Customer Reviews

Damages

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I spend a great deal of time as a defense lawyer explaining how the system works-- to the associates in my office, to clients, to lawyers from outside the US. "Damages" is going to find its way into a lot of these discussions, and everyone who works for me is going to read it. I am also going to send a copy to my mom.

Barry Wirth's book is impressive for the way it gets the law stuff (and the medicine too, I think) mostly dead on, but beyond that, this is also a great read, with interesting, well drawn characters that one ends up caring about.

In many ways, "Damages" is a better book than "A Civil Action", which it resembles. The legal tactics are explained, rather than merely used to illustrate the flamboyance of the attorneys. More importantly, the case itself, a so-called "bad baby" case concerning the catastrophic injuries sustained as a result of claimed medical malpractice, is something anyone who reads a daily newsp! aper will be able to relate to. The book gives the best picture I have ever seen of how patients become clients, how prospective clients are screened by law firms, how discovery strategies are developed, how cases are evaluated (by both sides) and how settlements are negotiated. I could teach a course around this, and, in fact, I just might.

I recommend this book to anyone who has ever wondered how the damage awards they read about in news reports were arrived at, or thought about what the human consequences of a serious injury might be.

This is a wonderful book for anyone involved in the litigation process or anyone involved in the health care field.

I am a structured settlement consultant who works with personal injury attorneys and some insurance companies. This is the best book I have ever seen about the process.

I have purchased over 200 copies of the book to give to trial attorneys, claims professionals and other structured settlement professionals. All love the book. It reads like a novel.

Don McNay...

"Damages" by Barry Werth is a compelling and incisive study of the anatomy of a medical malpractice case, as seen from all sides. A real page turner. Most impressive is the exhaustive and comprehensive work done by the plaintiff's legal firm, and the in depth and understandable explanations by the author of the medical facts, the legal strategies, the context of the times, the world of medical experts, the role of insurance companies, and the lives of those injured. Beautifully written. "An education" is the only phrase that keeps coming to my mind after completing this gem of a book. Read it ! You'll learn a lot and it will help you.

This is a fascinating story of real life in medicine and law, well told. However, it will leave you believing that the legal system is an terrible way to resolve questions about the quality of medical care. It is so vividly and accurately told that it also left me wondering whether the doctors and lawyers on either side of this heartbreaking conflict really cared what the truth was.

This "You are there" look at a major medical malpractice case brought on by the birth of a severely brain damaged child is true to the Jonathan Harr "A Civil Action" format. The reader enters the psyche of the major players -- the heroically struggling working class parents, the true believer personal injury lawyer, the unjustly sacrificed physicians, the mercenary hospital staff, and the bottom line insurance company. One senses the absurdity and inefficiency of our current system of compensating families of bad outcome babies, yet a better book might have explored some solutions or considered a more rational, saner way to go about remedying these dire situations. Lacking the passion and rage of Harr's A Civil Action, the book sometimes collapses under the weight of all the details and changes in strategies. That being said, Damages still offers a thorough and informative look at a protracted legal battle in which no one, except perhaps the Sabia family, comes out looking very good.

I am a college student studying to be a medical assistant. I had to write an essay on a specific medical lawsuit for my class "Medical Law and Ethics." I have not read a nonfiction book in years, but once I started reading this book I could not put it down. It is so stimulating, exciting, and brilliant. Mr. Werth had little to work with since there was no court room drama. He did a spectacular job with the resources he had. He is indeed an intelligent writer. I wish him well.

This true story grabbed me immediately. Barry Werth does a very good job of bringing to light the many sides of what initially appears to be a straightforward case. Without playing favorites, he manages to get the reader to alternately feel for one side, then the other. Despite the legal and medical jargon found throughout the book, I never felt lost or became bored. Reading this puts both the legal and medical systems in a new light.

Between the cover blurb from Jonathan Harr, which may create (unrealistic) expectations of a "Civil Action"-like page turner, and the fact that the jacket copy gives away the outcome of the case -- an outcome that Werth withholds from the reader for most of the book's length -- it seems like the publisher is so eager to make sure you buy the book that it doesn't much care whether or not you enjoy it. That said, the book itself is a compelling read, keeping a close eye on both the doctor and the patients and writing about both with clarity and sympathy. It lacks the narrative drive of "A Civil Action", in part because many of the players involve drop in and out of the case as the story progresses, but it is nonetheless absorbing, and a fascinating ground-level look at how such political hot potatoes as malpractice laws and managed care work out in the real world. It's also a remarkable work of reportage -- I was shocked to find, at the end of the book, that Werth began meeting and interviewing the participants only once the case was well along, but he seems to have captured the flavor and atmosphere of events beautifully. (At least, I haven't read any criticisms from any of the people profiled in the book ...) If you do choose to buy it, though, one piece of advice: Remove the dust-jacket and, without reading it, throw it away.

I am a personal injury lawyer. I've read a lot of books about the law. Although a true story (a very sad one), this book reads like a novel. It offers excellent insight into how high stakes litigation unfolds.

A controversial book that some people agree with and others do not. Although the book is very monotonous at points, I believe it does a good job of showing how tort lawyers can destroy the lives of many people who seek to do good, and how such lawyers will shed their ethics to secure expert witnesses who will support their side of the case, all in the name of justice. More interesting is the fact that the "negligence" argument in this case would no longer win in court given the improved understanding in medical science, making this book outdated.