To hell with the stupid divan. I don’t have time to think about it now. I have a court date to prepare for.
~
“Dr. Connor Stadtfeld…” I button my blazer as I rise from my seat and head to the podium where my client is seated. “Can you let everyone here know how long you have been practicing as a board-certified doctor?”
“Certainly,” he answers in his deep voice as he keeps his shoulders straight. “I have been a board-certified specialist in obstetrics and gynecology for eight years and a board-certified specialist in maternal and fetal medicine for four years.”
Just as his file states.
“That’s not very long, is it?” I remark. “There’s only been one president since you became a doctor.”
I’m attacking my client, I know, but that’s part of my strategy. Better the attacks come from me than from the other side of the room.
“Maybe,” Connor answers. “But I do not believe a doctor’s expertise should be judged based on the number of years he’s served. A president can change the country a great deal in eight years. I have improved, saved and defended many lives in that same amount of time.”
He doesn’t seem daunted in the least. In fact, he’s brimming with confidence as always. Hot. If he wasn’t my client, I probably would have considered sleeping with him. Maybe if I did, I wouldn’t have asked Leo to have sex with me.
Leo again. Damn it. Focus, Jodie.
“So, you’re saying you’re an excellent doctor?” I ask my client.
“Objection,” the male lawyer behind me, my opponent in this battle, speaks up. “Asked and answered. The other witnesses have already established the defendant’s track record, which still doesn’t mean – ”
“I heard what the other witnesses think of Dr. Stadtfeld,” I interrupt him. “I want to know what he thinks of himself, which will help me get to the point I’m trying to make.”
I turn to the judge, Wilhelmina Green, a woman in her fifties who looks like a thinner version of my mother.
“I’ll allow it,” she says. “But get to your point more quickly, Ms. Nicholson.”
I turn back to my client. “Please answer the question, Dr. Stadtfeld.”
Connor nods. “Yes, I believe I am an excellent doctor, one of the best in the state.”
“So you don’t make mistakes?” I ask my follow-up question.
“Of course I do. Doctors are humans, after all. Not gods or machines.”
“Dr. Stadtfeld, kindly stick to answering the question,” the judge warns.
“Yes, I make mistakes,” he rephrases his answer.
Next question. “But you’re saying you didn’t make a mistake when you opened up Kim Sullivan, your 16-year-old patient, who first came to you a little over a month ago?”
He shakes his head. “No. It wasn’t a mistake. It was a decision. If I hadn’t rushed to perform the emergency C-section, both Kim and the baby would have died.”
“So you decided to perform a C-section even though you knew it was too soon for the baby to come out, that the baby might not survive?”
“It was an emergency. If I hadn’t done it, the baby wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
I nod. “So you weren’t trying to save Kim rather than the baby?”
“I was trying to save them both.”
“But Kim’s parents explicitly told you that they were against a C-section, right?”
“I was aware of their thoughts regarding the matter, yes,” Connor tells me. “But I also knew that more than anything, they’d want their daughter to be alive.”
His gaze moves past me towards the plaintiffs, Kim’s parents. I glance at them, too. Mr. Sullivan has his head bowed as if he’s trying to hide. Mrs. Sullivan, on the other hand, looks like she’s fuming trying to keep her mouth shut. I wonder how long she’ll be able to.
I keep my gaze on her as I move on. “You mean you assumed, Dr. Stadtfeld, instead of calling them and asking for their permission first?”
“It was an emergency,” he says. “I had no time to call anyone.”
I turn back to him. “And what happened with the C-section?”
“I got the baby out. I handed her over to the neonatal specialist, Dr. Crew, then I focused on doing my job – saving Kim.”
“Was her life in danger?”
“Yes. She had lost a lot of blood because of her placenta previa.”
“Not because of the C-section?” I ask.
“No,” Connor answers. “The surgery was to stop the bleeding.”
“Which was made worse by the fact that she was only sixteen, correct?”
“Objection,” the other lawyer says right on cue. “What is Ms. Nicholson trying to prove with this line of questioning?”
Just that if there’s anyone to blame here for the death of Kim’s baby, it’s her parents, especially her mother who didn’t pay enough attention to her own baby, I reply silently.
“I’ll take back the question,” I say.
I’ve already made my point anyway.
“I have just two more. Dr. Stadtfeld, when you spoke to Kim’s parents after you finally had Kim in a stable condition, did they thank you for saving their daughter’s life?”