It's Nothing Personal (29 page)

Tom looked at Jenna with reproach and
whispered, “Please, Jenna, calm down.”

Mia, unaccustomed to Jenna’s lack of
patience, moved closer to her father.
 
For the remainder of the process, no one spoke.
 

The Reiners barely got through security in
time and nearly missed their flight.
 
Jenna trudged through the narrow aisle of the crowded aircraft, clumsily
bumping annoyed passengers in her path.
 
To Tom’s relief, once seated, she shut her eyes.
 
An hour into the flight, Jenna had just
drifted off to sleep when Mia woke her to ask for a snack.
 
Jenna snapped, “Goddamit, Mia!
 
Go to sleep.
 
You just had dinner.
 
You don’t need any snacks!”
 

Tears of shame and shock filled Mia’s
eyes.
 
People in nearby rows
witnessed the exchange in dismay.
 
Tom frantically reached into their carry-on bag and found some
crackers.
 
Jenna tried
unsuccessfully to go back to sleep.
 

The next morning, on the drive home from the
airport, Jenna was mortified at her behavior.
 
She apologized no fewer than twenty
times to both Mia and Tom.
 
Jenna
had never barked at Mia like that before, for any reason.
 
The rest of her antics she could live down,
but she had a hard time recognizing herself as
that
woman on the plane, yelling at her child over an innocent
request for a snack.
 

The Reiners stumbled into their house in a
complete fog.
 
The red-eye back from
Hawaii was always a dreadful experience, but this trip was exceptionally
painful.
 
To add to Jenna’s misery,
her head pounded and her eyes burned.
 

Mia immediately fell sound asleep on the
couch, and Tom carried in their luggage.
 
Jenna trudged into the office and checked her email.
 
She had intentionally not allowed herself
to look at it during their entire vacation, but the vacation was officially over.

CHAPTER 41

Ironically, at the same moment Jenna’s plane
was touching down, Jim Taylor was sending her an email about the lawsuit.
 
The time had come for him to inform
Jenna that Allison Anders had filed a motion to amend the initial complaint,
which included the addition of two more charges.
 
The “Second Amended Complaint for
Damages, Certificate of Review, and Jury Demand” was attached, for Jenna’s
reading pleasure.
 
More recently, Allison
had also filed a motion to compel additional testimony from Jenna.
 
According to Jim, Allison stipulated
that Jenna had been excessively evasive in her answers during her first
deposition.
 
She argued that a
second deposition was not only warranted, but necessary.

Jenna’s gut cramped.
 
Reading the document, she was
appalled.
 
Speculations were stated
as if they were facts.
 
Allison
accused Jenna of having prior knowledge of the complaints and suspicions about
Hillary Martin that were shared amongst the medical and hospital staff.
 
The complaint went on to state that
Jenna was aware of prior and similar diversion activities, both at St.
Augustine and at other facilities.
 
In spite of this alleged knowledge, the complaint asserted that Jenna
routinely left her drugs unattended, unlocked, unmonitored, and unsecured for
extended periods of time.

Her mouth agape, Jenna could not believe the
lies.
 
She had never known anything
about Hillary Martin until the news story broke, four months after Hillary
stole Jenna’s drugs.
 
Moreover, she
never had any specific knowledge about staff members stealing drugs at St.
Augustine.
 
In fact, Jenna clearly
told Allison as much in her deposition.

The stakes had increased substantially.
 
Whereas there had previously only been
two claims against Jenna, now there were four.

There was a claim added for “Medical
Monitoring.”
 
Allison maintained that
Jenna should establish a fund that would be made available to Ms. Hollings for
future treatment of her hepatitis C infection.
 

Jenna wondered how they could demand such a
thing.
 
St. Augustine already
promised free and unlimited lifetime medical care for all infected
patients.
 

Allison also added a claim for “Reckless and
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress.”
 
The claim stated that Jenna’s conduct
was extreme, outrageous, irresponsible, and intentional.

Jenna grabbed the phone and dialed Jim’s
cell phone.
 
He answered on the
first ring.

“So this is my welcome back?” asked Jenna with
an odd mixture of sarcasm and fear.

Jim fully expected the call.
 
He decided to forego the pleasantries
about her trip and got right to the issue at hand.
 
“I take it you read the email.”

“Yeah, I read it alright.
 
So, Allison Anders loses on round one at
the deposition, and that means she gets another chance to have a go at me?
 
If I had lost, like she wanted, I’m
pretty sure I wouldn’t be granted the luxury of requesting do-overs!”

Jim tried to keep calm, hoping to bring
Jenna’s emotions down to his level.
 
“For one thing, understand that this is just a motion to compel you to
be redeposed.
 
We have written a
very persuasive counterargument.
 
The judge has yet to rule on it.
 
I sat through your entire deposition and listened intently.
 
You were not being evasive, by anyone’s
standards.
 
I would be very shocked
if the judge ruled in their favor.”

“Then what about this amended
complaint?
 
Now they double the
number of claims against me?
 
And
how can they state as if it were fact that I knew about Hillary Martin’s
diversion practices?
 
I didn’t know anything!
 
St. Augustine made sure of that.
 
Then what about the second claim?
 
Is that the same as punitive
damages?”
 

Between sleep deprivation, her guilt over
her actions the night before, and Jim’s email, Jenna was rapidly escalating
into a fit.
 
In anger, she slammed
the glass French doors to the office shut, causing the panes to rattle.

Tom walked past the office door with the
last 50-pound suitcase in his grasp.
 
Behind the closed doors, he heard his wife shrieking as she spoke on the
phone.
 
Tom figured it was either
the airline calling about Jenna’s misconduct last night or her attorneys.
 
For Jenna’s sake, he secretly hoped the
airline had caught up with her.
 
He
motioned for Jenna to turn the phone on speaker as he silently entered the
office.

Jim’s voice filled the room.
 
“I know you are upset.
 
I’m so sorry you have to come home to
this.
 
As far as making claims about
what you did or didn’t know, right now they can basically say anything they
want.
 
When it comes time for trial,
that’s our chance to prove those claims are untrue.”

“What about the reckless and intentional
claim?
 
Does that mean what I think
it does?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it does.
 
It doesn’t mean that the judge will
accept it, but it definitely lays the groundwork for a punitive damages claim
against you.
 
As we discussed, if a
jury is allowed to rule on that and finds against you, those damages are not
covered by your malpractice policy.”

Jenna looked at Tom and shook her head
sadly.

Jim continued, “Jenna, you have to
understand that a lot of this is just posturing.
 
Most cases settle out of court.
 
Every other hepatitis case that has been
filed so far has settled.
 
Allison
Anders and Lyle Silverstein do
not
want to go to court.
 
Every hour,
every minute they spend preparing for trial is money that they won’t see in the
end.
 
This is the phase where things
can get really ugly.
 
They will use
words, accusations, and threats to intimidate you and wear you down.
 
They hope that you’ll do what most
doctors do.”

“Which is?” asked Jenna.

Gravely, Jim responded.
 
“Reach a breaking point.
 
The point where the stress on you, your
family, and your existence is so excessive and relentless that you just want it
to go away.
 
They want to get you to
the point where you are chronically worried, you can’t function, and you can’t
focus.
 
Whether you allow them to
get you there or not is up to you, but we are here for you whenever you need
us.”

“What about punitive damages?
 
The thing is, Jim, we don’t have much.
 
We own a house that’s under water.
 
We have very little in savings.
 
Our retirement accounts have been
decimated over the past several years by the stock market.
 
What can they take if we have nothing?”

“I suppose they can go after what little you
have and then garnish your wages.”

Jenna’s words were as cold as ice.
 
“I’d quit my profession and live as a
vagabond before I’d work a single second of the day to give money to that slime
ball attorney and her lowlife client!”
 

Jenna had clearly made the leap from simply
hating Allison Anders to hating Michelle Hollings, too.

CHAPTER 42

October
2011

Jenna came straight from the hospital to
meet her attorneys.
 
She was still
wearing her blue scrubs and brown, soiled OR clogs.
 
Over the past several months, since her
deposition, they had exchanged countless emails and phone calls.
 
The time had come for them to once again
meet face-to-face.

Nancy ran out to grab some documents.
 
Alone with Jenna, Jim looked at her compassionately
and asked, “How have you been doing?”

Jenna paused for a second. “Do you really
want the truth?”
 
Her annoyance and
frustration were evident.

Jim sat back, stunned at Jenna’s tone.
 
“Of course,” he said.
 
Suspecting an imminent meltdown from
Jenna, Jim stood and closed the door.

Jenna shuddered, “Every day, I think about
this.
 
Even when I try not to,
there’s no escaping it.
 
I’m
bombarded by emails or phone calls from you guys requesting this or updating me
on that.
 
I look at every patient
and wonder which one is going to sue me next.
 
I second-guess every decision I make at
work.
 
I used to be relaxed,
easygoing, even funny.
 
Now, I’m
filled with hostility.
 
I hate
Allison Anders.
 
I hate Michelle
Hollings.
 
I hate all of the legal
mumbo jumbo.
 
I hate my job.
 
I hate every other doctor around me who
loves what they do.
 
I’m completely
exhausted.
 
So, you asked for
honesty . . . there it is.”

Jim slid his chair closer to the table and
removed his reading glasses.
 
He was
a bit taken aback by Jenna’s frankness, but not completely.
 
Jenna had proven to Jim and Nancy
numerous times that she saw no need for false pretenses.
 
He thought back to the afternoon of her
deposition.
 
Jenna had been so
energized, so ready for battle.
 
Jim
and Nancy both knew that Allison would eventually wear her down, but he was
hoping, somehow, he could prevent that from happening.
 

Jim tried his best to console Jenna.
 
“What you’re feeling is completely
normal.
 
This is a relentless
process.
 
There’s always something
that comes up.
 
You think it can’t
get any worse, and then it does.
 
I
understand where you’re coming from.
 
If things are becoming unbearable for you, we can always initiate
settlement negotiations.
 
Nothing is
worth living in hell.”

Although Jim had not intended for his words
to come out threatening or condescending, that was how Jenna interpreted them.
 
Jenna
thought back to the deposition and the brutality of spending seven hours being
interrogated.
 
She recalled the
indignity of the cameraman’s insinuation that she was standing behind him, urinating
on the floor.
 
The lies Allison had
written about her in the most recent complaint created another fresh, seeping
wound.
 

Jenna was determined to be strong.
 
There was no way she would give up.