One day before the statute of limitations would have expired, a doctor is sued over a patient’s post-surgical complications. She is in for a shock. “Before this case, I’d never realized that we have a system of law where one person can stand up in a public forum and assassinate someone else’s character without a single piece of substantiating evidence (known in legalese as ‘closing arguments’). He faces no consequences for doing this. He isn’t even expected to apologize. We have a system of law that requires the witnesses to tell the whole truth, but then encourages attorneys to manipulate and hide that truth.
“I know that most of my friends will tell me to ‘get over it.’ They’ll tell me that I shouldn’t worry about what the jury thinks of me — I’ll never see these people again. They’ll tell me that the only important thing is that I won.” Trouble is, “I don’t feel like I won; I feel like I have been violated.” (Patricia I. Carney, “Our system lives on personal attacks”, Medical Economics, May 7).
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