That was what she’d talked Josh into: waiting until September, his first anniversary at DCL, to make any decisions. She wasn’t exactly happy that Josh was doing work for the man who had tried to shut down the Cat Café, nor did she like that Josh would likely help him shut down other perfectly good businesses in the city in the name of replacing them with ugly condos, but she understood he had bills to pay.
Still, it was one thing to take a sleazy corporate job for a paycheck. It was quite another to work at a job that could have a direct negative impact on people he cared about.
Fine, Josh responded.
Provost appeared by his door with a woman he didn’t know. “I’ve got an interesting new case,” he said.
Josh nodded and tried to look placid, even though inside he thought,Oh no, now what?“I’m glad to hear that.”
Provost smiled like he knew Josh was kidding; after all, half a sandwich and an open can of diet soda sat on Josh’s desk as clear evidence that Josh was working through lunch. An interesting case meant more work. Provost smiled. “Come with me to the conference room and I’ll explain.”
Josh grabbed a pen and a pad of paper and followed his boss down the hall.
As they sat, Provost said, “Let me introduce you to Penny Kincaid from the DA’s office.”
Josh shook her hand before he settled into his chair.
“Penny used to be an associate here. She asked my advice on a case, so I’ve decided to give the DA’s office a little help pro bono. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate right now, but we have two new paralegals starting Monday who can take on some of the busy work so that you can focus on this.”
“What’s the case?” Josh asked.
He looked over at Penny. She was a strikingly beautiful woman in her mid-thirties, with long dark hair and bright blue eyes. He hated thinking about her that way and pushed it aside to focus on what she was saying.
She said, “Well, long story short, the state is pursuing a case against a medical supply manufacturer. They make artificial joints, primarily. We think they’ve been cutting corners, though, and we now have several reports of injuries and at least two deaths that we think can be directly linked back to bad parts that caused severe infections.”
That definitely got Josh’s attention. “Are you bringing severe charges against the manufacturer?”
“Perhaps. We haven’t decided yet. I came here today to ask Mr. Provost’s advice. He was a great mentor to me before I went to the DA’s office. My boss thinks this is criminally negligent homicide, but that’s an awfully difficult thing to prove against a corporation.”
Josh murmured something in the affirmative, but he was distracted by how much this case excited him. It was terrible that people had died, but helping out with something like this was a great way to do good work; the outcome of this case had the potential to make people safer and healthier.
“We’re asking you to help with research,” said Provost. “You did such a great job on the Giardino case, and even though that didn’t go the way we wanted, perhaps you were able to find some old case law that supported the argument I wanted to make. I think you can do that here. I know of some civil cases that are relevant here, but usually the victims sue the doctors and not the equipment manufacturer.”
“There was a case in the nineties where a pacemaker manufacturer was sued,” said Penny. “The judge dismissed the case, however, because there wasn’t enough evidence to show the manufacturer was knowingly selling a faulty product, and in that case, it was only one pacemaker that stopped working. Inthiscase, we’ve got a dozen patients who were injured by bad parts, and that sure looks like a pattern. So I’m working with the NYPD to investigate the manufacturer, but Icoulduse some help finding precedents in the case law.”
“All right,” said Josh. “I’d be happy to help with that.” And he wasn’t even lying or being polite.
Penny smiled, which made some things stir in Josh, but again, he pushed it aside. A part of him was still determined to make things work out with Paige, and lusting after another woman, and one he was about to work with at that, seemed like a bad way to do that.
“Excellent,” said Penny. She then launched into an explanation of the particulars of the case and the arguments she was hoping Josh could find case law to support. One thing Josh had learned on the job here was that, even when a case seemed completely unprecedented, there was likely some precedent set somewhere that would lend some credence to whatever argument the litigator wanted to make. In the Giardino case, for example, the plaintiff had wanted to include a video of someone smashing a defective window from Bobby’s shop, and Josh had managed to find a similar case from fifteen years ago in which the judge had ruled against the plaintiff because there was no way to trace the chain of custody of what had, in that case, been furniture sold with faulty parts. In other words, the video could have shown any chair—or any window—and there was no way to demonstrate that the faulty item had come from the defendant’s store. The judge, unfortunately, had ruled against Provost in that case because the plaintiff had produced receipts showing her lawyer had purchased a window a few days before the video was made. Josh didn’t think that had been all that persuasive—they still couldn’t prove the window in the video was the one purchased from the store—but the judge had disagreed.
He took notes now about Penny’s case, scribbling down the major arguments she was looking to make. Her boss had been hopeful they could find an example of a case where a corporation had been held responsible for one or more deaths. No one in the conference room was that optimistic, but Josh promised to try.
“Great,” said Penny. “Let’s reconvene next week to discuss what you’ve found.”
“I still need your help with the Randolph cases,” said Provost, “but that’s why I’m bringing in the paralegals. What I really need are your research and writing skills. Anything else can be delegated.”
“Okay,” said Josh, excited now. He wanted to find ways the law could help and protect people, not defend the Randolphs of the world. Hearing that he could delegate some of his work was a relief. He smiled at his boss.
“That’s the spirit,” said Provost.
Penny handed a folder to Josh. “All right, let me go over what we’ve found so far on this.”
After the meeting broke, Josh headed back to his office feeling newly buoyed. He checked his phone and saw he had a text from Lauren inviting him to dinner over the weekend. I have some news, she wrote ominously.
He texted back:You can’t tell me the news over text?
She responded,No, this is in-person news.
