the pelican

once more with feeling

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for and in consideration of

yeah ok so a big part of my job is always a great build-up to an event that never happens. tons of discovery and disclosures and all sorts of stuff in between eventually leading up to a settlement conference and if not successful further towards trial. preparations of a trial management order, designations and order of proof, jury instructions, exhibits, all deadlines driven off the ever approaching feet-held-to-the-fire trial date.

and often it's a whole lot of work, a whole lot of paper, a whole lot of preparation for something that goes away in a matter of minutes when agreements are finally reached.

litigation is so manic.

and normally, i'm fine with that. for the most part.

grateful even.

often fairly exhausted from too much adrenalin and stress leading up to the big compromise but also relieved that the entire dance and drama of trial is not required to go forth.

but not this time.

oh sure i wanted it to settle originally. best thing for everyone always -- especially clients. i wanted it all to go away with minimal fuss and all of us to go on with other pressing deadlines and pressure cooker items. and i was disappointed when it didn't and i had to cancel our vacation plans and move dentist appointments and everything else around while dealing with a sick and dying kitty and working ahead in all my other cases that got bunched up in the midst of this struggle.

but even so as usual, we were ready. we must always prepare for full battle even though it is almost never necessary.

and this time, i guess maybe it had become personal for me. as a friend of mine would say, a dead body issue -- as in not over mine.

and so we were super ready. girl scout ready. ahead of time ready.

and the defendants weren't. they were visibly crumbling before our eyes.

and the attorney for the defendants had been horrid throughout the whole thing. re-scheduling depositions and then coming to them completely unprepared wasting everybody's time and putting our clients through the ringer and missing deadlines and we bent over backwards in the spirit of cooperation to accommodate their incompetence. we gave them extension after extension of deadlines. we didn't try to force a ton of expensive discovery out of them. we were kind and understanding and re-scheduled as best as we could but when things didn't go their way and rulings favored us she went ad hominem on us and accused the attorney i was working for on this case and this firm of all sorts of despicable and dishonorable things sent in late-night inflamatory spewing emails essentially demonstrating her panic and awareness that she had completely messed up but desperately trying to make it look to her clients as if the problem was with us and with the fact that she herself had messed up and it was to our advantage.

the attorney i worked for said she was his candidate for worst attorney of the year.

and we were the model of good faith. we had done everything on time and not objected to her extensive requests for extensions and submitted everything promptly and they hadn't even submitted their order of proof. they hadn't even provided us with their exhibits. we had good helpful kind witnesses lined up. interpreter and back-up interpreter scheduled.

they didn't even want to go near the jury instructions and for good reason. they had little to contribute and almost nothing to argue about. they were about to be roasted alive. and i was going to take a certain amount of satisfaction and watch.

true, i would have had to work the weekend before and put in lots of extra hours and work ahead in other cases and have to drive all the way to denver every day and wear pantyhose and sit on hard wooden benches and sweat and fret and all of it. but i was ready to anyway. 

i mean i was ready for extreme cage fighting. i wanted a smackdown. i wanted people held accountable. i wanted to watch the attorney i worked for on this (who juries tend to love anyway) and i wanted the defendants to squirm and sit face to face with our clients and have to look at the jury and account for how they left our semi-comatose client stashed in a corner for two and half days with a dirty diaper and a dirty trach and ants crawling all over her and when our little family struggling with english as a second language took time off from running their family business closed the store to come see their mother and found the condition she was in and when they tried to alert the nursing home staff to the state in which they found their mom that sunday, the nursing home called the police on the upset family for causing a disturbance and tried to cover up the fact that they were over-worked and under-staffed and hadn't bothered to get help or care for a semi-comatose patient on a respirator who couldn't speak for herself even if she could understand the language.

to me this was a nightmare situation -- for the family members who have to make the difficult decision to leave a loved one in another's care -- and for the patient in a semi-comatose state (though in and out of consciousness, mostly out, but responsive to pain) lying in her own filth, being left to die in a corner, with bugs crawling all over her, and no way to do anything about it.

oh the injustice. the helplessness. the suffering. the worry and fear and guilt of the family.

and i guess maybe what i really wanted what i really wanted what i craved what i so wanted to happen was for our kind good loving clients to have an opportunity to look the bloody monsters in the eye -- and the jury to witness it.

guess in some sense, this means i wanted payment. in full. i wanted vindication.

and so i was so mad and disillusioned when it settled. i was mad at everybody. even mad at the attorney i worked for who seemed to me at the time to be "caving" and mad at the nursing home for getting away with such harm and mad at our clients for wanting to walk away from it and face their oppressors and mad mad mad at the opposing attorney for being such an obnoxious pill who criticized everybody and drug everything out until after the mother had died and mad at my job for all the blood sweat and tears put into something that went absolutely nowhere when i had much bigger cases to be worried about and worked on and just mad mad mad.

just mad.

so i guess you say i'm human, yeah. i could rationalize that away perhaps. i could say well you know it was understandable. i was all worked up for a good cause. it was something i believed in.
 
but it's true. i wanted to see this particular defendant pay the price and i wanted the attorney representing them to go down in flames.

and for the most part i am opposed to harsh judgment and the desire to punish. i have a very healthy skepticism i question authority all authority especially self-righteous authority full of the need to mete out justice authority. the kind that knows what's best for everybody else. the sort who feels it is their duty their god-given right to correct others to thrust their will their understanding of right and wrong on others to decide they know how best to walk in the other's shoes to impose their rules. to me it always says more about the one who needs to correct others, who needs to punish, who needs to make it right than it does about whatever the wrong-doer has done. it is the abuse of power of the fundamentalist it is the spanish freaking inquisition it is the self-righteous indignation of the self-appointed pious and holy it the realm of the control freaks and the ignorant and the judgmental and the miserable self-appointed executioners.

and so here i am. being that sort of thing of which i most abhor. i wanted satisfaction. in truth perhaps i wanted revenge. i am not proud.

and i know the jury would have loved our sweet little hard-working immigrant family of clients who only wanted their mother to be cared for. to not suffer. to be comfortable and safe. i know they would have loved them and wanted to help them just as we did. the clients who were moved to tears of gratitude when the firm sent the basically obligatory flowers when their mother passed away. the clients who were never greedy or angry or had any ax to grind but only wanted to be sure their mother was cared for appropriately and that she didn't suffer.

well in the end i guess our clients taught me a thing or two.

because what they did was after calling 911 to take their mother away from the nursing home (while the nursing home was calling the police on our clients for causing a disturbance and supposedly threatening them with a tiny cell phone that they were actually using to take pictures of bugs with) was to take her home to care for her themselves. after she had been seen to and taken care and stabilized at the hospital they immediately starting making arrangements to bring her home. they brought in a sister from far away. they all took turns working their small family business so one of them could always be home with their mother 24 hours a day. they washed her and fed her and changed her and administered to her. she eventually was able to respond to them at times and recognize them on good days. she even smiled for them on many occasions. and they did this round the clock for over a year and a half while the nursing home defendants put up every road block, asked for every extension, refused to attend a settlement conference and put everything off until eventually their mother passed away about a month before trial. and when the attorney i work for explained to the family that the bulk of their claims went away with her death they did not mind because it was never money they were after. they only wanted good care for their mother. and if there were to be awarded anything, they wanted it to go to the sister who had put her life on hold and moved all the way here to care for their mother full time at home.

and so it was. our clients decided they would accept the ridiculously practically nothing pittance offer rather than close the family business to spend long days in a court room. they did not want vengence. they wanted it to all go away. they were pleased that they had done the best they could in the time they were given and they were grateful for the time spent with their mother. they did not want to add a long drawn out fight to it. they wanted peace. they accepted the measly insulting crumbs with gratitude and called it good.

it's beautiful, really. and rare. and fine.

and yet in the throes of three days before trial arranging for a courier to deliver jury instructions to the court i was angry.

me. me who spouts compassion and forgiveness all the time. me who believes there are no such things as dead body issues and that compromise is always possible. me who stresses open-mindedness and charity and kindness.

they were not concerned about exacting justice. they know better. they had the bigger picture down much better than me. they know justice is not for us to bludgeon others into submission with. they know the only real justice is karmic justice and they did not want to add their own grief into it. and i didn't want them to do the right thing! and they did. they honored their mother through their selflessness and kindness and their ability to simply let it go. they could not change the outcome and they took no ownership. they did their best and they let go.

and while i wanted to kick and scream UNFAIR UNFAIR THIS IS SO UNFAIR they are simply happy and relieved that the ordeal is over.

and i guess they showed me.

ah the sweet sweet nectar of forgiveness.

so with a little distance i'm starting to see it better. and i'm glad it's over. and i have a little time off coming next week too.

and i wish them all the best. i wish their sweet mother well on her journey.

and so i stand . . . corrected.

and i owe them.

i bow before them.

they are the refuge.





 

posted by: limine at 10:40 | link | comments (4) |

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