A day after being handed a humbling defeat in a Massachusetts courtroom, Crewcut Charlie Weis issued a statement about the setback, saying he "was still surprised by the verdict."He said it was time to move on, that he did not plan to appeal and "will make no further comments." Weis also said that he thought the fact he is Notre Dame's coach "was certainly used against me in the trial."
One has to suspect that the carefully written statement was crafted by one of Weis' attorneys. Here is a link to the full statement.
Lindsey Willhite, for one, is not buying any of Weis' post-trial rhetoric. The Arlington Heights Daily Herald writer has a blistering response to Weis' statement, pointing out Weis' many warts that were revealed during the two trials, the first of which ended in mistrial.
Willhite points out that Weis, then an assistant with the New England
Patriots, first shared his decision to have gastric bypass surgery in 2002 with quarterback Tom Brady. Only in the final stages before surgery did he divulge his plans to his wife, Maura.Weis' statement, which tries to put family before football — certainly not believable if you look at his trustworthiness in Brady over his wife — has Willhite wondering, "Who is the real Weis?" Willhite suggests that Weis' statement is merely an attempt to get in the last word, even in defeat.
As for Weis' surprise at losing, Willhite asks, "Why? Because football coaches always think things should go their way? Here’s another testimonial nugget that reminds everyone why football czars rank among the most controlling people on the planet."
Now let's turn to Houston attorney Tom Kirkendall, who along with University of Iowa doctor Gary Gaffney, have provided us with analysis during both trials. Gaffney runs the site Steroid Nation and Kirkendall operates Houston's Clear Thinkers.We thank each of these gentlemen for their valued contributions. Here is the last word from Tom:
"The rematch of Charlie Weis' lawsuit against the doctors who performed his gastric bypass surgery turned out to be as much of a mismatch as Weis' Notre Dame team endured in losing to LSU, 41-14, in the Sugar Bowl in early January. After spending only about two hours in deliberations (it usually takes that long for jurors just to elect a foreperson and take lunch orders), the jury returned a verdict denying all of Weis' damage claims against the doctors. Thus, it appears that the stronger legal position trumped the politics of the case in this particular trial.
"As noted in my post before the first trial and my post after the mistrial, Weis faced an uphill battle in his legal case against the doctors. The surgery that Weis requested is notoriously risky and subject to complications, so the fact that Weis endured serious post-operation complications obviously was not surprising to the jury. Moreover, Weis' expert witness during the trial — always a key witness for the plaintiff in a medical malpractice trial — was not from the Boston area and was not able to portray the defendant-doctors' actions in performing the surgery or in treating Weis afterward as being beneath the customary standard of care for doctors handling this type of procedure.
"As Dr. Gaffney noted in his blog post on the plaintiff's expert, the expert's testimony appeared to raise merely a reasonable disagreement with the defendant-doctors over the proper course of post-op treatment given the risks that Weis was facing. Reasonable disagreements do not usually prompt a jury to find that the treatment decisions of doctors — particularly ones with reputations as good as those of the doctors in the Weis case — were beneath the customary standard of care.
"Beyond that, the politics of the case during the retrial turned out not to be as favorable for Weis as in the first trial. Media coverage for the re-trial appeared to be much more muted than coverage of the first trial, perhaps because Weis' star celebrity witness from the first trial — Patriots Super Bowl QB Tom Brady — did not testify in person during the retrial. Retrials tend to be more streamlined than the first trial, so that faster pace may have hurt Weis' case by limiting the amount of time that the jury considered evidence of Weis' pain and suffering, which appeared to be one of the stronger elements of Weis' case.
"And although Weis seemed from media reports to do fine as a witness during the trial, it's a tall task to evoke empathy from jurors for someone who is currently doing exactly what he set out to do in electing to have the surgery in the first place.
"But in the end, this case reflects that the civil justice and professional liability insurance systems usually work reasonably well in this type of case. A man who unquestionably endured severe suffering was able to hold two prestigious professionals accountable for their actions in a court of law. Although the amount of unproductive time that all parties must spend in this type of litigation is regrettable, the financial risk that Weis' attorneys took in taking the case on a contingency fee basis, and the financial risk that the insurers took in insuring the doctors, removed any meaningful financial risk that the individuals had to endure in the outcome of the trial.
"Thus, the two interests with the most riding financially on the outcome of trial — Weis' attorneys and the doctors' insurers — were competing investment bankers betting on the result of the trial. In this particular case, the insurers made the better bet."
Previous coverage:
Preview: A legal perspective
Day 1: Battle lines drawn
Day 2: Weis' hired hand returns
Day 3: Weis takes the stand
Day 4: Team Weis scores a victory
Day 5: Weis' story is questioned
Day 6: Hodin defends decisions
Day 7: Weis loses battle of the bulge
The mistrial: A look back at our coverage of the first trial.
9 comments:
Weis' released statement is ridiculous. Come on, he now says the decision to retry the case was a "family decision" when his surgery wasn't??? If you recall Weis testified that the surgery was his decision and that his wife was merely being informed of it a few days beforehand with Tom Brady being informed, with maybe a few words of feedback, beforehand. Then to try and evoke sympathy by saying fat people are discriminated against is odd. While I would agree that obesity is a medical problem, it isn't like the fat person didn't play a big role in the matter, unlike being hit by a truck or born an albino. And to bring up his family's self-serving charity, Hannah and Friends (build a facility for my daughter and make it look like a charity for others so I don't have to pay for it all), as the real loser since the money would have been "donated" to that charity for PR purposes is nonsense and shameful. Weis family moto isn't "Awareness and Compassion", it is more like "Self-Serving and Whining". Weis doesn't know what real charity is. In the end, Weis got what he deserved at the trial, no money and knocked down a few pegs...
Fantastic summation.
SOUTH BEND — Head football coach Charlie Weis released the following statement Wednesday in regards to the decision in his malpractice suit:
“I am very disappointed with the results of yesterday’s verdict, but there will be no appeal as it is time to move on. Our family decided to retry this case based on principle, not money. After the mistrial, it would have been easy to simply let the malpractice lawsuit fade away. We decided that for all people who are frowned upon by prejudice or bias, we had to take this case to closure. Had the outcome been favorable, we made plans to donate the entire award to “Hannah and Friends,” our charity for people with special needs. We see prejudice every day through our daughter Hannah.
“I hope the trial raises awareness for those with major physical problems. In my case, obesity nearly led to death. Corrective major surgery always has risks, but a patient should never be viewed as the bad guy when problems occur that could be prevented. Never let doctors blame you for having elective surgery as they get paid handsomely and have the right to refuse. It is their job to fix problems!
“As this trial reached week two, the jurors grew tired and bored. I realized victory was a long shot, but was still surprised with the verdict. I am proud to be the Head Football Coach at Notre Dame and this was certainly used against me in the trial. The trial cost our family some vacation time. The verdict cost people with special needs some money. In the end, awareness of those with physical problems such as obesity is the only important thing. Our family lives by the motto, “Awareness and Compassion” when dealing with people with special needs. That is exactly the reason we brought this case to the courtroom. It didn’t help us, but maybe it will help the next guy. Our family has closure and will make no further comments.”
"The verdict cost people with special needs some money." Wow, what a twisted logic Weis has. Just because you were going to pull a PR stunt with any winnings to look like the good guy, which just so happens would directly benefit his daughter anyway, doesn't mean it cost people with special needs any money. If those people really need money, then Weis can pony up the money on his own!!! No need to be dependent on trial winnings for that. With this type of reasoning and his bowl record, Weis days are numbered at ND I suspect. Just look to how ND treated Holtz, Davey, O'Leary, Willingham, and er almost Urban Meyer (who was smart enough to pass). ND football, sadly, is a "has been" second tier football program with no real hope of getting seriously back into the top tier.
Article published Jul 26, 2007
For Weis, struggle more important than the result
ERIC HANSEN
Tribune Staff Writer
SOUTH BEND -- It was never about the money. It wasn't even about revenge.
That's why an out-of-court settlement in Notre Dame head football coach Charlie Weis' failed malpractice suit against two Massachusetts General Hospital surgeons never would have made sense. And going back to Boston at great expense after a February mistrial did.
The struggle was always more important than the outcome.
"I hope the trial raises awareness for those with major physical problems," Weis said in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon. "In my case, obesity nearly led to death.
"Corrective major surgery always has risks, but a patient should never be viewed as the bad guy when problems occur that could be prevented. Never let doctors blame you for having elective surgery as they get paid handsomely and have the right to refuse. It is their job to fix problems!"And Weis has come to believe that it's his job as a public figure to live a public life -- and to stand for something.
In this instance, that meant almost inviting sometimes insensitive, often ignorant, remarks about his health, his weight and his commitment to such things. The man does own a mirror after all, and a conscience, and a moral compass.
That doesn't necessarily make him right. In fact, a Boston jury found otherwise after deliberating less than half a day Tuesday over whether Charles M. Ferguson and Richard A. Hodin were negligent in the hours that followed Weis' gastric bypass surgery in 2002.
Weis, then the New England Patriots' offensive coordinator, bled internally for 30 hours and nearly died before a second surgery was performed to correct the complication. In his book "No Excuses", he called himself a dumb a -- for subjecting himself to the drastic weight-loss strategy.
He lapsed into a coma for two weeks following the second surgery, then was so shaken by the events when he finally did come to that he was afraid to go to sleep for days on end, for fear of never waking up. Weis testified in the trial that has still has numbness and pain in his feet as a result of the surgery.His most vivid memories as he plodded toward normalcy five years ago were the thoughts of fighting to live for his family. Now, as Weis sees is, he is fighting for others.
"I am very disappointed with the results of yesterday?245-185?s verdict, but there will be no appeal as it is time to move on," he said. "Our family decided to retry this case based on principle, not money. After the mistrial, it would have been easy to simply let the malpractice lawsuit fade away.
"We decided that for all people who are frowned upon by prejudice or bias, we had to take this case to closure. Had the outcome been favorable, we made plans to donate the entire award to Hannah and Friends, our charity for people with special needs. We see prejudice every day through our daughter, Hannah."
He also sees empowerment through Hannah as well. Empowerment to raise questions, to think and act and live out of the box. And yes, the courage to ruffle some feathers and maybe even become a target along the way sometimes.
You have to understand, that 12 and a half years ago Weis was sitting in a doctor's office, trying to metabolize the diagnosis of Infantile Polycystic Kidney Disease attached to his unborn second child. There is no known cure for the genetic disease and the best-case scenario presented to the Weises was that the child would live two years. The more likely outcome, the doctor told Weis, was that the baby would die during childbirth or in the few days that followed."He gave me the phone number of a place in Kansas to, um, take care of things," Weis said. "He said it would be the humane thing to do. Why put (wife) Maura through that when the baby was going to die anyway? Why not have an abortion? Well, we never even considered it. I started doing some research to find out all I could. I wasn't going to accept this."
Eventually, Weis found a doctor with the San Francisco 49ers who provided the Weis family with a second opinion. The little girl, who would be born 2 1/2 months later as Hannah, did not have the fatal kidney disease after all.
So when friends advised Weis that the odds of winning a malpractice suit would be formidable at best, overwhelming at worst, it never became part of the equation.
"As this trial reached week two, the jurors grew tired and bored," Weis said. "I realized victory was a long shot, but was still surprised with the verdict. I am proud to be the head football coach at Notre Dame, and this was certainly used against me in the trial.
"The trial cost our family some vacation time. The verdict cost people with special needs some money. In the end, awareness of those with physical problems such as obesity is the only important thing."Our family lives by the motto, 'Awareness and Compassion" when dealing with people with special needs. That is exactly the reason we brought this case to the courtroom. It didn't help us, but maybe it will help the next guy. Our family has closure and will make no further comments."
Closure yes, but not closed hearts or minds. Weis' recovery transformed him into a different person -- not always a popular person, mind you, but someone with conviction and someone who wasn't afraid of that fallout that sometimes comes with that.
"The man does own a mirror after all."
I guess it must be a very large mirror...
Was it really necessary to insult the jurors by saying they grew tired and bored during the second week? If that's true, it would have worked to his advantage since the plaintiff presents second in a civil trial...
The trial barely even went into a second week....it wasn't that long of a trial. First week was practically all plaintiff's case, then on Monday the defense said why they weren't liable, Tuesday, wrapped it up and gave it to the jury and two hours latter, not liable. "grew tied and bored" oh pleeeeeease, he needs to accept the fact that he lost on the MERITS of the case! Maybe he's a got a bit of blubber on the brain too...
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