“You mean, how bad?”

The nurse rolled up her left sleeve. Her lower arm was one large scar. “That is as good as my arm will ever be. I have some limitations because of it. I was burned over ten years ago. I dumped a pan of gravy on my arm. I had second degree burns over most of the area and third over a small amount. They don’t have any areas of second degree. All of theirs are third and some the muscles are damaged.”

“Oh. God. You mean worse than that?”

“If we could get them back to where I am that would be a miracle. They are actors. I have serious concerns about them ever working again in that field. They will be here for months, have maybe a couple of years of treatment and they may lose their arm above the elbow.”

“Oh. Dear God.”

Amanda thanked her and left.

Later in the day Amanda got a call from Judd’s lawyer. He advised that he had discussed the matter with his client and desired Amanda represent him unless she saw that as a conflict of interest. Amanda had him FAX the agreement to her. She also asked if he had financials on Judd. She wanted past earnings, potential roles, everything she would need to establish loss. Within an hour the FAX machine was busy. She started pulling information on each of the new client and put it with the information from Attorney Garrow.

Friday

Buy nine AM Amanda had all of the information she needed to start the process. She called the studio and asked who was representing them. She explained that she was representing the two people who were injured. The woman took her name and phone number and told her that she would have a lawyer call back.

Attorney Martz, the studio lawyer saw the message when he got in a few minutes later. He looked at the name, Amanda Blair. He had never heard of her. He asked one of the other lawyers if he knew anything about her.

“Sure. She is small time. Has been here less than two years. We had someone check her about a month ago. The biggest case she has won is $200,000. She is out of her league here. Garrow would have been better to handle this himself.”

Stan Martz conferenced Albert Gannon, the liability carrier lawyer and they decided to make the initial offer of forty million. If they settled the studio would pay the actual settlement but would be reimbursed by the liability carrier who would then try to recover money from the other parties. All of the actions would be done in the background, out of the public eye.

When Dave Seitz, the liability carrier attorney hung up the phone he laughed. They may get out of this one with a profit. If Martz could settle for the forty million each they could probably get more than the eighty million from the carriers of the other parties, at worst they may be stuck with a few million.

Jan Chapter 01: School Days Mar 6, 2008

Jan Chapter 05: The Burn Unit Mar 6, 2008

Jan Chapter 07: The Studio Tries an End Run Mar 6, 2008