Fractured Bonds

1 - Emma

Three Years Ago

I exited the courtroom to seven missed calls from Eleanor, my sister. She's usually not one to call me up like that during her 36-hour shifts at the hospital. I dial her number and hear her frantic voice on the other end of the line, "Mike got sued today by a deceased patient's son. I called you to ask if you would represent him since you've handled malpractice cases before and since you didn't answer, I ended up giving him your number and address of your firm. He left the hospital an hour ago for your firm. Will you talk to him and see if there's any chance of him winning this thing?", I say "Nora, relax I'll talk to him and see what comes up and how we'll handle it". She thanks me and hangs up.

I drove up to Levinson Woods Blanchard, the firm I work at, to find my boss Anastasia Levinson talking to Mike.

Stepping forward, I greet Ana, "Hey Ana, how's it going?". "Going good. I was just talking to Dr. Pendragon here and asking him about his case. But enough about that for now, how was the Gilligan case, are you going to win?". "You know me Ana, I will", I smirk as I reply.

"Now, if you don't mind, I have a deposition to attend in fifteen minutes." Ana told me and walked away.

I extend my hand as I say, "Emma Sinclair, but you can call me Emmy". He takes my hand and answers, "Michael Pendragon, call me Mike but seriously? Emmy? Like the award?"

I laugh as I answer, "No, not like the award, but my mom hated the nickname Em, so everyone calls me Emmy. Also, Pendragon as in Pendragon Capital, right?". 

"Mhmm".  

"Follow me into my office, and we can talk there". 

"Getting straight into the business, I see," he says.

We walk into my office as I signal him to sit down, and he tells me the details of how this man came into the ER two weeks ago because of a car collision. 

The man had a branch stuck in his leg just above his knee and some other fractures. Due to a lack of Neurologists and Neurosurgeons in the hospital, he was tasked with re-connecting the nerves and blood vessels, which according to him was successful. After the surgery, the patient woke up and did not exhibit any symptoms that his leg was irreparable, his family was assured that he would make a full recovery. Unfortunately, he died 15 hours later.

Physically, it looked like he had a heart attack but through various tests like a Chest X-Ray and a Pulmonary Angiogram, it was discovered that it was a Pulmonary Embolism and Deep Vein Thrombosis that caused his death. The doctors concluded that a blood clot traveled up to his lungs from his leg due to his underlying DVT, which caused an increased blood clot formation. Mike and his staff did not know that the patient had such a condition, and operated on him as a healthy man.

The patient's family is now blaming Mike for not doing the tests as soon as they got him out of surgery so that this could've been avoided.

"Look Mike, in some cases of malpractice where the family of the dead patient is the plaintiff we see that they sued the doctor for closure, like they have no choice but to pin the blame on someone and usually in such cases, the blame is pinned on the Doctor that operated on the patient. We need to talk to the plaintiffs and try to see what their reasoning is for suing you."

He nods and says," I'll get you the details of the family and everything related to the case on paper and online."

We shake hands, and he gets up to leave, but just before he goes out he tells me that his brother is looking for any way to get me off his case and get their company's lawyers all over it.

I tell him not to worry about it because I've never lost a malpractice case, whether I was the plaintiff's lawyer or the defendant's lawyer.

This case will be a tough one. Lots of media coverage due to Mike being a member of the Pendragon Family, owners of Pendragon Capital.

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