THE O’BRIAN CASE

Finally, there she was.

Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Grant stood beside the courthouse’s main door, no doubt wondering whether I had dropped the ball on the O’Brian case. I crossed the street almost at a run. I had waited long enough to deliver the bad news, and I intended to enjoy it.

Everyone in Boston called her Eli. Outside the District Attorney’s office, she had made a name for herself as a pro bono champion of indigent insurance plaintiffs, taking on the city’s largest and best-represented insurers for nothing. Plaintiffs’ attorneys often took these cases on contingency, collecting a fee only if the insurer paid. Eli didn’t even take the fee. She covered the incidental costs and recouped them only if she won.

For years, she had seemed to bring half her cases against our firm’s clients, as if on a personal crusade. She had lost many of the big ones. It never slowed her down.

Elizabeth Grant was the most aggressive, no-nonsense attorney I had ever met. In all the years we had gone head to head, in court and out, I had never seen her smile or say a comforting word to anyone. She wore her sobriety like a uniform: dark slacks and silk blouses, short severe hair, a black Lincoln Town Car. She was not a woman you befriended, and she was worse as an enemy. I had kept her at arm’s length and treated her professionally, most of the time. But there were days when our rivalry turned ugly and we traded insults and condescension.

“Hi, Eli. How’s Legal Services treating you these days?” I said, with slight sarcasm. I knew she had taken the O’Brian case pro bono.

“Not as well as you’re treated, since I can’t afford a ten-thousand-dollar Armani, a playboy penthouse, or a custom-made Ferrari. But you know what, law-boy? At least I can look in the mirror in the morning. Something I’m sure you have trouble with.”

“Hey, I’m only doing my job, babe. It’s not my fault I do it better than you.”

“Enough bullshit, Xavier. What’s the deal?”

“That’s just it, sweetheart. There is no deal. Your client has a history of stroke, and I have records from two different hospitals to prove it. The accident had nothing to do with her recent stroke. In my view, and I’m sure in the court’s, she doesn’t even qualify as an eggshell plaintiff. My client won’t cover her medical bills or pay for pain and suffering. Simply put, she’s on her own.”

“Asshole.” She said it as if the matter were personal. “Mrs. O’Brian is in critical condition at City Hospital. She has no health insurance and no money of her own, and you hand me this?”

“Hey, hey, calm down, babe. I don’t make the law. I just read it.” I smirked.

She pulled a card from her jacket and pressed it into my hand. “Here’s my new business card. Call me if you ever gain some compassion. And if you don’t settle this one, I’ll see you in court.”

She walked away with measured steps.

I knew I had her. She had nothing left but the “I’ll see you in court” routine. “I wouldn’t recommend it!” I shouted after her. “I’ll ask for attorney’s fees, and the way things look, you may have to pay them out of your own pocket!”

I almost laughed as I watched her pick up her pace and fade into the distance.

I whistled softly as I walked back to my car, climbed in, and breathed in the smell of leather while Johann Sebastian Bach’s Concerto in C minor filled the imported Alpine stereo.

Two weeks later, the judge granted my motion for summary judgment on Mrs. O’Brian’s claim. Our client, my firm, and our staff all knew the same thing: I, the golden boy of Boston insurance defense, could do no wrong.

Three days after my victory, Eli called.

“I hope you’re happy, Xavier.” Her voice was low and controlled, which was worse than shouting. “Mrs. O’Brian went into a coma last night. She couldn’t afford the treatment she needed. What am I supposed to tell her children, Xavier?”

The line went dead.

I sat there with the receiver in my hand, staring at the wall where my titles, degrees, and awards faced me in eerie silence.