Read Online A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr - Free Book Online Page B

entitle him to receive one third of any recovery, plus expenses he incurred in developing the case. The families had no obligation to pay him unless he settled the case or won a judgment in court.
    Mulligan made a good impression on most of the families. They liked his confidence and assurance, and the way he listened to their comments and observations. He hadn’t made any grand promises, but he had mentioned in passing some of the cases he had worked on, and he seemed like an able lawyer.
    At a second meeting some weeks later, in September, Mulligan asked those families interested in signing on with him to call at his office and arrange for an appointment. Five of the families—Anderson, Robbins, Zona, Kane, and Toomey—decided to have Mulligan represent them.That autumn, they drove into Boston to complete the paperwork and sign the standard personal injury contract forms.

9
    Charles Anderson had been offered a promotion that required him to move to Toronto. He told Anne that he wanted to accept the offer, and he wanted her and the children to come with him.
    Anne replied that moving now would be unfair to Jimmy.
    “Toronto is not the end of the earth,” said Charles. “They have good doctors there, too.”
    In the summer of 1980, after nineteen years together, Anne and Charles separated. Anne remained in Woburn with the children.
    Jimmy was now eleven years old. He was small and frail, and he attended school fitfully, but since his relapse five years ago his blood counts had remained stable. Anne believed that he would, in time, be completely cured of the disease.
    Late that summer, however, Dr. Truman noted that the boy’s platelet count and white-blood-cell count were both falling. A bone marrow biopsy revealed immature cells with irregular nuclei. Although the cells were not typical of lymphoblastic leukemia, Dr. Truman feared the leukemia was recurring. He did two more bone marrow biopsies. The results were inconclusive. In November he discovered that the total number of cells in Jimmy’s bone marrow was decreasing rapidly, a condition known as aplastic anemia. The boy did not have leukemia, but without a functioning bone marrow, he would die just as certainly as if he did.
    Truman had never encountered this development before and it puzzled him. He stopped chemotherapy immediately. He tried to stimulate Jimmy’s bone marrow into producing platelets and white blood cells by administering anabolic steroids. That had no effect. Jimmy’s condition worsened. Truman tried a more experimental form of treatment with a compound known as ATG. “That, too, was unsuccessful,” recalled Truman at his deposition. “Bleeding worsened. His normal protective white blood cells vanished. Infections worsened.”
    On December 22, 1980, Anne called the Woburn fire department and asked for an ambulance to take her son to Massachusetts General.Jimmy was bleeding steadily and profusely from his nose and his mouth, and his urine was grossly bloody. As the ambulance crew loaded the boy onto a stretcher, one of the firemen asked Anne, “Is your son a patient of John Truman’s?”
    Anne, surprised, said, “How did you know?”
    “My son had leukemia, too. Dr. Truman was his doctor.”
    Anne had not seen the man at any of the meetings. “What’s your name?” she asked.
    “John Lilley,” said the fireman.
    Anne knew the name. She remembered that day almost six years ago, during Jimmy’s first relapse, when a distraught older woman had told her in the hospital corridor that a boy named Michael Lilley had just died.
    Jimmy Anderson’s bleeding was controlled, although never completely arrested, by massive transfusions of platelets. He was twelve years old, and he knew his fate. “I’m going to die,” he told his mother angrily on the eighth day of his last hospitalization. “It’s not fair. I’ll never get out of here.”
    The pain, which had always been present in recent months, became unremitting. He shook with chills,