” I said. “I had asked for an award of $12 million. I think that this is a fair request, considering Dr. Kim’s culpability. Plus, I have it on good authority that the hospital has been quietly settling cases with many of the people that Dr. Kim has deliberately killed. My research shows that Menorah Hospital has been quietly settling with these individuals before a lawsuit has even been filed. They’ve kept a killer anesthesiologist on their staff for years, knowing what he was doing. If that gets out to the public, the hospital will be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in punitive damages. I believe, in light of that fact, that $12 million in punitive damages in this case is a steal.”

  “So you’re saying that if we do not settle here for your amount that you will file a new lawsuit against the hospital?”

  “Well, no. The hospital is already one of the defendants in this case, of course. What I am saying is that I will drop my lawsuit against the hospital in exchange for your agreeing to $12 million in punitive damages in this conference. I can make the award of punitives contingent upon my doing what I am saying and dropping the hospital as a defendant. If you don’t give me what I’m asking for, then I will pursue the hospital with vigor and it could end up costing that hospital hundreds of millions of dollars. As I see it, $12 million is a bargain.”

  April turned to Dr. Kim, who silently nodded his head. He clasped his hands together tightly, his face a mask of shame.

  April turned back to me. “Okay. $12 million in punitive damages is reasonable, in light of the extensive amount of culpability that could result if this case came to trial. As you said, in order for you to receive these funds, you must dismiss your entire lawsuit with prejudice. Once you do that, then we will make an ACH deposit into your account and into your client’s account for the funds that are due. It’s my understanding that you are entitled to 40% of the award and your client is entitled to 60%. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, that is correct. Now, I need to see some settlement documents before I agree to anything. As I understand, we have agreed in this conference on a total award of $18 million - $6 million for actual damages and $12 million for punitive damages. Please draw that up and we can sign it.”

  April nodded her head and one of the lawyers at the end of the table got up and left the room. “Henry Jackson will go and prepare the document for you to sign,” she said.

  Fifteen minutes later, Henry came back, a document in his hand. I read it over carefully. It had boilerplate settlement language, and I read over that rapidly before getting to the good part. I nodded my head and signed it. I passed it to Betsy, and she signed it as well. Then Dr. Kim signed it, as did April.

  When all of us signed it, Henry left the room again and quickly came back with four copies of the document that we all signed. He handed me my copy and I tucked it into the file. Betsy looked at her copy with wonder. Her face showed that she couldn’t quite believe that she was, suddenly, a millionaire. Especially since she was the one who arranged for all this to happen.

  April
stood up and offered me her hand. “Thank you for coming in,” she said, as I shook it. “Cecilia will show you out.”

  I looked at the clock and saw that it was 4 PM. No doubt there was another lawyer with another client waiting in the wings. These settlement conferences were going to be rapid-fire. Quietly settle each one, hope that there were at least a few parties who didn’t know that Menorah Hospital had kept a murderer on the staff, and hope for minimal damages and fallout. If every victim settled rapidly, then that would obviously be the best thing, PR-wise. The quicker the victims were subjected to gag orders due to having settled their cases, the quicker this whole story was going to die.

  “Thank you,” I said. And then Betsy and I got up and left the conference room. On the way out, I saw the B-Shift waiting in the lobby of the suite. A lawyer dressed in a three-piece suit and an African-American couple sat on the leather seats, flipping through magazines and looking nervous.

  They were about to become millionaires. All of them.

  I hoped that they could handle it.

  I hoped that I could handle it.

  Chapter 19

  As I drove to see Harper’s house, I had to process what had just happened. I had just settled a case for $18 million. I was entitled to 40% of that. I was going to have to discuss with Harper what cut I was going to give her. She had expressed interest in working on the case, although she didn’t do anything yet. She hadn’t had the chance to really get into it. Still, I was a generous guy and I decided that I would contribute 10% to the law firm. That would certainly give Harper’s firm a nice boost, because 10% of $18 million was $1.8 million.

  And my cut was still going to be $5.5 million. I had to let that sink in. I was a multi-millionaire. It was time to get a new roof, which my older home needed, and a new car. I was still driving a 2005 Explorer. Working at the Public Defender’s Office wasn’t exactly lucrative. It was invigorating work, but you don’t get rich there. I hadn’t yet worked for Harper for long enough to really make better money, so that meant that I was driving a beater car and my roof leaked.